Just a quickie here, maliagar, I did not miss your point and I did read the pertinent post in its entirety (I have a sense of punctiliousness about such things, you see. We all have our crosses to bear
) To cut to the chase,
maliagar wrote:Objection 1. It would seem that blindness of mind and dulness of sense do not arise from sins of the flesh. For Augustine (Retract. i, 4) retracts what he had said in his Soliloquies i, 1, "God Who didst wish none but the clean to know the truth," and says that one might reply that "many, even those who are unclean, know many truths." Now men become unclean chiefly by sins of the flesh. Therefore blindness of mind and dulness of sense are not caused by sins of the flesh.
Objection 2. Further, blindness of mind and dulness of sense are defects in connection with the intellective part of the soul: whereas carnal sins pertain to the corruption of the flesh. But the flesh does not act on the soul, but rather the reverse. Therefore the sins of the flesh do not cause blindness of mind and dulness of sense.
Objection 3. Further, all things are more passive to what is near them than to what is remote. Now spiritual vices are nearer the mind than carnal vices are. Therefore blindness of mind and dulness of sense are caused by spiritual rather than by carnal vices.
To objection one: By what evidence do you determine and to whom do you assign "Blindness of mind and dulness
(sic) of sense"? Surely, that would apply to those more comfortable with the philosophic and academic crutches of settling for the pre-packaged, predigested "answers" offered by superstition than to those with the wit, intellect, and determination to reject mysticism and seek answers wherever the study might lead. Further, I submit that "Unclean" and "Sins of the flesh" are arbitrary, meaningless, undefined terms, having no legitimate forensic value, dependent as they are upon the existance not just of a god, but on the existence of a particular example of the same. No empirical, independently verifiable, reproduceable evidence affirming or denying the existence of such has ever been confirmed, or denied, rendering the core concept of apologetics derived therefrom invalid by virtue of lack of foundation.
To Objection 2: See above
To objection 3: First, by what evidence and on what authority do you determine objectively and define unambiguously what may be a "Spiritual Vice" or a "Carnal Vice", let alone what my be the relationship of such undefined terms to the essentially likewise undefined construct of "The Mind"? Finally, see above.
Oh, and Marx and Freud? Not only are you indefatigable, you are irrepressible. I would surmise that to our respective particular assessments each of the other, we each are irredeemable. :wink:
I say again, no theologic argument has application or validity to anything beyond the realm of the metaphysical, a construct of assumptions, assumptions, circumlocutions, imagination, and fancy, subject to no proof which is not circular, and as a proof cannot be circular, subject to no proof. One is left with a irreducible dichotomy between "Faith" and "Reason"; the two are antithetical. What "Faith" decrees, "Reason" disects, and finding therein not substance, but sophistry, contradiction, improbability, and absurdity, discards. I say again as well no differentiation can be made between "Faith" and "Superstition"; by whatever name, a belief set which ascribes supernatural attribute, cause, or effect to observed phenomona rests on no evidentiarilly valid foundation. The burden of "Proof" falls to the one making the assertion. I submit there is no proof yet discovered for religion; it is but an hypothesis, and one incapable of academic verification. It simply does not stand to reason, by either direct or inferential critique. Simply that there is a market for it lends it no intrinsic value. In that regard, that lumps it right there with Entertainment. It don't take much to entertain some folk.
