From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Mon Aug 15 2005 - 20:26:43 BST
Hello Sam --
If I may impose on your argument with DMB, I think what you've conceded here
is a monumental step for a priest. You are also metaphysically correct, in
my opinion, with the assertion that God does not exist (i.e., is not an
"existent"). Not only Eckhart but the neo-Platonists and Nicholas de Cusa
are in accordance with that assertion.
> What I'm denying is the _existence_ of God, because a) God is not an
entity,
> so b) God doesn't "exist" in any way in which we can give the words much
> sense. God is not a member of a class, so he's not a member of the class
of
> existing things. So to say 'God does not exist' is fully in tune with the
> tradition. As is saying that God created man etc. On both grounds I'm
> orthodox.
I've quoted this extract from my thesis previously, but it's worthy of
repetition here. Actually, I'd like to see it as a preface to Mr. Pirsig's
books:
Cusa theorized that, although God is indefinable, it can be stated that the
world is not God but is not anything other than God. God is "not other"
because God is not other than any other, even though "not-other" and "other"
(once derived) are opposed. But no other can be opposed to God from whom
it is derived.
Professor Clyde Miller of Stony Brook's Philosophy Department has formalized
this theory as a logical proposition: "For any given non-divine X, X is not
other than X, and X is other than not X. What is unique about the divine
not other is precisely that it is not other than either X or not X ('cannot
be other than'-'is not opposed to anything'). The transcendent not-other
thus undercuts both the principles of non-contradiction and of the excluded
middle."
> The trouble comes with people who think they know what the word God
> means, when they don't. (And the division between religious and
> non-religious is irrelevant, the misconceptions abound everywhere).
I couldn't agree with you more. And it is precisely this misconception that
has the anti-theists so irked.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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