Doxastic control?

Originally posted by bbarr
If you don't have anything to add to the discussion, please desist from cluttering the thread. Only you think that your posts are anything other than tangential nonsense.

Yes, but exactly how many angels can dance on the head of a pin ?

Originally posted by caissad4
Yes, but exactly how many angels can dance on the head of a pin ?

Don't worry your pretty little head about it.

Originally posted by knightmeister
It's a tricky one because only the Holy Spirit can really lead you to Christ. You can have all the intellectual reasons you like but until you come to the realisation that every living day you are walking in the presence of the living God then it's nothing more than an intellectual puzzle to be solved.

So why should you search or seek God? Many peo ...[text shortened]... will take to get your attention and it will be his witness not mine. So , what would it take?

I could argue that our experience of free will is an indicator of God , or that the argument for eternity is quite a strong one given that something coming from nothing seems silly.

This would be along the right track. But I'm familiar with these arguments of yours, and I think they both fail. First, your free will discussions don't work toward the conclusion that God exists. What you do is you try to invoke God as a possible explanation (you basically import Him in as a premise) for how your libertarian free will is plausible. And, anyhow, you are incredibly vague and inadequate at describing just how this would work. Where you are not too vague to be taken seriously, your explanation just doesn't work because, again, whatever qualities or properties or states that God infixes in you are identically specified at (if you recall the specifics of the discussion) T0 and T3. And your argument for eternity doesn't seem to point to a necessary being any more than it points to an infinite string of contingent beings. Further, even if you were to succeed in showing it likely that some necessary being exists, you would certainly need much additional argument to show that this necessary being is the particular god described by the Bible. Beyond that, you tend to equivocate on "eternal" -- sometimes you mean to say that God is without beginning or end and other times you mean to say that God exists independently of temporal relations. The latter will get you into serious difficulty, in my opinion, because you are also committed to the idea that God is and has been causally active in time.

If God really is there then he knows exactly what it will take to get your attention and it will be his witness not mine.

Then, supposing he exists, it should also be rather curious why so many people think even unto their deathbeds that they have insufficient evidence for his existence. Being all-powerful, he could of course simply make it such that every agent has what they take to be sufficient evidence to believe in him. Stronger and better yet, he could simply make it such that everyone has at their disposal sufficiently strong actual evidence for his existence and that everyone is properly responsive to this evidence. That way, everyone comes to belief in him and they do so on rational grounds without being epistemologically irresponsible. If, as you seem to suggest, only God can witness effectively (and he can, of course, always do so successfully), then it seems to reflect rather poorly on God that so many don't come to believe in him when this means that they will endure eternal torment.

Thinking preemptively about replies some theists might have:

This process of providing us with good strong reasons would not thereby rob us of any free will, any more than your having good reasons to think you have hands robs you of your free will. It would not thereby produce robots, any more than your coming to rational belief on other matters makes you a robot. Sure, it might render "faith" in him difficult or impossible, but faith in this sense is irresponsible to begin with. It would not thereby render "fake" any love you might have for God, any more than your love for your wife in the midst of good reasons for her existence is thereby rendered fake. So why wouldn't he do this? Also, preemptively, if your claim is going to be that the real magic lies in the "experiment or journey" that leads one to belief; well, God could of course simply provide us each and all with sufficient reason to undertake the journey; so you would still need to explain why so many don't thus journey before they croak.

it will be his witness not mine.

If you don't think you can witness successfully, then what are your goals concerning your participation in this forum?

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]I could argue that our experience of free will is an indicator of God , or that the argument for eternity is quite a strong one given that something coming from nothing seems silly.

This would be along the right track. But I'm familiar with these arguments of yours, and I think they both fail. First, your free will discussions don't work towa ...[text shortened]... cessfully, then what are your goals concerning your participation in this forum?[/b]

You think you get it but you don't really. Sit down , relax and ask God to reveal his presence to you . Ask him to touch you via his Holy Spirit . By touch I mean reach your heart in a way that gives you some idea of his presence with you. If you honestly ask him he will meet you halfway , it's a cast iron guarantee , but you will need to listen very hard and be attentive.

You see it's not really about belief but about getting to know a person. It's about intimacy not intellectuality. Even if I could prove to you 100% that God existed via rational , philosophical argument it would still be no good because you would still have to get to know him. Knowing my wife exists is not the same as "knowing" her.

