From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Tue Aug 16 2005 - 07:29:56 BST
Hi Ham
If, as you rightly point out, the position is 'metaphysically correct', and
in accordance with all the major Christian teachers down the centuries
(excluding modern Protestantism) - why does it count as a 'monumental step
for a priest'? All it means is that I was taught properly. A teaching I now
pass on further.
Sam
The New Testament can be summarised easily:
1. Unless you love, you die.
2. If you love, they will kill you.
(From remarks by Herbert McCabe)
----- Original Message -----
From: <hampday@earthlink.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: MD Self-Evident MoQ Truths
>
> 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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