Month: April 2011

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Chimes and Bells

Antar Blue, The Chimes of Freedom.  A very competent cover of the Byrd's version of the great Bob Dylan anthem.  The Byrds' version with lyrics.
The Byrds, The Bells of Rhymney
Laura Nyro, Wedding Bell Blues 
Donnie Brooks, Mission Bell  Fleetwood Mac version
Del Vikings, Whispering Bells 
The Edsels, Rama Lama Ding Dong 
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

I'm beginning to stretch now . . .

Derek and the Dominoes, Bell Bottom Blues 
Alma Cogan, Bell Bottom Blues

Really stretching now . . .

Tee Set, Ma Belle Amie

Why I am a Quasi-Atheist*

A guest post by Peter Lupu with some comments in blue by Bill Vallicella.

[This essay is dedicated to the memory of Ann Freitag, my significant other, who passed away on April 17, 2010, 11:30am. She gave me two priceless gifts: Herself and a deep understanding that the love of life is not a mere gesture, but a way of loving every living being.]

The title of this essay expresses what it is like for me to experience an ever ascending spiral of theistic aspirations inhibited by atheist inclinations, and vice versa. My predicament is both intellectual as well as existential. It is a blending of the two that fuels a restless existence, one which propels me to journey on this ascending spiral of unfamiliar territory towards an unknown destination.

I. Why I am not an Atheist

Let me begin with atheism. Atheism is first and foremost a rejection of theism. However, the rejection of theism itself springs from several often misunderstood sources. A deep and personal disappointment with a particular religion frequently converts into a fervent rejection of theism and all that it means. A second source may begin with a genuine delight in the achievements of science which now and then, and quite unnoticeably, spills over into a materialistic metaphysics. The latter, in turn, bluntly opposes theism’s commitment to a transcendent reality. Thus, what starts as a delight in the potential of inquiry to unlock the mysteries of the physical universe migrates into an impatient and often mocking rejection of anything non-physical. Theism is a casualty of such a sentiment.

Continue reading “Why I am a Quasi-Atheist*”

How Does a Direct Reference Theorist Deny the Existence of God?

First of all, how does an atheist deny the existence of God? Well, he might just assertively utter

1. God does not exist.

But suppose our atheist is also a direct reference theorist, one who holds that the reference of a name is not routed through sense or mediated by a Russellian definite description that gives the sense of the name. The direct reference theorist denies the   following tenet of (some) descriptivists:

The referent of a name N is whatever entity, if any, that satisfies or fits the descriptive content associated with N in the mind of the speaker of N.

For example, on the descriptivist approach there is associated with the name 'God' a certain concept in the mind of the person who uses the name, a concept which includes various subconcepts (immaterial, unchanging, omnibenevolent, etc.). The name has a referent only if this concept is instantiated. Further, nothing having a property inconsistent with this concept can be the referent of the name. Now if our atheist were a descriptivist, his denial of the existence of God could be expressed by an assertive utterance of

2. The concept of an immaterial, omniqualified, etc. being is not instantiated.

Clearly, if one's denial of the existence of God is to be true, the existence of God cannot be a presupposition of one's denial, as (1) seems to suggest; so (2) seems to be a well-nigh mandatory rewrite of (1) that avoids this well-known difficulty pertaining to negative existentials.  Whether or not God exists, the concept God exists, and is available to be the subject of judgments.  We cannot say of God that he does not exist without presupposing what we aim to deny; but we can say of the concept God that it is not instantiated. 

But our atheist is a direct reference theorist, and so cannot avail himself of (2). He cannot say that the nonexistence of God is the noninstantiation of a certain concept.  This is because the direct reference theory implies that the referent of a name can exist whether or not it instantiates any of the concepts associated with the use of the name.  The theory implies that 'Socrates' names Socrates even if it should turn out to be false that Socrates was the teacher of Plato, the wife of  the shrewish Xanthhippe, snubnosed, a stone-cutter by trade, etc.,  etc. 

On the direct reference theory, for 'God' to have a referent it suffices that (i) there be an initial baptism of some being as 'God,' (ii) there be an historical chain whereby this name gets passed down to the present user; (iii) each user in the chain have the intention of using the name with the same reference as the one from whom he received it. Thus it is not necessary that the referent of 'God' fit any concept of God that the end-user might have.

