Thomas Merton claims that the title question is a good koan. I maintain that it isn’t. I then give two examples of what I consider to be good Christian koans. Substack latest.
This article is relevant to my ongoing discussion with Tom Carroll. I thank him once again for engaging, as opposed to opposing, my ideas. Those who think oppositionally in philosophy are not philosophers but ideologues.
Bill,
I recently encountered a post somewhat about this issue here, which you may find interesting. https://dillonly.com/2026/05/26/monotheism-and-unindexed-definite-description/
Richard,
Thanks for the reference. No time now to comment on it, but it looks worthy of a careful reading.
Bill,
This is fantastic Substack post.
One aspect of the “Ultimate Christian Koan,” that I have long found particularly impenetrable is the simultaneous affirmation of divine simplicity and the belief that the post-Ascension, glorified body of Christ now “sits at the righthand of the Father,” since the latter appears to introduce composition, change, and spatial relations into the Godhead.
Vito
Vito,
It is rationally impenetrable as you say, and for the reasons you give, but I would add that it is impenetrable even if God is not ontologically simple. For all classical theists maintain that God is a purely spiritual being, and therefore immaterial. But then how can JC ascend BODY and soul into heaven, as ‘Romanists’ and many Protestant denominations maintain? And the same goes for the BVM who was assumed into heaven. How can we make sense of this importation of matter into the Godhead even if it is a glorified, spiritualized, subtilized, matter?
Here is another Xian koan:
“In the beginning was the WORD (God the Son) and the WORD was with God (the Father) and the WORD was God.” This BINITY is rationally impenetrable. How can the following two propositions both be true?
1. There is only one God.
2. If x is with y, then x is not identical to y. God the Father is not identical to God the Son.
It may be that propositions which must appear to us in our present state, and given our cognitive architecture, as logically contradictory, are not contradictory in reality. Or shoud we say that some contradictions are true?
Bill,
“It may be that propositions which must appear to us in our present state, and given our cognitive architecture, as logically contradictory, are not contradictory in reality. Or should we say that some contradictions are true?”
Yes, either of these may be the case, but I have to say that all of the koans reveal the truly unsettled philosophical ground on which faith rests. I suppose one could, as most do, ignore them, take the NT testimonies, indirect in the Synoptic Gospels and explicit in John, as sufficient evidence for orthodox incarnational claims and then regard the interpretations of them in the Church Fathers and the early councils, especially Nicaea and Chalcedon, as settling the matter, but I think that, whatever choice one makes regarding belief, there is an inherent worm of doubt always present for anyone who has thought seriously about it. And I find the usual remedies, from elaborate, if tortured reasoning to fideism, unsatisfactory as curatives for this doubt.
Vito,
I think you’re right that there’s always doubt. Such doubt is overcome by faith, but it’s moment to moment. I wonder if there are really any philosophical grounds for faith, in spite of much philosophical contemplation about it. Faith, whether Christian or the more ordinary variety, is what allows someone to act in spite of doubts–in the absence of evidence, even when such action doesn’t seem reasonable. Faith is at the heart of all risky endeavors and is in that sense dangerous. Naturally this carries a certain amount of doubt that is only set aside by action. But action is always messy and only becomes philosophical after the fact, when the results of the action are evident and subject to contemplation.
Ed,
Thank you for your thoughtful response to my comment. I think, however, that we differ in our understanding of (1) the role of doubt in the life of the man of faith and (2) the relationship of philosophy and faith. With regard to (1), you state, “doubt is overcome by faith, but it is moment to moment.” While I have no problem with the second clause, which points to the coexistence of doubt and belief, I am troubled by the verb “overcome” in the first, for I believe that the foundational dogmas of Christianity are of a kind that make it impossible to ever banish doubt; it remains, if only as a whisper, the constant companion of faith, the inevitable expression of our ignorance of the great mysteries and, in particular, our befuddlement at religious claims that appear logically contradictory. We can take this imperfect faith as the negative consequence of doubt, but that would be too one-sided a view, for faith of this kind encourages intellectual and spiritual growth. The believer should recognize his imperfect faith as but a waystation on a longer journey to truth.
And this is where (2) “the philosophical grounds of faith” comes in. The Church recognized the need for it early in its history, not as a “way” separate from the revealed truths, beyond the grasp of human reason, contained in Scripture, but rather as an essential means to better frame what they might mean. To cite one example, the late Pope Benedict XVI speaks eloquently of the process by which the Church drew on the wisdom of ancient philosophy in its understanding of God. He writes:
“The early Church resolutely put aside the whole cosmos of the ancient religious, regarding the whole of it as deceit and illusion, and explained its faith by saying: When we say God, we do not mean or worship any of this; we mean only Being itself, what the philosophers have expounded as the ground of all being, as the God above all powers—that alone is our God….The choice thus made meant opting for the logos as against any king of myth; it meant the definitive demythologization of the world of religion” (Introduction to Christianity, p. 117).