You ask God for evidence that he is there when he is right there (and always has been) by your side with you. It's just that you are too busy looking for him in the world of arguments and books and thinking to see him for who he really is.

"Be still and know that I am God"

Originally posted by knightmeister
You think you get it but you don't really. Sit down , relax and ask God to reveal his presence to you . Ask him to touch you via his Holy Spirit . By touch I mean reach your heart in a way that gives you some idea of his presence with you. If you honestly ask him he will meet you halfway , it's a cast iron guarantee , but you will need to listen very h oks and thinking to see him for who he really is.

"Be still and know that I am God"

So you want me to sit down and start addressing what I take to be a nonexistent? You want me to sit down and start asking X to provide sufficient evidence for me to believe that X exists? You want me to address God with the expectation that God will bring me into evidence for God's existence? What nonsense. You're worse than just terrible at witnessing.

Sure, knowing an actual person is different than just having sufficient reason to believe the person exists in the first place. But, isn't the latter somehow necessary for the former if we want to be consistent in our dealings?

Originally posted by LemonJello
So you want me to sit down and start addressing what I take to be a nonexistent? You want me to sit down and start asking X to provide sufficient evidence for me to believe that X exists? You want me to address God with the expectation that God will bring me into evidence for God's existence? What nonsense. You're worse than just terrible at witnessin ...[text shortened]... sn't the latter somehow necessary for the former if we want to be consistent in our dealings?

If you are 100% absolutely sure that God doesn't exist then fine . If not then use the 0.000001% of you that thinks he might just exist somehow to take a risk and see what happens. The worst that could happen is that you find out something about yourself and spirituality. You have so much to gain and little to lose by trying. God already knows whether you want to be bothered with him or not . If you want to find him you will , if you don't you won't , that's the way he's set the world up. If you seek him with 0.0001% who knows what might happen.

"Seek and you will find"

Originally posted by knightmeister
If you are 100% absolutely sure that God doesn't exist then fine . If not then use the 0.000001% of you that thinks he might just exist somehow to take a risk and see what happens. The worst that could happen is that you find out something about yourself and spirituality. You have so much to gain and little to lose by trying. God already knows whether p. If you seek him with 0.0001% who knows what might happen.

"Seek and you will find"

I'm not "100% absolutely sure" that God doesn't exist, just like I am not absolutely certain about much of anything. I am certainly open to the existence of God, but it's going to take what I think are good reasons to sway me. It is going to take considerations that I think bear directly on the truth of the proposition "God exists". Again, if you knowingly cannot provide them, then what are your goals here?

And again, if God himself can provide them to me (indeed, as you seem to imply, is the only one who can provide them to me); and if his failing to do so means I will have to endure unthinkable torment; then why doesn't he provide them?

Originally posted by knightmeister
You have so much to gain and little to lose by trying.

That's starting to sound like Pascal's wager, which you already said in this thread is a "crock".

Originally posted by LemonJello
That's starting to sound like Pascal's wager, which you already said in this thread is a "crock".

No , pascal's wager is about believing in God without knowing him or having any personal knowledge. The hope is that one's bet will turn out correct on the basis that if it isn't then all that will happen is death. There is no expectation that one will know God with Pascal.

God's wager is quite different. It says that if one dares to seek God then one will find him. This can happen this side of the grave not the other. It doesn't ask that you believe 100% only that you give a little bit in an attempt to find out something. No-one gets married without going on a casual date first.

Any scientist knows that in order to find something out one needs to test a hypothesis via an experiment. You seem to want to know the result of the experiment before you do the experiment. If God is not there then nothing will happen will it. It's the enemy of your soul that says "don't get sucked in , don't take a risk , you might lose yourself" He hate the idea of losing you to God and will do anything to try and convince you it's not worth bothering with.

Originally posted by knightmeister
No , pascal's wager is about believing in God without knowing him or having any personal knowledge. The hope is that one's bet will turn out correct on the basis that if it isn't then all that will happen is death. There is no expectation that one will know God with Pascal.

God's wager is quite different. It says that if one dares to seek God then ...[text shortened]... ou to God and will do anything to try and convince you it's not worth bothering with.

Have you heard the expression "Seek and you will find"?

It means that if you want to find something, you will...