Now the direct reference theory has an advantage I have already noted.  It allows a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim to be referring to the same being when they utter sentences containing 'God' despite the fact that  their conceptions of God are quite different.

How then does the direct reference theorist deny the existence of God?  Since his denial cannot be about a concept of God, it must be about the transmission of word 'God'  anits equivalents in other languages.  He must deny that the name 'God' was ever introduced in an initial baptism; or he must deny that the historical chain is unbroken; or he must deny  that all the various users had the intention of using the name with the reference of the one from whom they received it.

But how can the nonexistence/existence of God hinge on such linguistic and historical facts? The nonexistence of God, if a fact, is an objective fact: it has nothing to do with the nonexistence of some initial baptism   ceremony, or some break in a link of name transmission, or some failure of intention on the part of the name-users.

More fundamentally, is it not just absurd to hold, as direct reference theorists seems to hold, that it is not necessary that the referent of  'God' fit ANY concept of God that the end-user might have? For that seems to imply that anything could be God. Could God be Abraham's fear during a lightning storm on a high mountain? Obviously not. Why not? Because 'God' used intelligently encapsulates a certain descriptive  content or sense that constrains what can count as God.

What am I failing to understand?

Gale on Baptizing God

Richard M. Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge UP, 1991), p. 11 :

     First, because God is a supernatural being, he seem to defy being
     indexically pinned down or baptized. There are no lapels to be
     grabbed hold of by a use of 'this.' Some would contend that we can
     ostensively pin down the name 'God' by saying 'this' when having or
     after just having a mystical or religious experience, in which
     'this' denotes the intentional accusative or content of the
     experience. This would seem to require that these experiences are
     cognitive and that their objective accusative is a common object of
     the experiences of different persons as well as of successive
     experiences of a single person.

Suppose Abraham or someone has an experience the intentional object of which he dubs 'God.' Suppose the experience is not 'cognitive,' i.e., not veridical: nothing in reality corresponds to the intentional object, the accusative, of the experience. Then there will not have been a successful reference to God. Successful reference is existence-entailing: If I succeed in referring to X, then X exists. Pace Meinong, one cannot refer to what does not exist. Reference is in every case to the existent. It therefore seems that Gale is right when he says that a successful baptizing of God requires the veridicality of mystical experience.

Andrew V. Jeffrey (Faith and Philosophy, January 1996, p. 94) responds to Gale as follows:

     . . . the religious language-game could be played as if theistic
     experiences were both veridical and cognitive even if they were
     not; i.e., people could play the referential game even with a
     radically misidentified referent.

It seems to me that this response misses the point. Suppose the referent has been radically misidentified: Abraham dubs his Freudian superego, or an overwhelming sense of anxiety, or what have you, as  'God.' Then no successful reference will have been achieved. Is a long disquisition necessary to explain that God cannot be a feeling of anxiety?

And if you say that all baptisms are successful in that, after all, something gets baptized, then I say that this shows the utter hopelessness of the causal theory of reference. For the question to be   answered is this: How in the utterance of a name does the speaker succeed in referring to an object? Under what conditions is successful reference achieved? A theory that implies that one always succeeds, that there are no conditions in which one fails to succeed, is worthless.

Ataraxia and the Impossibility of Living Without Beliefs

John Lennon bade us "imagine no religion."  But why single out religious beliefs as causes of conflict and bloodshed when nonreligious beliefs are equally to blame?  Maybe the problem is belief as such. Can we imagine no beliefs?   Perhaps we need to examine the possibility of living belieflessly.  In exploration and exfoliation of this possibility we turn  to the luminaries of late antiquity.

A concept central to the Greek Skeptics, Stoics, and Epicureans, ataraxia (from Gr. a (not) and taraktos (disturbed)) refers to unperturbedness, freedom from emotional and intellectual disturbance,   tranquillity of soul. Thus Sextus Empiricus (circa 200 Anno Domini) tells us in his Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book One, Chapter Six, that  "Scepticism has its arche, its inception and cause, in the hope of attaining ataraxia, mental tranquillity." (Hallie, p. 35) The goal is not truth, but eudaimonia (happiness) by way of ataraxia (tranquillity of mind). The central means to ataraxia and happiness is the suspension (epoche) of beliefs, not all beliefs, but those that transcend the mundane and give rise to   contention and strife. To use some contemporary examples, beliefs about abortion, gun control, capital punishment, wealth redistribution, illegal immigration, foreign policy, the nature and existence of God etc. lead to strife and in extreme cases bloodshed. Given the difficulty and seeming irresolvability of the issues, the skeptic enjoins suspension of belief for the sake of ataraxia.

