Marbaniang, Domenic

Excerpted from Epistemics of Divine Reality (2009, 2011), pp.105-107 b. The Cosmological Argument: As stated by Kant himself the cosmological argument runs as follows: If anything exists, an absolutely necessary being must also exist. Now I, at least, exist. Therefore, an absolutely necessary being exists. [1] Since an infinite series of contingent causal relations is impossible an uncaused, unconditioned, necessary cause must be posited as the cause of the universe. However, Kant reasons that this argument too, as the former one, attempts to prove the existence of the transcendent from the empirical, which is impossible. If God were a link or beginning of the series then He could not be separated from it and thus also conditioned by causality. However, on the other hand if it were argued that He is separate from the series, there remains no way reason can find to span the gap between pure and contingent existence. [2] Nothing beyond the world of senses can be definitely known to u...

Excerpted from Epistemics of Divine Reality (2009, 2011), pp.105-107 Kant resolutely argues that the traditional arguments for the existence of God, viz. the ontological, the cosmological, and the physico-theological (teleological) arguments are based on false premises. They proceed from the false assumption that quantity, quality, relation, and modality are inherent in the universe and not merely subjective to the knower alone. The arguments against the arguments for the existence of God are as follows: a. The Ontological Argument: The ontological argument of St. Anselm (1033-1109) proceeded from the assumption that God was ‘that than which a greater cannot be conceived.’ However, if this God did not exist then everything conceived of would be greater than the conception of God for reality is greater than an idea. Therefore, God as ‘that than which a greater cannot be conceived’ must of necessity exist. Rene Descartes had his own form of the ontological argument in which he argued th...

In humans, the future exists as possibilities. The past exists as actualized (fulfilled) events. However, in God, the future is as real as the present and the past - as actualized; because, time is not independent of God, God holds all things together. But, while He holds all things together, He does not determine each thing; for to do that, He must exist prior to future; but, that is not the case because future, as both present and past, is coterminous with Him - "In Him we move, and live, and have our being." God is eternal. Therefore, God's foreknowledge is perfect and yet non-deterministic. In humans, future is not out there. Future is what becomes of the world and us; but, it is yet not out there. Which means that the future is non-existent at the moment. Then, how does God foreknow the non-existent? For God, the future is in Him because He holds space-time together in Him; but, He is neither determined by time nor determines it; God is not in the process of becoming...

Answer 1: A contradiction can be defined in the terms "A=not-A"; a non-contradiction, in the terms "A≠not-A". The statements "Jesus is fully God" and "Jesus is fully man" don't involve such a contradiction, i.e, they don't say "Jesus is fully God," and "Jesus is not fully God" at the same time. Christian theology doesn't claim to say that Jesus is not God when it says Jesus is Man; likewise, it doesn't clam to say that Jesus is not man when it says that Jesus is God. Answer 2: The divinity of Christ is eternal and immutable; therefore, in the Incarnation He was fully God. He was not created; He pre-existed. He was not born out of a man-woman relationship; but, was born of a Virgin; because He incarnated, He didn't come into being - there was not when He didn't exist. In the Incarnation, God partook of human nature; He could do that because He created the world and so the world belonged to Him and He ...

The third criterion of Revelation in Indian philosophy is Rational Anticipation (Hiriyanna: Indian Philosophy); the first two being the principle of not-this-worldly (alaukika) and the principle of non-contradiction (abadhita; i.e. revelation must not contradict known facts). The question is whether the doctrine of Trinity meets the principle of Rational Anticipation? We'll quickly look at two arguments to check out the same. 1. The Argument from the Possibility of Knowledge a. If God exists, He must be an intelligent being (or else, intelligence is an accident and truth is impossible- but, to say truth is impossible is to contradict self; therefore, truth exists and has its eternal ground in God). b. Intelligence involves Knowledge and Knowledge involves a Subject-Object distinction. c. Eternal intelligence must involve eternally a Subject-Object distinction. d. This distinction must be internal and eternal (since, nothing can be infinite and eternal outside the Godhead - God is ...

1. Informative (Revelational) 2. Inductive (Empirical) 3. Indefinitive (Skeptical) 4. Interpretive (Hermeneutical) 5. Integrative (Synthetical) 6. Inferential (Rational) 7. Intuitive (Mystical) © Domenic Marbaniang, 2000, 2012.

An interesting example of contradictory interpretations is borrowed by G.P. Deshpande [1] from Indian philosophy to evaluate the ambiguous nature of the play and its production. "There are two texts by Shankaracharya: one is called Sarirakabhasya while the other bhasya is a commentary on Gaudapadakarika . There is a basic contradiction in both.... drishti-srishtivada and sristidrishtivada .... These two terms represent the schools within which the Vedantins are divided. The problem is whether what you see defines reality ( drishtisrishtivada ) or whether what exists defines your vision ( srishtidrishtivada ). "It is a typical theatre problem.... Suppose you take that text to be a srishti . Then the director looks at it in a particular way, and the actor looks at it in a particular way. When happens next is the case of drishtisrishtivada . The vision or the way the text is looked at ultimately decides its character. And that is why you have different productions of the same...

