Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Still working through Augustine, and I wanted to post this delicious quote:

And we indeed recognize in ourselves the image of God, that is, of the supreme Trinity, an image which, though it be not equal to God, or rather, though it be very far removed from Him—being neither co-eternal, nor, to say all in a word, consubstantial with Him—is yet nearer to Him in nature than any other of His works, and is destined to be yet restored, that it may bear a still closer resemblance. For we both are, and know that we are, and delight in our being, and our knowledge of it. Moreover, in these three things no true-seeming illusion disturbs us; for we do not come into contact with these by some bodily sense, as we perceive the things outside of us—colors, e.g., by seeing, sounds by hearing, smells by smelling, tastes by tasting, hard and soft objects by touching—of all which sensible objects it is the images resembling them, but not themselves which we perceive in the mind and hold in the memory, and which excite us to desire the objects. But, without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? For it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. And, consequently, neither am I deceived in knowing that I know. For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And when I love these two things, I add to them a certain third thing, namely, my love, which is of equal moment. For neither am I deceived in this, that I love, since in those things which I love I am not deceived; though even if these were false, it would still be true that I loved false things. For how could I justly be blamed and prohibited from loving false things, if it were false that I loved them? But, since they are true and real, who doubts that when they are loved, the love of them is itself true and real? Further, as there is no one who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one who does not wish to be. For how can he be happy, if he is nothing?

Looks familiar. It's not exactly the same approach that I see in common arguments today, but he was arguing with a group of people who largely already believed in gods.

On a personal note, I want to interject with a certain cautionary notion, with which I sometimes caution myself. That is, certain types of ministry can become idols. I find myself so often confronted with bold proclamations of atheistic antiChristian ideas and "sciences", though even naming them as such grates at me inasmuch as it implies that Christianity is not related to science (and without digressing too far I feel need to point out that "Christian Science" is the title of a really unfortunately named cult, neither Christian nor scientific, but "Creation Science" is a potentially beneficial field of study), that I've identified a temptation to immediately weigh every new thing I learn against the claims of atheists, rather than to praise God for His truths in general and special revelation. Thankfully this was pointed out to me about 3 years ago when I accelerated my study of the topic, and I've since made a point of putting the argument out of my mind when it is not appropriate.

In short, refuting atheists isn't the only thing I'm thinking about all day, it's just what I blog about most often, because there really aren't very many good outlets for this type of thinking. Chowon is a wonderful partner, but she's not that interested in philosophy; it doesn't make for good small talk; and I wouldn't get very far by dumping long quotes from Augustine on atheists during common evangelism. So basically my blog is my only outlet for these thoughts, (whenever I get time to think deeply about them).

Speaking of which, I have a few things to say about instinct, as a potential answer from the atheists as to how they account for Logic (big L). It came to me that I usually present the atheist position as an unsolvable dichotomy between internal rationalization and external empiricism, but instinct doesn't immediately fit into either of those categories necessarily. I might partially agree with the hypothetical atheist here, because I think that our instincts are a valuable part of God's general revelation to us, since they teach us certain aspects of reason and they tend to make us dislike exposing ourselves to seeing others harmed. However, as an ultimate foundation, instincts fall victim to the same pitfalls we've discussed elsewhere, that they are rooted in the individual and that the expression of them varies from person to person. We could say, "what about that guy over there whose instincts tell him to kill his neighbor", to which the atheist might leap into their other leaky boat by saying "well, he's sick, and we determine his sickness by weighing his opinions against those of the majority", in which case the atheist had better be prepared to denounce homosexuality (and by extension any other counter-culture movement).

"All your works will praise your name and all creation will proclaim that you alone are God and King and we will bring our offering of praise."

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