Now freedom from disturbance is clearly good, but is it the highest good? Is the highest life the beliefless life, the life that strives after the highest attainable degree of suspension of belief in respect of contentious matters?

One question is whether it is even possible to live without contention-inspiring beliefs. If it is not possible, then the beliefless life cannot be an ideal for us. 'Ought' implies 'can.' If we ought to do something, then it must be possible for us to so it. The same holds for ideals. Nothing can count as a genuine ideal for us unless its realization is at least possible by us. Now I have argued elsewhere that not even the skeptic can avoid some contention-inspiring doxastic commitments. So I maintain  the view that the beliefless life is not possible for us and hence not an ideal for us either.

But even if the beliefless life were possible for us, it would still not be choice-worthy. For our very survival depends on our knowing the truth about matters difficult to discern. For example, is global
warming real, and if it is does it pose a threat to human survival? What about the threat to civilization of militant Islam? How much of a threat is it?

These two issues are extremely contentious. Acrimonious and ataraxia-busting debate rages on both sides of both of these issues.  But obviously it does matter to the quality of our lives and the lives of our children and other world-mates what the truth is about these questions. It certainly made a difference to the quality of the lives of the workers in the Trade Towers on 9/11 that militant   Islamofanatics targeted them. Their quality of life went to zero. Just one bomb can ruin your entire day.

So how could it possibly be right to say that the highest life is the life of belieflessness? If I suspend belief with respect to every contentious matter, every matter likely to induce mental perturbation,
not to mention bloodshed, then I suspend belief with respect to the Islamofascist threat. But then I show indifference to my own  well-being. It doesn't matter whether you agree with me about the
threat of militant Islam. Perhaps you are a leftie who thinks that global warming is more of a threat. Then run my argument using that example.

Mental tranquillity is a high value, and no one who takes philosophy seriously can want not to possess more of it. But it cannot be the highest value. The happy life cannot be anything so passive as the  life of ataraxia. We need a more virile conception of happiness, and we find it in Aristotle. For the Stagirite, happiness (eudaimonia) is an activity (ergon) of the soul (psyche) in accordance with virtue   (arete) over an entire life. His is an active conception of the good life even though the highest virtues are the intellectual virtues. The highest life is the bios theoretikos, the vita contemplativa. Though contemplative, it necessarily involves the activity of inquiry into the truth, an activity that skepticism, whether Pyrrhonian or Academic, denigrates.

A Searle-y Objection to the Causal Theory of Names

Yesterday I argued that whether 'God' and equivalents as used by Jews, Christians, and Muslims refer to the same being depends on one's philosophy of language.  In particular, I suggested that only on a causal theory of names could one maintain that their respective references are to the same entity.  The causal theory of names, however, strikes me as not very plausible.  Here is one consideration.

The causal theory of names of Saul Kripke et al. requires that there be an initial baptism of the target of reference, a baptism at which the name is first introduced. This can come about by ostension:   Pointing to a newly acquired kitten, I bestow upon it the moniker, 'Mungojerrie.' Or it can come about by the use of a reference-fixing definite description: Let 'Neptune' denote the celestial object   responsible for the perturbation of the orbit of Uranus.  In the second case, it may be that the object whose name is being introduced is not itself present at the baptismal ceremony. What is present, or observable, are certain effects of the object hypothesized. (See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity, Harvard 1980 p. 79, n. 33 and p. 96, n. 42.)

As I understand it, a necessary condition for successful reference on the causal theory is that a
speaker's use of a name be causally connected (perhaps indirectly) with the object referred to. We can refer to objects only if we stand in some causal relation to them (direct or indirect).  So my use of 'God' refers to God not because there is something that satisfies the definite description or disjunction of definite descriptions that unpack the sense of 'God' as I use it, but because my use of 'God' can be traced back though a long causal chain to an initial baptism, as it were, of God by, say, Moses on Mt. Sinai.

If this is what the  causal theory (or at least the Kripkean version thereof) requires, then the
theory rules out all reference to abstracta: Fregean propositions, numbers, sets, etc. But it also rules out reference to future events.

