To: Mr Rogers
God IS Reason, the Logos, the basis of all order in the universe. If God is Logos, it means that a norm of reason follows from what God is. Things are, because they have natures and are intended to be the way they are because God is what he is: He has his own inner order.
To reject God as the Logos, is to reject an essential distinction between Christianity and Islam. In Islam, God is not Logos, but "Will," as most Muslum thinkers hold Allah to be. For them, Logos places a "limit" on Allah. He cannot do everything because he cannot do both evil and good. He cannot do contradictionaries.
Thus, if we want to "worship" Allah, it means we must be able to make what is evil good or what is good evil. That is, we can do whatever is said to be the "will" of Allah, even if it means doing violence as if it were "reasonable."
Otherwise, we would "limit" the "power" of Allah -- an attempt to make violence "reasonable." This different conception of the Godhead constitutes the essential difference between Christianity and Islam, both in their concept of worship and of science. It's the reason why science as we know it emerged in a Catholic Culture rather than in the Muslim world, or any pagan world, for that matter.
Truth is the conformity of the mind with reality. This means that a reality exists that we do not ourselves make. It is a reality that cannot be "otherwise" by our own will. It also means that God established what is, not we ourselves.
Thus, if we are to know the "truth," which is what makes us "free," it means that we know what God created, is what it is. We rejoice to know the truth that we did not make. The wonder of what is, elates us.
If Allah is pure will, then anything that is, can be the opposite of what it is, so that nothing really is what it is. It can always be otherwise.
Faith directs itself to reason and that reason is a reality that is not invented by the human mind. We did not fabricate the mind we have that thinks. We are to use it. We invent neither it nor reality.
There can be no "dialogue" about anything until the basic principles of reason are granted both in theory and practice. Chesterton remarked on the fact that those who begin to attack the Church for this or that reason, mostly end up attacking it for any reason.
What is behind the attack on reason or the refusal to admit that God is Logos already a suspicion that the Church is right about intellect and its conditions. We have no guarantee that reason will freely be accepted.
Von Balthasar said that we are warned that we are sent among wolves. We are naive to think that Christ was wrong when he warned us that the world would hate us for upholding Logos and the order of things it implies -- the actual implication of your reference to St. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians. The wisdom of this world is founded on a false premise -- a premise that is lacking in the proper grounds for reason, the Logos that is God, discovered within the intrinsic order and goodness of His creation.
174 posted on
07/20/2009 4:28:55 PM PDT by
bdeaner
(The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Cor. 10:16))
To: bdeaner
Isaiah 55:8-9 (New International Version)
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
175 posted on
07/20/2009 4:35:40 PM PDT by
boatbums
(Pro-woman, pro-child, pro-life!)
To: bdeaner
Rom 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
Rom 16:18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.I just read your last post and these passages immediately came to mind...
180 posted on
07/20/2009 4:55:52 PM PDT by
Iscool
(I don't understand all that I know...)
To: bdeaner
God is not unreasonable. However, the idea that we can understand God by human reason is incomprehensible. Can an ant reason about humans?
Compared to God, we are far less than ants.
We need revelation, and must admit that when revelation ends, so does our understanding.
181 posted on
07/20/2009 4:58:10 PM PDT by
Mr Rogers
(I loathe the ground he slithers on!)
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