Potentiality/Actuality Determinism rules the analytic situation of amoral existence. The seed determines the fruit. Essence defines existence. E.g. (1) Man is a social being. Man is a sexual being. Man is a rational being. Man is a moral being (in the sense of capability). (2) Man can’t but be social. Man can’t but be sexual. Man can’t but be rational. Man can’t but be moral. Freedom rules the synthetic situation of moral existence. The choice determines the consequence. Decision defines existence. E.g. (1) He killed the man. He forgave the man. He loved her. He hated her. The son rebelled against the father’s discipline. The son submitted to the father’s discipline. (2) He is a murderer. He is merciful. He is full of love. He is full of hatred. He is a rebel. He is obedient. Death and Actuality In Adam, death was actualized, mortality was finalized. Therefore, death rules over the entire Adamic race.  Man became a mortal being (not that he was created immortal, but that through his ch...

(Excerpt from Hamartiology (Notes) , 2006) God created humans as mortals. [1] Mortality was known to Adam, or else reference to it in the command would have meant nothing to him. The world is Christo-centric, not anthropo-centric or eco-centric. The statement ‘let us make man…’ must be seen in this context. God did not create humans as males and females to remain so eternally. In the divine purpose, man is created to be glorified and transformed into the image of the Son. In this sense, then human creation must be seen as real but not final. As far as the creation of the animal kingdom was concerned, it was final; however, the creation of human was not final. Adam was not the complete man. He would only be complete when mortality puts on immortality. Human creation can only find finality in Christ. Then in what sense, death passed from Adam to all men? It means that although God created humans as mortals, that mortality was not finality. The finality would be the absorption of mortali...

Also discussed as "God of the Rationalist or God of the Empiricists " at Philpapers.org Philosophical theology can be basically divided into three classes: Rationalist theology, Empirical theology, and Intermediate Theology. Rationalist Theology  includes isms such as monism (e.g. Parmenides and Zeno) and non-dualism (Advaitins of India) whose assertions are usually supported by arguments that rationally dismiss experience as false and irrational. This they do with reference to ultimate concepts such as unity, necessity, infinity, immutability, and transcendence (none of which can be predicated of the things of experience). Thus, God becomes the "wholly other" transcendent reality that can only be talked about  via negativa. Empirical Theology,  on the other hand, is quite the opposite of the previous. It actually brings religion down to the earth. The gods and goddesses are more human like, and earthly; and, of course, positively understandable in empirical categor...

Pre-Reference : Anthropic Principle, Wikipedia The New Oxford American Dictionary defines the Anthropic Principle as "the cosmological principle that theories of the universe are constrained by the necessity to allow human existence. In its ‘weak’ form the principle affirms that a universe in which living observers cannot exist is inherently unobservable. ‘Strong’ forms take this line of reasoning further, seeking to explain features of the universe as being so because they are necessary for human existence." In this note, I would like to just highlight the chief epistemic issues associated with this Principle. Related Topics:  Hegelian Dialectical Idealism (the Phenomenology of the Mind: Evolution of Consciousness); Schopenhauer's philosophy of the Will, Advaitin Philosophy, Madhyamaka (Sunyavada), the Heisenberg Principle and Consciousness, Naturalism, Determinism, Aristotelian Logic, Process Philosophy, Creationism, Cosmological Argument, Teleological Argument, Intelli...

From Epistemics of Divine Reality (2007, 2011) pp. 213-214 The Trinitarian perspective of the Divine as Triune (Unity in Trinity) and the image of God in man as a social unity of plurality (‘male and female…multiply…have dominion’) has been seen as one way of resolving this existential dilemma of unity-plurality. The Divine Community created the human community in its own image of unity in plurality, a concept that cannot be explained fully in either rational or empirical terms. The existential element that harmonizes the paradoxical senses is the divinely rooted gift of Love. Love is neither rational nor irrational, it is trans-rational, it is spiritual (‘the fruit of the Spirit’). It flows from Divine Nature, the Trinity, and resolves the confoundedness of sin-stricken humanity. Sin brings confusion, [1] according to the Bible, because of its revolt against relationships for the sake of the ego, that wants to be autonomous. It begins with a revolt against the Divine Community, which...

Excerpt from Epistemics of Divine Reality , p.227, 2007 Metaphysical sensations involve the accompanying sense of the paradoxical, which gives rise to metaphysical emotions. The various paradoxes are the paradoxes between reason and experience, viz ., transcendence-immanence, infinity-finitude, immutability-mutation, necessary-contingent, and unity-plurality. The inability of reason and experience to solve the paradoxes generates negative emotions. As has been already seen, neither reason nor experience, which are in reality, by combination, the source of the problem, can bring about a solution. For that would mean in each case to lift oneself by one’s own bootstraps. The only solution reason brings in is the rational which nullifies the empirical, ultimately leading to non-dualism. The ultimate that experience can do is the relativizing of truth to the chagrin of reason. The dissatisfaction of any such solution is bound to generate emotions that are negative; for man is not just consc...