Suppose meteorologists predict a hurricane that has the power to wipe out New Orleans a second time. Conservatives to a man and a woman, they introduce the name 'Hillary' for this horrendous event, and they introduce it via some appropriately complex definite description. (They can't point to it since it doesn't yet exist.) The meteorologists continue with their work using 'Hillary' for the event in question. Since the event lies in the future, there is no question of its causing directly or indirectly any use of the name 'Hillary.'  Nor is there any question of the name's being introduced on the basis of effects of the event.

What we seem to have here is a legitimate use of a proper name that cannot be accounted for by the causal theory. For the causal theory rules out reference to a thing or event to which one does not stand in a causal relation. This suggests that there is something very wrong with the theory. (See John Searle, Intentionality, Cambridge 1983, p. 241.)

The God of Christianity and the God of Islam: Same God?

One morning an irate C-Span viewer called in to say that he prayed to the living God, not to the mythical being, Allah, to whom Muslims pray. The C-Span guest made a standard response, which is correct as far as it goes, namely, that Allah is Arabic for God, just as Gott is German for God. He suggested that adherents of the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) worship the same God under different names. No doubt this is a politically correct thing to say, but is it true?

Our question, then, is precisely this:  Does the normative Christian and the normative Muslim worship numerically the same God, or numerically different Gods?  (By 'normative Christian/Muslim' I mean an orthodox adherent of his faith who understands its content, without subtraction and without addition of private opinions.)  Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic.  So if Christian and Muslim worship different Gods, then one is worshipping  a nonexistent God, or, if you prefer, is failing to worship the true God.

1. Let's start with the obvious: 'Allah' is Arabic for God.  So if an Arabic-speaking Coptic Christian refers to God, he uses 'Allah.'   And if an Arabic-speaking Muslim refers to God, he too uses 'Allah.'  From the fact that both Copt and Muslim use 'Allah' it does not follow that they are referring to the same God, but it also does not follow that they are referring to numerically different Gods.  So we will not make any progress with our question if we remain at the level of words.  We must advance to concepts.

2. We need to distinguish between the word for God, the concept (conception) of God, and God.  God is not a concept, but there are concepts of God and, apart from mystical intuition, we have no access to God except via our concepts of God.  Now it is undeniable that the Christian and Muslim conceptions of God partially overlap.  The following is a partial list of what is common to both conceptions:

a. There is exactly one God.
b.  God is the creator of everything distinct from himself.
c.  God is transcendent: he is radically different from everthing distinct from himself.
d. God is good.

Now if the Christian and Muslim conceptions of God were identical, then we would have no reason to think that Christian and Muslim worship different Gods.  But of course the conceptions, despite partial overlap, are not identical. Christians believe in a triune God who became man in Jesus of Nazareth.  Or to put it precisely, they believe in a triune God the second person of which became man in Jesus of Nazareth.  This is the central and indeed crucial (from the Latin, crux, crucis, meaning cross) difference between the two faiths.  The crux of the matter is the cross. 

3. Now comes the hard part, which is to choose between two competing views:

V1: Christian and Muslim worship the same God, but one of them has a false belief about God, whether it be the belief that God is unitarian or the belief that God is trinitarian.

V2:  Christian and Muslim worship different Gods precisely because they have different conceptions of God.  So it is not that one of them has a false belief about the one God they both worship; it is rather that one of them does not worship the true God at all.

There is no easy way to decide rationally between these two views.  We have to delve into the philosophy of language and ask how reference is achieved.  How do linguistic expressions attach or apply to extralinguistic entities? How do words grab onto the (extralinguistic) world? In particular, how do nominal expressions work? What makes my utterance of 'Socrates' denote Socrates rather than someone or something else?  What makes my use of 'God' (i) have a referent at all and (ii) have the precise referent it has?

4.  It is reasonable to hold, with Frege, Russell, and many others, that reference is routed through, and determined by, sense: an expression picks out its object in virtue of the latter's satisfaction of a
description associated with the referring expression, a description that unpacks the expression's sense. If we think of reference in this way, then 'God' refers to whatever entity, if any, that satisfies the definite description encapsulated in 'God' as this term is used in a given linguistic community.

Given that God is not an actual or possible object of (sense) experience, this seems like a reasonable approach to take.  The idea is that 'God' is a definite description in disguise so that 'God' refers to whichever entity satisfies the description associated wth 'God.'    Now consider two candidate definite descriptions, the first corresponding to the Mulsim conception, the second corresponding to the Christian.

