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Originally Posted by Listener
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Originally Posted by GodPossessed
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Originally Posted by JamesBannon
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Originally Posted by GodPossessed
If you mean "reality" to be that which plan upon and respond to, I suppose I agree. However, if you are asserting that there is no objective truth outside of perception I would strongly dissagree. 1+1=2 before I was born, whether I like it or not, whether I believe it or not, and will be true after I'm dead. There is a false humility afoot these days that considers itself unqualified to say anything definitive. Meanwhile - the Emperor is stil au naturale.
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Oh dear, not that crap. Good grief! 1+1=2 in the real number system is true since it can be determined a priori simply from the properties of real numbers. However, outside that system the statement is totally meaningless. You make the same mistake Platinga does - Platonist, Pythagorean mystical claptrap. There is no such object as a number, it is an entirely human construction.
ETA: And the same can be said of "truth". The universe, if it is proper to speak of it as an entity at all, is simply a collection of objects. We "model" it by various means and call those models "true" if they conform to certain human ideas of truth, but truth itself is a construction, not an inherent property of the universe. Same with numbers or any other human construction, scientific, religious or otherwise. |
First off, let me congratulate you for being familar with Plantinga. You, at least, are somewhat current with classical apologetics. Would you be happier if I used identity, non-contradiction, the excluded middle and rational inference as things that we discover, not create? Truth is an interpretation given to facts. It's the conclusion in your syllogism. I tend to agree with you about numbers. |
Oodear 
Crossposting! Never having read Plantinga I'm obviously disadvantaged.
I can muddle through the language though ....
"Truth" is a relationship between a "proposition" (statement if you like) and a state of affairs in the world. You can have rules about what can constitute a "true" proposition (e.g. I cannot be going both East AND West but I can be both underweight and obese.)
Now what I think we want to mean by "Truth" is context dependent. We can't go off on a mission looking for "Truth" without it being "The truth about something"
In our context we're discussing truth about the existence (or otherwise) of "God".
I usually try to change the language because it's virtually impossible to discuss the existence of a non-entity and tautologous to discuss the existence of an entity.
I've nailed my colours to the mast above - can someone explain the relevance of Plantinga? |
Heh... if I were to tell you what I
really felt about Plantinga's style of argument Listener, the board would probably melt. He is a modern neo-Platonist. His latest arguments, if I may paraphrase without too much detail, involve concepts such as beauty and simplicity in mathematical models of reality. What he forgets to tell you is that there is no necessary connection between these concepts and the actual reality we are trying to theorise about.
Now some other comments. "Truth" is a relationship between a statement and some state of affairs
in some particular world (or in some particular system). E.g., the truths of mathematics, i.e. proven mathematical theorems, are all true, and absolutely true, a priori
within that system. They are true nowhere else. It is only by applying mathematics in other spheres that we can determine its applicability in those spheres.
As for Plantinga's arguments about beauty and simplicity, well they are just so much metaphysical nonsense. I remember once hearing Stephen Hawking making the statement (in respect of one of own theories later shown to be false) "something this simple and beautiful just had to be right". Well, bollocks! This is utter nonsense. The only tests of any scientific theory are a) does it fit the data and b) how successful is it. Nothing else matters: beauty, simplicity, harmony (or parsimony to use the technical term) are all completely secondary to these first 2. If any theory does not fit the data or produce testable predictions then it is useless so far as science is concerned. Note however that some theories, e.g. Newtonian Mechanics, have
limited applicability and we can quite comfortably use these so long as we recognise what the limitations are. The point here is that they are not reality, even though the statements are true within the system.
ETA: More to follow when I'm a bit more awake and able to concentrate a bit more.