Posted on 05/01/2003 8:44:18 AM PDT by RJCogburn
That part is right, if not for him, at least for their followers. They couldn't handle H.U. v. Balthasar and or imagine that a minority of Catholic thinkers was doing the very job that Schaeffer hoped for (in the 50s).
The evangelical disaster was just that, a disaster. In truth, their diagnosis is no longer knowledgable enough to mention Plato or Aristotle. In the end, they could still tell the fish was sick (they followed S. this far) but their prescriptions today come in the same bottle from the best psychologists.
The distinction between Plato and Aristotle cannot describe Schaeffer's critique on modernism. Modernism--not Platonism--was the name of the pig that Schaeffer chased.
Of course many modernist like to claim Aristotle as a rationalist. But to say the Aristotelian view of reality is to be identified with rationalism is merely a rhetorical claim which the author picks up unwittingly. exmarine recognizes this problem.
If Platonism got bad rap from Sch. & Co. , it was second hand knowledge that caused it. It was the old despisement of the material world, so familiar to anyone who hasn't read a stitch of Plato or Aristotle, which they thought wrong. It happens that Aristotle thought it wrong too--and even Plato. Going against the "platonists," Aristotle claimed to search for the human good and not something out of human reach. And yet what does he suggest is the best life in book 10 of his Nicomachean Ethics? The highest good is to live most like the divine. In this sense and this sense alone can he be a rationalist: reason was the most divine part in us.
Aristotle dismissed "man is the measure" thingy although some think his practical reason is just that. It isn't. He thinks it is ludicrous to think the human person is the supreme being in the universe and explicitly says so.
As for Plato, few remember what he wrote in the Timaeus. Or the Symposium. Both books wrestle against the despisement of the body that Socrates gives in the earlier Phaedo.
It was an ascetic strain in evangelicalism that S. struggled against (the source of that strain would first lead to the 19th century, not 4th c. BC.) And so what Catholics already had, they admired the Renaissance, they wanted the faithful to relish the body like Rembrandt, they wanted the somnabulant and undisturbed suburbs not only to grow geraniums and light candles for christian Fahrvegnügen, but also to listen to Beethoven and go to the museums. Even more than that, they wanted their own to recognize the "existential methodology" that had permeated their thinking--unawares. It comes in like London fog, he said.
If there was mysticism in that fog, it was in the form that separated hope and optimism from reason. This too was a problem for their own. And so the pig got a real name: Barth. Of course the Catholics hosted their parasites as well: Kantians.
The only major hole I can see with perfection being self-defining is, would we know it if we saw it, in that case? IOW, how do we distinguish "perfect" from "imperfect" if "perfect" can do anything it likes and still be "perfect"?
Ah, well - the concept of perfection is a pretty sticky one, if you stop and think about it for a while. For some reason, Mill didn't think to consider that one, though ;)
It is what it is, particularly if it's defined as "perfect".
Why should you obey the impulse to eat when you are hungry, or to drink when you are thirsty? Certainly you are capable of ignoring those impulses, although I also think you understand the consequences of so doing ;)
In either case, though, what significance would either obedience or disobedience to the moral law ultimately have in a random, impersonal universe?
If you don't happen to accept Aquinas's thinking that suicide is a mortal and unforgivable sin, then there may not be any overarching consequence to ignoring those hunger pangs either. On the other hand, that doesn't mean there are no consequences in the here and now.
Indeed - atheists are probably limited to considering the problem of dysfunction ;)
True. On the other hand, proceeding in the opposite direction, and depending on who you ask, it's difficult to say that the divine right of kings is actually wrong, rather than merely distasteful. I note with some amusement that there is a certain contingent of posters here on FR who proudly proclaim themselves to be out-and-out monarchists - apparently even the distastefulness of it is still the subject of some discussion ;)
But again, this is an appeal to some transcendant moral order. It could be an evolved trait -- "Moral DNA", if you will. But as Diamond points out, it appears that "morality" will have lost its meaning in the context of this conversation. If it's an evolutionary thing, morality becomes a matter of random mutation!
Not purely so - social conventions don't simply spring forth sui generis, fully-formed and ready to roll, with no essential grounding in reality. Avoiding pork and shellfish in Bronze Age societies may very well be an eminently practical decision, although the mixing of two kinds of cloth thing always seemed like a bit of a curveball to me ;)
At any rate, this idea of "moral DNA" is really just the biochemical equivalent of "what can I get away with?"
But as I suggested before, so is any other conception of morality a weighing of potential benefits against potential consequences - the existence of God and transcendent morality only serves to throw a bit more weight against whatever immoral act you are considering, and then only if you accept some specific premises to begin with, more specific than simply "God and objective morality exist." There has to be some specific sense of agreement on what exactly God actually said and what exactly He actually meant - agreement that, in the most optimistic view, does not appear to be forthcoming any time soon among the various Christian denominations, let alone the other two-thirds of the world. The posters here on FR are less ideologically diverse than the population of the country as a whole, or the world as a whole, and yet I seriously doubt that you could get general assent in the religion forum to anything beyond the broadest of moral tenets - once you get beyond the obvious notions of murder and theft being wrong, things are likely to get a little hairy.
The "property of nature" approach seems weak, in that it does not easily explain how a Pharaoh can "get away with it" until he dies at a ripe old age.
Neither does transcendent morality explain how he can get away with it until the day he dies - it merely suggests that he has interests beyond that day which are not served by doing as he does. And even if we grant that such transcendent morality actually exists, what then are we to make of the countless Pharaohs throughout history who "got away with it" until they finally expired after a long and successful life of tyranny and debauchery? The existence of such transcendent moral proscriptions does not appear to have precluded the existence of Pharaohs....
Great question, Diamond. I figure I come up with the same answer that you do. For it seems to me that to try to make a "science" of God is pretty much the same thing as trying to square the circle. Either is an exercise in futility.
Diamond, it's wonderful to see you. You've been missed....
Your post is quite interesting. I would not agree with your assessment of Aristotle however. Since Aristotle was a pagan, he could not hold to true philosophy - that must be revealed from heaven. If Aristotle truly believed in a Supreme being, he had no idea who that being was. As Schaeffer pointed, out the Greek gods were small gods with limited powers.
If Aristotle truly believed in a Supreme being, he had no idea who that being was.
That is a curious statement, especially because it sounds most like Socrates. Socrates had no idea who that being was, but sought to find that being because he thought his life depended on it. He blames his contemporaries for thinking they are sufficient without it.
As for Aristotle, we can dispense with my assessment or Schaeffer's or anyone else's and take it from the philosopher himself:
If then God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and god's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belongs to God; for this is God. --MetaphysicsAnd having given the attributes, the next question he asks is how many there are:
It is clear, then, why these things are as they are. But we must not ignore the question whether we have to suppose one such substance ore more than one, and if the latter, how many.True, he was a pagan, but that can also be a good thing.
I think Schaeffer is the best Christian philosopher of the 20th century, save Lewis. He was right on about the marriage of Aristotle and Aquinas. Aristotlean ideas led to Galileo's persecution as the RC church had an Aristotlean view of the cosmos. That's what they get for adopting a pagan's philosophy.
I read philosophy mainly to understand the thinking of the enemies of God, and certainly not to form my philosophy. My philosophy comes from the Bible. The ONLY philosophers I like are christian philosophers.
Actually you need only to arrive at mature adulthood.
Randian ideas are a lot like pimples; many young people go through them but ultimately wind up just fine.
You are starting to scare me when you put these two names in one sentence ;-)
Yes, but only those who are in Christ can be called "children of God" (Romans 8). The rest are at enmity with God.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.