D1: 'the unique x such that x is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, created the world ex nihilo and is unitarian'

D2: 'the unique x such that x is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, created the world ex nihilo, and is triune.'

Suppose that reference is not direct, but routed through sense, or mediated by a description, in the manner explained above.   It is easy to see that no one entity can satisfy both (D1) and (D2).  So if reference is routed through sense, then Christian and Muslim cannot be referring to the same being.  Indeed, one of them is not succeeding in referring at all.  For if God is triune, nothing in reality answers tothe Muslim's conception of God.  And if God is unitarian, then nothing in reality answers to the Christian conception.

And so, contrary to what Miroslav Volf maintains, the four points of commonality in the Christian and Muslim conceptions listed above do NOT "establish the claim that in their worship of God, Muslims and Christians refer to the same object." (Allah: A Christian Response, HarperCollins 2011, p. 110.)  For if reference to God is mediated by a conception which includes the subconcept triune or unitarian, the reference cannot be to the same entity.

A mundane example (adapted from Kripke) will make this more clear.  Sally sees a handsome man at a party standing in the corner drinking a clear bubbly liquid from a cocktail glass.  She turns to her companion Nancy and says, "The man standing in the corner drinking champagne is handsome!"  Suppose the man is not drinking champagne, but sparkling water instead.  Has Sally succeeded in referring to the man or not?  Argumentative Nancy,  who knows that no alcohol is being served at the party, and who also finds the man handsome, says, "You are not referring to anything: there is no man in the corner drinking champagne.  The man is drinking sparkling water.  Nothing satisfies your definite description.  There is no one man we both admire.   Your handsome man does not exist, but mine does." 

Now in this example what we would intuitively say is that Sally did succeed in referring to someone using a definite description even though the object she succeeded in referring to does not satisfy the description.  Intuitively, we would say that Sally simply has a false belief about the object to which she is successfully referring, and that Sally and Nancy are referring to and admiring the very same man.

But note how this case differs from the God case.  Both women see the man in the corner.  But God is not an object of possible (sense) experience, of Kant's moegliche Erfarhung.  Hence the reference of 'God' cannot be nailed down perceptually.  And so it seems that what we succeed in referring to is whatever satisfies the definite description that unpacks our conception of God.

5.  My tentative conclusion, then, is that (i) if we accept a description theory of names, the Christian and Muslim do not refer to the same being when they use 'God' or 'Allah'  and (ii) that a description theory of names is what we must invoke given the nonperceivability of God.

If, on the other hand, 'God' is a logically proper name whose   meaning is exhausted by its reference, a Kripkean rigid designator,  rather than a Russellian definite description in disguise, then what would make 'God' or a particular use of 'God' refer to God?

A particular use is presumably caused by an earlier use. But eventually there must be an initial use. Imagine Moses on Mt. Sinai. He has a profound mystical experience of a being who conveys to his
mind such locutions as "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have false gods before me." Moses applies 'God' or 'Yahweh' to the being. But what makes the name the name of the being? One may say: the fact that the being or an effect of the being causes the use of the name. 

But a certain indeterminacy seems to creep in if we think of the semantic relation of referring as explicable in terms of causation. For is it the (mystical) experience of God that causes the use of 'God'? Or is it God himself who causes the use of 'God'? If the former, then 'God' refers to an experience had by Moses and not to God. Surely God is not an experience. But how can God be the cause of Moses' use of 'God'? Causes are events, God is not an event, so God cannot be a cause.

If these difficulties could be ironed out and a causal theory of names is tenable, and if the causal chain extends from Moses down to Christians and (later)to Muslims, then a case could be made that Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all referring to the same God when they use 'God' and such equivalents as 'Yahweh' and 'Allah.'

So it looks like there is no easy answer to the opening question.  It depends on the resolution of intricate questions in the philosophy of language. 

Ed Schultz Plays the Race Card

Schultz race card

 Ed Schultz:  "The Republican Party Stands for Racism."

For more examples of leftist scumbaggery, see my Race category.

Another example of why calls for civility are silly.  You must not be civil to moral scum.  You must denounce them and their lies.  When they lie about us we must tell the truth about them.  Every time.  For they believe in the Communist principle of the Big Lie: tell a big enough lie, repeat it enough times, and people will believe it.

