From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Free will - the "Jarekian" heresy.
Date: 1 Oct 92 03:47:52 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Richardson TX
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In article <ksand-270992140628@wintermute.apple.com> ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
>From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
>Subject: Re: Free will - the "Jarekian" heresy.
>Date: 27 Sep 92 21:07:07 GMT

>In article <exukjb.237.717360987@exu.ericsson.se>, exukjb@exu.ericsson.se
>(ken bell) wrote:
>> I don't disagree. Making god transcendent to the world and any possible 
>> human experience is much more fatal to theism than relegating god to the
>> status of an abstraction.  My point was that abstractions can at least be 
>> discussed and criteria of intelligibility can be used to assess them.  
>> They are discussable.  The transcendent god isn't.   

>True, this is why I subscribe to the simple observation Wittgenstein 
>defined:

>"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silentS 

>Cheers,
>Kent

>        Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to  investigate. -F.M.
>Knowles
>-------------------
>Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
>DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.

This dictum from Wittgenstien used to mystify and give me a sense of 
real intellectual enlightment. It no longer does since it seems to 
say little more than that there are limits to what can be said, and on 
very little reflection it is easy to see why this should be so. Many of the 
words we use are definable only ostensively, such as "yellow".  Is "yellow", 
then, transcendent and beyond discursive understanding?  Obviously not; it's 
just that the ultimate referent of the word is not another word but 
something nonlinguistic, but not for that reason "transcendent" to all human 
understanding or experience.  In fact, quite the opposite is true: if "
yellow" did *not* fall within the orbit of our experience, we should have no 
way of knowing about it, talking about it, or discussing it. And, if so, as 
I have been saying, any discussion of it would be empty and futile.

You could, I suppose, say that the simple quality designated by "yellow"
is transcendent to language.  That's ok.  But you can't say it transcends
all human experience and understanding without making "yellow" very like
"fjdsak".   And my point is that if God is like "asdfdk" and not ultimately 
like "yellow", then God does indeed transcend all human experience and 
understanding, and is therefore no possible object of human belief and no
possible subject of intelligent discourse.  To repeat, an undiscussable 
god might as well be no god at all.

As I write these words, I get the strange feeling we may be talking at
cross purposes here, and may I suggest we take this discussion somewhere
besides alt.atheism, perhaps "alt.philosophy.misc" or something?
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/* Kenny  *   Welcome to Mind Wars! */
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