To start, I think that #8 deserves more explanation to avoid confusion or objections. It's an important point, so I want to make sure I've nailed this one down.
So, here's the conundrum: The ultimate source has to be above the law without being exempt from the law. The laws I'm talking about are the physical and logical laws which govern everything. It has to be above them because it must be able to perform an action which is totally impossible for any other part of creation to perform. It can't be exempt from them, because that would undermine the points specifying that the rules governing intelligibility are universally applicable, making the source itself potentially unintelligible, internally contradictory, or untrustworthy.
I cannot think of any way to solve this problem except by relinquishing creative and prescriptive control over every part of the universe to that source. In that case, the source is able to prescribe a universe which is more limited than the source, but which does not violate the laws which characterize the source. For my sake, I offer it as a request to anyone reading, "Please come up with an alternative explanation which doesn't undermine intelligibility". But that has been the challenge for philosophers all along, hasn't it? And to this day the ancient Biblical wisdom still holds true, "The fool says in his heart, 'there is no god'"; I am not aware of any viable alternative ever presented.
So per the above and the points in my previous blog, about which I feel confident, for lack of a viable alternative, the source of the information which comprises our ultimate foundation for all knowledge is a singular, all powerful, creator of everything, exercising full and complete control over every minutia of the entire universe by its prescriptive decree. Furthermore, everything in existence is a self-expression of that source's own character, and we say that the source has a personal character from which our personalities are derived, but that character is so far beyond us that it also derives from itself all of the universe.
So, to some small extent it is valid to attribute human characteristics to this entity, but only inasmuch as it reveals itself as such. That's the next bullet in the list from my previous blog:
11.
Q. The source itself must be apprehensible to the human mind, to an extent which would enable us to know that it fulfills all of the above characteristics without deviating from them. (Note: not "comprehensible").
E. Obviously, we have to be able to know all of the prior points about the source somehow, and although they are necessary preconditions for an intelligible universe (afaict), we are not always consciously aware of those points, necessarily. The involuntary revelation itself was just the groundwork enabling us to know the extent to which our senses were trustworthy, and at this time I'm not sure about how to articulate the specific contents of that involuntary revelation. In this discourse, I'm not trying to explore the contents of the revelation, as much as to develop a philosophical framework which justifies the existence of that information in our minds.
12.
Q. The knowledge comprising that apprehension of the source must be verifiably available to humanity in some form.
E. We can derive the information directly by means of this kind of philosophizing, but due to the limitations on my imagination, I acknowledge that I'm depending heavily on everyone else's inability to explain things better than me. Thus, the physical substance of this information must exist somewhere in the world, or else the foundations of our worldviews are left to the most imaginative bidder. (This is not to say that the form of this substantive revelation must be such that everyone would instantly accept it as truth upon seeing it; the truth of our ability to use logic is not dependent on our acknowledgement of the source of our reasoning faculties, but the information must at least be available.)
To rephrase the points 11 and 12 for common application, (this is allowed because we've established that the source has a duck-typed personality), we can say that the source has to be predictable and relatable to some extent. No wise person trusts their neighbor before they know something firsthand about their neighbor, and that knowledge is used as a reference point for making predictions about the behaviors of that neighbor. As it happens, the human mind functions in this manner, and so in order for us to be able to say that we live in a world revealed to us by a trustworthy ultimate revelator, it is necessary that the revelator accommodate us in the area of trust by providing a relatable point of reference within itself.
The source must have revealed itself to us in human-relatable terms. Given that the above points are derived without direct reference to such a revelation, it is not necessary that every person alive be aware of the relatable revelation. However, it is necessary that the relatable revelation be available to the very first humans who ever lived, and it is necessary that the revelation be available on earth today, in some form. Development of personal trust is a voluntary process; and although the revelator is plainly deserving of our implicit trust, we are evidently not forced to invest in it.
So, for future posts, let's make a distinction in terms. We will call the revelation by which the source enables us to live intelligibly, "General Revelation", because everyone knows it involuntarily. And, the revelation by which the source makes itself relatable and available for personal apprehension, in order for us to build trust, we will call "Special Revelation", because it comes to those who put effort toward a desire to know the revelator.
To ground all this in personal anecdote, the only reason I'm able to do this kind of thinking, and the only way that I've come to these conclusions, is by spending a lot of time meditating on the Holy Bible, (which I hold to be the sufficient source for all wisdom pertaining to life and Godliness), engaging with my Christian brothers in meaningful dialog about it, and watching the debates wherein atheists repeatedly fail to address it.
"How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore." - Psalm 133
11.
Q. The source itself must be apprehensible to the human mind, to an extent which would enable us to know that it fulfills all of the above characteristics without deviating from them. (Note: not "comprehensible").
E. Obviously, we have to be able to know all of the prior points about the source somehow, and although they are necessary preconditions for an intelligible universe (afaict), we are not always consciously aware of those points, necessarily. The involuntary revelation itself was just the groundwork enabling us to know the extent to which our senses were trustworthy, and at this time I'm not sure about how to articulate the specific contents of that involuntary revelation. In this discourse, I'm not trying to explore the contents of the revelation, as much as to develop a philosophical framework which justifies the existence of that information in our minds.
12.
Q. The knowledge comprising that apprehension of the source must be verifiably available to humanity in some form.
E. We can derive the information directly by means of this kind of philosophizing, but due to the limitations on my imagination, I acknowledge that I'm depending heavily on everyone else's inability to explain things better than me. Thus, the physical substance of this information must exist somewhere in the world, or else the foundations of our worldviews are left to the most imaginative bidder. (This is not to say that the form of this substantive revelation must be such that everyone would instantly accept it as truth upon seeing it; the truth of our ability to use logic is not dependent on our acknowledgement of the source of our reasoning faculties, but the information must at least be available.)
To rephrase the points 11 and 12 for common application, (this is allowed because we've established that the source has a duck-typed personality), we can say that the source has to be predictable and relatable to some extent. No wise person trusts their neighbor before they know something firsthand about their neighbor, and that knowledge is used as a reference point for making predictions about the behaviors of that neighbor. As it happens, the human mind functions in this manner, and so in order for us to be able to say that we live in a world revealed to us by a trustworthy ultimate revelator, it is necessary that the revelator accommodate us in the area of trust by providing a relatable point of reference within itself.
The source must have revealed itself to us in human-relatable terms. Given that the above points are derived without direct reference to such a revelation, it is not necessary that every person alive be aware of the relatable revelation. However, it is necessary that the relatable revelation be available to the very first humans who ever lived, and it is necessary that the revelation be available on earth today, in some form. Development of personal trust is a voluntary process; and although the revelator is plainly deserving of our implicit trust, we are evidently not forced to invest in it.
So, for future posts, let's make a distinction in terms. We will call the revelation by which the source enables us to live intelligibly, "General Revelation", because everyone knows it involuntarily. And, the revelation by which the source makes itself relatable and available for personal apprehension, in order for us to build trust, we will call "Special Revelation", because it comes to those who put effort toward a desire to know the revelator.
To ground all this in personal anecdote, the only reason I'm able to do this kind of thinking, and the only way that I've come to these conclusions, is by spending a lot of time meditating on the Holy Bible, (which I hold to be the sufficient source for all wisdom pertaining to life and Godliness), engaging with my Christian brothers in meaningful dialog about it, and watching the debates wherein atheists repeatedly fail to address it.
"How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore." - Psalm 133
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