 Michelle  Malkin: "The race card is not the last refuge of liberal scoundrels but the first refuge."

 

Codex Vallicellianus

A curious bit of lore, of interest perhaps to only one reader of this weblog, the reader who is also its writer, is that the Bibliotheca Vallicelliana in Rome houses a Vulgate version of the Bible described
here as

     V, or Cod. Vallicellianus (ninth century; at Rome, in Vallicelliana), a Bible; Alcuin's type.

When I was last in the Eternal City, in 1990, my Roman meanderings led me to the library in question, but I arrived during the long afternoon siesta. I spoke to the attendant via an intercom, but she wouldn't let me in despite my surname. The good lady was enjoying her leisurely work pause and no doubt reflecting on:  Dolce far niente which is Italian for "Sweet to do nothing."  It is a saying I recall from my childhood.  My paternal gradfather Alfonso had it emblazoned on the pergola he built  behind his house. 

‘Frege’ on the Trinity

Peter Lupu writes,

The following are some recent thoughts about the Trinity. Let me know what you think.

The three expressions of the Trinity: ‘The Father’, ‘The Son’, and ‘The Holy Spirit’ all refer to the same divine being namely God. Thus, with respect to reference, each pair of expressions forms a true identity. However, they have different senses in Frege’s sense. The three senses are as follows:

1) The sense of ‘The Father’ is the will of the divine being to love, atone, and forgive. Call this the divine-will.  

2) The sense of ‘The Holy Spirit’ is the will of a non-divine being when and only when it genuinely aspires to be like the divine with respect to its moral identity and worth. Call this the inspired-will.

3) The sense of ‘The Son’ (i.e., the person of Jesus) is when the divine-will and the inspired-will coincide in a human person such as Jesus. Thus, Jesus is a moral-exemplar (Steven’s term) of a case when the divine-will and the inspired-will seamlessly coincide.

The senses of the three expressions of the Trinity are different. Therefore, while identities among each pair with respect to their senses are false, identities with respect to their referents are true.

It warms my heart that  a Jew should speculate on the Trinity on Good Friday.   Rather than comment specifically on the senses that Peter  attaches to 'the Father,' 'the Son,' and 'the Holy Spirit,' I will  address the deeper question of whether the logical problem of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity can be solved by means of Gottlob Frege's distinction between the sense and the reference of expressions.

The Logical Problem of the Trinity

Our question concerns the logical consistency of the following septad, each limb of which is a commitment of orthodoxy.  See here for details.  How can the following propositions all be true?

1. There is only one God.
2. The Father is God.
3. The Son is God.
4. The Holy Spirit is God.
5. The Father is not the Son.
6. The Son is not the Holy Spirit.
7. The Father is not the Holy Spirit.

If we assume that in (2)-(7), the 'is' expresses absolute numerical identity, then it is clear that the septad is inconsistent.  (Identity has the following properties: it is reflexive, symmetric, transitive, governed by the Indiscernibility of Identicals and by the Necessity of Identity).  For example, from (2) and (3) taken together it follows that the Father is the Son by Transitivity of Identity.  But this contradicts (5).

So we have an inconsistent septad each limb of which is a commitment of orthodoxy.  The task is to remove the contradiction without abandoning orthodoxy.  There are different ways to proceed.  Here I consider only one, the Fregean way.  (Of course, Frege himself did not address the Trinity; but we may address it using his nomenclature and conceptuality.) 

The Fregean solution is to say that 'Father,' 'Son,' and 'Holy Spirit, are expressions that differ in sense (Sinn) but coincide in reference (Bedeutung).  Frege famously gave the example of 'The morning star is the evening star.'  This is an identity statement that is both true and informative.  But how, Frege asked, could it be both?  If it says of one thing that it is identical to itself, then it is true but not informative because tautological.  If it says of two things that they  are one thing, then it is false, and uninformative for this reason.  How can it be both true and nontautological? 

Frege solved his puzzle by distinguishing between sense and reference and by maintaining that reference is not direct but routed through sense.  'Morning star' and 'evening star' differ in sense, but coincide in reference.  The terms flanking the identity sign refer to the same entity, the planet Venus, but the reference is mediated by two numerically distinct senses.  The distinction allows us to account for both the truth and the informativeness of the identity statement.  The statement is true because the two terms have the same referent; the statement is informative because the two terms have different senses.  They are different modes of presentation of the same object.

