Re: MD When is an interpretation not an interpretation?

From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Nov 15 2003 - 04:22:15 GMT

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    Johnny,
    >
    > I agree with Paul that you seem to think that the ideas that are "forced
    > into your head" must be somehow different from the ideas that you would
    > otherwise have.

    I made no allusion that the ideas would be different. I experience a set of
    ideas, and the question is do I produce them or does Quality produce them.

      No, they are the same ideas, there is no difference between
    > the ideas that a person has or would have and the ideas that Quality
    causes
    > them to have. Where do you think ideas come from if not Quality?

    Why not say that I create ideas -- and hence am DQ (and SQ of course)? But
    because the MOQ says I am only SQ, and must receive any new ideas from DQ,
    there is a difference -- not in the ideas, but their presumed source.

    >
    > You are keen to observe that it is no different from the sound thinking of
    > Calvin and Muhommed and Christ and Paul and Augustine and Edwards and
    Buddha
    > and Lao Tzu etc.

    The problem is stopping halfway, a lack of imagination that I don't think
    applies to all these gentlemen -- just the first two (though I don't know
    about Edwards). I think you're confusing two things: theological determinism
    on the one hand, and the need for Grace on the other. I agree with the
    latter, but not the former. Yes, the self is contingent, a creation, etc.
    But it is different from (our experience of) other creations, like trees and
    rocks, in that it is aware of itself, and has free will and hence the
    ability of itself creating (and sinning). So there is a contradiction: All
    power is God's, but I have power and I am not God, yet because I have power
    I must be God. Or I am a deluded dupe, thinking I have power yet having
    none. If the latter, then God is evil for deluding me, etc., etc.

    Hence my espousal of the logic of contradictory identity. It is the only way
    to avoid the sort of stopping-halfway errors of theology, and the MOQ. One
    cannot say the self exists, or is free, but one also cannot say that the
    self doesn't exist, or is not free (or both or neither). Its freedom depends
    on its contingency and boundedness, and vice versa.

    - Scott

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