In the Foreword of his book Jesus Rediscovered , Malcolm Muggeridge , referred to the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909– 1943) as "the most luminous intelligence of our time". Despite her brief life, much constrained by ill-health, she made important contributions to the field of philosophy and philosophical theology. One key concept of Weil's philosophy of God was "Absence". I quote from Wikipedia: Absence is the key image for her metaphysics , cosmology, cosmogeny, and theodicy . She believed that God created by an act of self-delimitation—in other words, because God is conceived as a kind of utter fullness, a perfect being, no creature could exist except where God was not. Thus creation occurred only when God withdrew in part. This is, for Weil, an original kenosis preceding the corrective kenosis of Christ's incarnation (cf. Athanasius). We are thus born in a sort of damned position not owing to original sin as such, but because to be created at ...

There is, however, no indication that the fruit of life could render the human body indestructible (as if even God could not destroy it). Hamartiology, p.11 Indestructibility will be a quality of the spiritual body given to the believer on resurrection or glorification: the source, Christ (1 Cor.15:42-49).

God created humans as mortals. Mortality was known to Adam, or else reference to it in the command would have meant nothing to him.... ...through Adam’s disobedience and choice of autonomy (physical well-being), mortality reached finality in Adam...." Hamartiology, p.10 (1) If man were created immortal, death could not be predicted of him in any condition. For “immortality” implies inability to die (physically). (2) If man were created immortal, the Tree of Life would be a meaningless addition to the Garden. Perhaps, a safer proposition might be “God created humans as neither mortals nor immortals” because of the condition of non-finality.

Sri Gaudapada, spiritual teacher of Sri Sankaracharya, wrote a Karika (expository treatise) in the early 8th century A.D. It was meant to provide a systematic and rational exposition of the main teachings of the Upanisads. It argues for the doctrine of non-dualism, which basically states that reality is non-dual (the Indian philosophers hesitated to use the term “monism” since they thought that reality can only be talked of via negative). It must be remembered that salvation or liberation in Hinduism is chiefly from the cycle of rebirth; that is one reason why the Christian term “born again” might not be preliminarily understood by certain Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists – since, for them salvation is a liberation from the bondage of being reborn again and again. In the Karika, however, there is nothing like emancipation from physical rebirth. In fact, all such phenomenal concepts of birth or rebirth are denied as false. Liberation or salvation is synonymous with a renunciation of the em...

From the Appendix of Epistemics of Divine Reality (2007, 2009), pp. 197-199. Divine foreknowledge refers to God’s possession of the knowledge of future. The problem is whether God’s omniscience entails that He actually knows our future free actions. Rational fideism sees that the paradox is because of the distinct lines of rational and empirical epistemics by which theologians approach the issue. For instance, Norman Geisler in the rationalist way, and appealing to transcendence and infinity, argues that “An infinite, eternal God knows what we know but not in the way we know it. As an eternal being, God knows eternally.’ This kind of an approach, however, bears no meaning for an empiricist, since it refers to a non-empirical way of knowing. On the other hand, in the empirical way, Gregory A. Boyd has argued that God does not foreknow future free actions because there is ‘nothing definite there for God to know’. In other words, knowledge entails a subject-object relation. However, since...

In his On Interpretations , chapter 9, Aristotle raises an important issue that relates to the application of the rules of bivalence and contradiction to statements about future. If the statement “there will be a sea fight tomorrow” is true now, then it implies that a sea fight is bound to happen tomorrow – though one may say that the statement is not the cause of the event, but only an assertion. Its contradictory statement “there will not be a sea fight tomorrow” would, therefore, be necessarily false.  Thus, necessity is predicated of both the statements: one is necessarily true while the other is necessarily false. This would mean that all events (past and future) are necessary and not fortuitous, meaning there were no unactualized possibilities. This went against Aristotle’s theory of potentiality and actuality; so, he considered propositions related to future as excepted from the rule of contradiction. If so, Jesus’ statement, “You will deny me thrice,” would not be subject to th...

If God foreknew that man was going to fall in sin , then why did He create the world? Answer # 1: The alternative positions to Christianity must be considered, first of all. Atheism. According to it God doesn’t exist; therefore, the problem of ‘why’ He created the world also doesn’t exist. However, the atheist must admit that ultimately ‘why’ the universe exists also is a meaningless question. Thus, lacking any eternal and absolute ground of existence, morality and justice are illusory concepts. In fact, the above question presupposes morality; for the question implies that God, by creating the world despite foreknowing its misery, appears to be evil rather than good. However, if an absolute such as morality doesn’t exist, then it would be meaningless to either convict or justify God. Thus, the question itself would be meaningless. In that sense, the atheist would have to rid himself absolutely of any moral obligation at all. Pantheism . According to it all is God and God is all;...