Now let's apply this basic idea to the Trinity.  To keep the discussion simple we can restrict ourselves to the Father and the Son.  If we can figure out the Binity, then we can figure out the Trinity.  And if we restrict ourselves to the Binity, then we get a nice neat parallel to the Fregean example.  The Frege puzzle can be put like this:

a. The Morning Star is Venus
b. The Evening Star is Venus
c. The Morning Star is not the Evening Star. 

This parallels

2. The Father is God
3. The Son is God
5. The Father is not the Son.

Both triads are inconsistent.  The solution to the Fregean triad is to replace (c) with
c'.  The sense Morning Star is not the sense Evening Star.

The suggestion, then, is to solve the Binity triad by replacing (5) with
5'. The sense Father is not the sense Son.

The idea, then, is that the persons of the Trinity are Fregean senses.  To say that the three persons are one God is to say that the three senses, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, are three distinct modes of presentation (Darstellungsweisen) of the same entity, God.

Why the Fregean Solution Doesn't Work

Bear in mind that we are laboring under the constraint of preserving orthodoxy.  So, while the Fregan approach is not incoherent, it fails to preserve the orthodox doctrine.  One reason is this.  Senses are abstract (causally inert) objects while the persons of the Trinity are concrete (causally efficacious).  Thus the Holy Spirit inspires people, causing them to to be in this or that state of mind.  The Father begets the Son.  Begetting is a kind of causing, though unlike empirical causing.  The Son loves the Father, etc.  Therefore, the persons cannot be Fregean senses.

Furthermore, senses reside in Frege's World 3 which houses all the Platonica necessary for the semantic mediation of mental contents (ideas, Vorstellungen, etc.) in World 2 and primary referents in World 1.  Now God is in World 1.  But if the persons are senses, then they are in World 3.  But this entails the shattering of the divine unity.  God is one, three-in-one, yet still one.  But on the Fregean approach what we have is a disjointed quaternity: God in World 1, and the three persons in World 3.  That won't do, if the task is to preserve orthodoxy.

At this point, someone might suggest the following.  "Suppose we think of senses, not as semantic intermediaries, but as constituents of the entity in World 1.  Thus the morning star and the evening star are ontological parts of Venus somewhat along the lines of Hector Castaneda's Guise Theory.   To say that a sense S is of its referent R is to say  that S is an ontologcal part or constitutent of R.  And then we can interpret 'The Morning Star is the Evening Star' to mean that the MS-sense is 'consubstantiated' (to borrow a term from Castaneda) with the ES-sense.  Thus we would not have the chorismos, separation, of senses in Worldf3 from the primary referents in World 1: the senses would be where the primary referents are, as ontological parts of them. 

But this suggestion also violates orthodoxy.  The persons of the Trinity are not parts of God; each is (identically) God.  No proper part of a whole is identical to the whole.  But each person is identical to God.

I conclude that there is no Fregean way out of the logical difficulties of the orthodox Trinity doctrine.  If so, then Peter's specific suggestion above lapses.

 

Easter Morning Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 15:14

Biblia Vulgata: Si autem Christus non resurrexit, inanis est ergo praedicatio nostra, inanis est et fides vestra.

King James: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

Orthodox Christianity stands and falls with a contingent historical fact, the fact of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. If he rose from the dead, he is who is said he was and can deliver on his   promises. If not, then the faith of the Christian inanis est, is vain, void, empty, delusional.

Compare Buddhism. It too promises salvation of a sort. But the salvation it promises is not a promise by its founder that rests on the existence of the founder or on anything he did. For Christianity, history is essential, for Buddhism inessential. The historical Buddha is not a savior, but merely an example of a man who saved himself by realizing his inherent Buddha-nature. The idea of the Buddha is enough; his   historical existence unnecessary.  'Buddha,' like 'Christ,' is a title: it means 'the Enlightened One.'  Buddhism does not depend either on the existence of Siddartha, the man who is said to have become the Buddha, or on Siddartha's  becoming the Buddha.

Hence the Zen saying, "If you see the Buddha, kill him." I take that to mean that one does not need the historical Buddha, and that  cherishing any piety towards him may prove more hindrance than help.  Buddhism, as the ultimate religion of self-help, enjoins each to become a lamp unto himself. What is essential is the enlightenment that one either achieves or fails to achieve on one's own, an   enlightenment which is a natural possibility of all. If one works diligently enough, one can extricate oneself from the labyrinth of samsara.  Oner can achieve the ultimate goal on one's own, by one's own power.  There is no need for supernatural assistance.