So early on and at important moments in the centuries that followed, philosophy buttressed the intellectual and spiritual depth and appeal the Christian faith. For many, it smoothed the way to faith.
Vito and Ed,
One issue here is whether religious faith has a propositional content. One important distinction is between faith/belief IN and faith/belief THAT. If I believe in my wife, say, then I believe that she exists and has certain attributes. But a man can believe that his wife exists without believing in her: she cheated on him, he no longer trusts her, etc. Now we three believe that God is a person, or rather more like a person than like something plainly impersonal (e.g. the forces and that physicists study). And since all three of us are Trinitarians, we believe THAT there is one God in three divine persons. This proposition is the dogma of the Trinity.
For Vito and me, the problem with this dogma is that it cannot be articulated in a way that satisfies the exigencies of the discursive intellect. The prime exigency is that it not violate the Law of Non-Contradiction. Of course, what I have just claimed needs to be shown, proven, demonstrated, and I believe I have done this over a series of posts. Here is one: https://maverickphilosopher.blog/index.php/2018/08/07/the-logic-of-the-trinity-revisited/
Now what are our options?
1. Take the apparent contradictions in Xian doctrine as real, and as showing them and the whole of Christianity to be false. Embrace metaphysical naturalism and secular humanism.
2. Argue that the contradictions are merely apparent and that, when the proper distinctions are made, Xian doctrine in its entirety can be show to be rationally acceptable. This, I take it, is the classical pre-Vat II RCC line which is represented and defended with great skill by our distinguished friend Ed Feser.
3. Adopt some form of mysterianism according to which Xian doctrine, although it must appear contradictory to our intellects in their present (fallen) state are in reality true. Or perhaps the dogmas are true contradictions (dialetheism).
4. Adopt a stubborn “thumb-your-nose-at reason” Tertullian- Kierkegaardian fideism: I believe these dogmas precisely because they are absurd (logically contradictory), or because my father told me so (S. K.) Tertullian is supposed to have said, “Credo quia absurdum.” Nietzsche thinks he should have said, “Credo quia absurdus sum.”
5. Take the dogmas as Jaspersian ciphers of Transcendence.
6. Go presuppositionalist and simply presuppose the inerrant truth of the Christian Bible.
7. Finally, there is the approach I am inclined to accept, which is a type of mysticism in which the ultimate truth is transdiscursive, and the theological conundrums are Western koans, the meditative penetration of which may, in auspicious circumstances, precipitate a revelatory break-through to an ineffable and final peace that surpasseth all understanding.
Can you gentlemen see any other options?
Vito and Bill,
Vito, thanks for your explanation of the role of doubt and the RC Church’s approach to rationality and faith. It does highlight some differences in our thinking, but maybe we are not so far apart as it might initially seem. I will briefly explain my thoughts, which are perhaps characteristically Protestant and no doubt have lineage though at this point I would have trouble tracing it so forgive me for that.
Rationality as a human trait may have its ultimate origin in God but the rules of rational thought and logic are also human constructs designed to ensure conformity of thought so that the much wilder human trait of imagination doesn’t render truth claims problematic. So while philosophical thought may serve to reign in and “demythologize” the extravagances of the speculative religious thought found in Gnosticism, kabbalism, hermeticism, and Neoplatonism it cannot penetrate that which requires faith to perceive. I think you said as much in your comment on revealed truth so for me the question that remains is: how does it really assist faith? Logical arguments for God’s existence and testimonies in and out of scripture constitute evidence for Christian belief but certainly not proof, and secular people especially regard all such arguments and testimony as fanciful. As the life of Christ recedes further and further into the past, the world of the educated becomes more and more secular, and the cultural references of scripture writers becomes more and more foreign to moderns, so the evidences of Christian testimony seem more and more tenuous and impossible. All this provides grounds for doubting faith. But the gospel writers were certain that even their contemporaries would most likely find the gospel impossible and nonsensical. And so rather than depending on evidences and testimonies they insisted that faith itself is the best evidence of God (Hebrews 11:1), such faith being a conviction of certainty beyond any other arguments. I lean towards Hebrews 11:1 because that most clearly describes the tenor of my conversion experience as a middle-aged, science-schooled atheist unschooled by any church, even as a child.
Bill, I guess I would have to describe my position (though I always resist pigeon-holing myself into any “position”) as some combination of your 3) and 4). As to 4), I only “thumb my nose” at reason when it presumes to judge or even govern faith. A question regarding 7): how is your “revelatory break-through to an ineffable and final peace that surpassed all understanding” related to salvation in Christ? This is a question I have about Christian mysticism in general but have not yet arrived at any definitive answer.