Originally posted by knightmeister
No , pascal's wager is about believing in God without knowing him or having any personal knowledge. The hope is that one's bet will turn out correct on the basis that if it isn't then all that will happen is death. There is no expectation that one will know God with Pascal.

God's wager is quite different. It says that if one dares to seek God then ...[text shortened]... ou to God and will do anything to try and convince you it's not worth bothering with.

O.K., great, so we should not believe that God exists in order to seek Him, but merely posit His existence in the manner of a scientific hypothesis. O.K., here we go:

I am now positing the existence of God from my office. I am sincerely asking Him to reveal himself to me.

Nothing yet...

I am now asking for some sign, any sign, that God exists. I am looking out my window into the courtyard and waiting for a sign. I see one squirrel running across a branch of an elm tree. I see the psychologists in the annex building looking out their window. I see a couple students throwing a football. Are any of these signs? How should I tell?

Nothing yet stands out as significant of the presence of your God. How long should I wait? Please advise.

Originally posted by knightmeister
No , pascal's wager is about believing in God without knowing him or having any personal knowledge. The hope is that one's bet will turn out correct on the basis that if it isn't then all that will happen is death. There is no expectation that one will know God with Pascal.

God's wager is quite different. It says that if one dares to seek God then ...[text shortened]... ou to God and will do anything to try and convince you it's not worth bothering with.

Any scientist knows that in order to find something out one needs to test a hypothesis via an experiment.

How should I set up and run the experiment to test the proposition that God exists? Please be specific in your instructions. I found the "God's wager" to be too vague to help me out here because I'm not sure what it means for one to "dare to seek God".

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]Any scientist knows that in order to find something out one needs to test a hypothesis via an experiment.

How should I set up and run the experiment to test the proposition that God exists? Please be specific in your instructions. I found the "God's wager" to be too vague to help me out here because I'm not sure what it means for one to "dare to seek God".[/b]

I've been walking around for the past hour waiting for my hypothetical posit that God exists to come to evidential fruition. It has been a nice walk, and it is beautiful outside, but I had a beautiful walk yesterday without the posit. KM, your help here would be appreciated.

Originally posted by bbarr
O.K., great, so we should not believe that God exists in order to seek Him, but merely posit His existence in the manner of a scientific hypothesis. O.K., here we go:

I am now positing the existence of God from my office. I am sincerely asking Him to reveal himself to me.

Nothing yet...

I am now asking for some sign, any sign, that God exists. I am ...[text shortened]... stands out as significant of the presence of your God. How long should I wait? Please advise.

Christ says, "ask, and you shall receive," and, "keep on asking..." Seeking God entails prayer; not just one prayer, but diligent prayer.

A person sincerely seeking ANYTHING will not cease until he or she finds it. For example, if I wanted more than anything to have a doctoral degree at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, then despite any difficulty I will diligently work at finishing my dissertation. The same holds true for the seeker of God in Christ Jesus. If a seeker is sincere, that seeker will seek diligently.

Some people aren't even remotely vexed by the possible existence or non-existence of a holy Creator-God and cannot be bothered. Such is life, I guess, that most people need to suffer great distress or defeat before they will ever diligently seek God's face.

The other hurdle is that the Bible is intellectually unfashionable. Which is unfortunate because, "faith comes by hearing the word of God." It is in God's word where seekers encounter God directly and where faith is imparted. Yes, God is immanent and no doubt His infinite attributes can be indirectly anticipated in the world which He made, but we can only truly know God through His word. Faith is only found by encountering God in His word. Faith is not blind.

It is not hard to grasp the fact that those who do not seek do not find. But Christ assures anyone willing to listen that any individual who hungers and thirst for the Truth WILL eventually find it (and it will be unmistakable). "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself" (John 7:17).

Originally posted by bbarr
O.K., great, so we should not believe that God exists in order to seek Him, but merely posit His existence in the manner of a scientific hypothesis. O.K., here we go:

I am now positing the existence of God from my office. I am sincerely asking Him to reveal himself to me.

Nothing yet...

I am now asking for some sign, any sign, that God exists. I am ...[text shortened]... stands out as significant of the presence of your God. How long should I wait? Please advise.

Why are you looking for a sign that he exists? I said nothing about external signs , what I did say is that if one is still enough and sensitive enough one is able to sense God's presence. One of the problems with this is that we don't realise how close God is to us. You are looking out the window for your glasses when actually you don't realise they are resting on your very nose!