Is this optimism justified? I remain open to Christianity's claims because I doubt the justification of self-help optimism. One works and works on oneself but makes little progress. That one needs help is   clear. That one can supply it from within one's own resources is unclear.  I know of no enlightened persons.  But I know of plenty of frauds, spiritual hustlers, and mountebanks.

Both Buddhism and Christianity are life-denying religions.  But while Christianity denies this life for the sake of a higher life elsewhere and elsewhen, Buddhism denies this life for the sake of extinction.  The solution to the problem of suffering is to so attenuate desire and aversion that one comes to the realization that one never existed in the first place.  Some solution.  And yet there is much to learn from Buddhism and its practices.  They are the two highest religions.  The two lowest are the religions of spiritual materialism, Judaism and Islam, with Islam at the very bottom of the hierarchy of great religions. 

Islam is shockingly crude, as crude as Buddhism is overrefined.  The Muslim is promised all the crass material pleasures on the far side that he is forbidden here, as if salvation consists of eating and drinking and endless bouts of  sexual intercourse.  Hence my term 'spiritual materialism.'  'Spiritual positivism' is also worth considering.  The Buddhist is no positivist but a nihilist: slavation though annihilation.

Admittedly, this is quick and dirty, but it is important to cut to the bone of the matter from time to time with no mincing of words.  For details see my Buddhism category.

Note: By 'orthodox' I do not have in mind Eastern Orthodoxy, but a Christianity that is not mystically interpreted, a Christianity in which, for example, the resurrection is not interpreted to mean the   attainment of Christ-consciousness or the realization of Christ-nature.

Is Everything in the Bible Literally True?

Of course not. 

If everything in the Bible is literally true, then every sentence in oratio obliqua in the Bible is literally true.  Now the sentence 'There is no God'  occurs in the oblique context, "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.'"  (Psalm 14:1)  So if everything  in the Bible is literally true, then 'There is no God' is literally true and the Bible proves that it is not the word of God!  Again, at Genesis 3:4 the Bible reports the Serpent saying to the woman (Eve), "You surely shall not die!"  So if everything in the Bible is true, then this falsehood is true.  Ergo, not everything in the Bible is literally true.

Someone who concedes the foregoing may go on to say, "OK, wise guy, everything in the Bible in oratio recta is literally true."  But this can't be right either.  For the Bible tells us in oratio recta that light was created before sources of light (sun, moon, stars) were created. The creation of light is reported at Genesis 1:3, but the creation of sources of light occurs later as reported at Genesis 1: 14-17.  Obviously, light cannot exist before sources of light exist.  So what the Bible reports on this head is false, if taken literally.  Furthermore, if the sun does not come into existence until the fourth day, how can there be days before the fourth day?  In one sense of 'day,' it is the period of time from the rising of the sun to its setting.  In a second sense of 'day,' one that embraces the first, a day is the period of time from the rising of the sun to its next rising.  In either of these senses there cannot be a day without a sun.  So again, these passages cannot be taken literally.

But there is a deeper problem.  The Genesis account implies that the creation of the heavens and the earth took time, six days to be exact. But the creation of the entire system of space-time-matter cannot be something that occurs in time.  And so again Genesis cannot be taken literally, but figuratively as expressing the truth that, as St. Augusine puts it, "the world was made, not in time, but simultaneously with time." (City of God, XI, 6)

And then there is the business about God resting on the seventh day.  What? He got fagged out after all the heavy lifting and had to take a rest?  As Augustine remarks, that would be a childish way of reading  Geneis 2:3.  The passage must be taken figuratively: ". . . the sacred narrative states that God rested, meaning thereby that those rest who are in Him, and whom He makes to rest." (City of God, XI, 8)

What is to be taken literally and what figuratively?  ". . . a method of determining whether a locution is literal or figurative must be established.  And generally this method consists in this:  that whatever appears in the divine Word that literally does not pertain to virtuous behavior or to the truth of faith you must take to be figurative." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book Three, Chapter 10)

This method consigns a lot to the figurative.  So it is not literally true that God caused the Red Sea to part, letting the Isrelites through, and then caused the waters to come together to drown the Pharaoh's men?