Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. (2 Corinthians 12:19)
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Current Events and Gordon Clark
Some of my readers may have heard of The Trinity Foundation, one of the first sites that aroused my interest in Gordon Clark. Recently, The Gordon Clark Foundation has been coming out with many unpublished writings by Clark (and others, such as his father) which I thought some might find interesting. Once Douglas Douma (link) finishes his biography, which looks to be promising, I will have to update my research to reflect additional statements of note on Clark's positive epistemological views (link).
If any work is the best challenge to the entirety of Clark's theory, though it was not intended to do so, it would be BACCHIOCCHI, Samuele - Immortality or Resurrection. This work is a refutation of traditional platonic/christian anthropology, the doctrine of the soul.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/250210744/BACCHIOCCHI-Samuele-Immortality-or-Resurrection
I've criticized Clark's metaphysics, but as he himself acknowledge that wasn't his forte, I don't know how a book about metaphysics can be said to challenge "the entirety of Clark's theory"?
ReplyDeleteWell, Bacchiocchi makes the argument that there is no soul. True, this does not rule out truth by propositional revelation but it does destroy his idea of innate forms, thus his theory of language and many of his criticisms of Behaviorism. I think that is very significant.
ReplyDeleteRyan,
ReplyDeleteI would like to know what you think about this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCHNAjEYaFo
Does that mean he believes man is purely physical? What does he think "soul" refers to, the mind? I see he rejects dualism for wholism, but I'm unable to target search on scribd so don't really know what he means.
ReplyDeleteScripturalists can be sloppy when it comes to critiques of scientific knowledge. I completely agree with the video maker that a belief that rests on the scientific method can still be true, I pointed this out years ago in my post "Infinite Worldviews."
What he says about switching the B for the A of an argument which originally affirms the consequent is also true. You can do that, and the argument would be sound (although he seems to recognize the new premise is subject to questioning). I made this same mistake 6 years ago when I first encountered Clark and hadn't really done much critical thinking. I stopped using that argument very quickly once I did.
I can see where he's coming from regarding the use of modus tollens logic in science, but in my first post on falsificationism on this blog, I point out this mere objective of theory-rejection doesn't work because an observer never really knows where the inconsistency lies. Yes, there is a discrepancy between my observation and my hypothesis - that just means either my observation was illusory or my hypothesis is false, nothing more. They can water down the claim by saying that many people have claimed to observe x, so it's at least probably the case that x rather than hypothesis y. Even if that were true it wouldn't rise to the level of knowledge as the video maker would wish it to (i.e. we know not-y). You haven't actually eliminated y. But this actually is further problematic in that the only way in which we could come to believe many people believe x is, again, through observation. Our observation of other people observing x is itself subject to the above point regarding the possibility of illusory observation. It's only when you take a radical stance that observations can't be illusory that you can resist this - but that's when I counter with the contingency of knowledge and unknown variables argument.
Ryan,
ReplyDelete"Does that mean he believes man is purely physical? What does he think "soul" refers to, the mind?"
>>>Yes, purely physical. The mind always a faculty of the physical body is the proper understanding of the english word soul, but it is not to be thought of as something possibly disembodied, as per Clark.
What he means is that Man is his physical body and Yah has bestowed upon him the breath of life. The breath of life is what leaves man at death not his soul leaving his body. The soul/being
"Scripturalists can be sloppy when it comes to critiques of scientific knowledge. I completely agree with the video maker that a belief that rests on the scientific method can still be true, I pointed this out years ago in my post "Infinite Worldviews."
>>>Wo
To what, then, does our act of thinking correspond? Merely a physical process in the brain? Aren't the propositions we think non-physical? Don't we have the same thoughts as other people without having the same physical processes?
ReplyDeleteHi Drake: if the soul cannot be disembodied then what do you make of this scripture: "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knows;) such a one caught up to the third heaven." (2 Cor 12:2)
ReplyDeleteWhat about this scripture too: "We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." (2 Cor 5:8)
Ryan,
ReplyDelete"To what, then, does our act of thinking correspond? Merely a physical process in the brain?"
>>>Yes, acting according to the genetic program Yah placed within our dna. And by the way, Noam Chomsky showed how Clark did not understand Skinner's view of genetic determinism. Chomsky showed how Skinner denied genetic determinism. Skinner believed that behavior was determined by the external environment, not any genetic innate qualities.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19711230.htm
Chomsky believed that language and behavior was a product of genetic determinism and skinner rejected that. That was the whole point to their debate. I think Clark totally misses that.
"Aren't the propositions we think non-physical?"
>>>It is a mistake to think that an action is a thing whose constitution we must investigate. Is running physical or non physical? Neither. It is an activity of a physical body.
"Don't we have the same thoughts as other people without having the same physical processes?"
>>>We don't have the numerically exact same process but we clearly have the same generic process.
Max,
ReplyDelete2 Cor 12:1 shows a VISION not to be taken as a reflection of a physical event.
As for 2 Cor 5 you left out verse 6:
Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord
The physical view of this verse must then deny the omnipresence of Yah. He is talking about affection.
Ryan, I am compiling a list of examples of materialist naturalist logical fallacies.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever compiled examples of induction fallacies from atheist works? When I studied the heliocentrism issue I compiled a number.
"It is a mistake to think that an action is a thing whose constitution we must investigate. Is running physical or non physical? Neither. It is an activity of a physical body."
ReplyDeleteUnderstood, but how does an act of something physical allow it to relate (by way of comprehension, assent, etc.) to something not physical? I can understand if we, like God, are in part metaphysically non-physical so can relate to the non-physical in such-wise. But without any metaphysical overlap, I don't see how it's possible.
"We don't have the numerically exact same process but we clearly have the same generic process."
On what grounds?
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteOur brains by way of our genetic composition.
Drake,
ReplyDeleteWhen Paul said he did not know if the experience was in or out of the body, does it not imply that one can be outside of their body? Paul was not sure if it was a vision, or not.
About 2 Cor 5, sometimes Paul intends a physical meaning in one clause, and a spiritual in the next clause, for example see 1 Cor 6:16-17: "do you not know that he which is joined [carnally] to an harlot is one body? for two, says he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined [spiritually] unto the Lord is one spirit with him."
My view of 2 Cor 5:6-8 is, if you are in a physical body, then you are absent from the Lord, that is to say, you are not sinless. To be present with the Lord is to be sinless. When you put off this body, you become sinless, like the saints in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, "so shall we ever be WITH THE LORD."
Also, Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you (Lk 17:21), but Paul said that flesh and blood cannot inherit it (1 Cor 15:50). To me this necessitates something inside us which is not flesh and blood, namely the soul or spirit. The spirit fights the flesh [our physical bodies]. (Gal 5:17)
Max,
ReplyDeleteNo. It just means that in the vision he is taken somewhere else than where his body truly is. This is exactly how Ezekiel describes it:
8:1 It came about in the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord [a]God fell on me there. 2 Then I looked, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of [b]a man; from His loins and downward there was the appearance of fire, and from His loins and upward the appearance of brightness, like the appearance of [c]glowing metal. 3 He stretched out the form of a hand and caught me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the [d]north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the idol of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located. 4 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the appearance which I saw in the plain.
Notice how he says, "and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem". He didn't physically take his body to jerusalem. But in the vision he went somewhere else than where his body is. That is Paul's meaning in 2 Cor 12.
He makes very clear in verse 1 that he is talking about visions. What he doesn't know about is your assertion:
3 And I know how such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows
You then make mockery of 2 Cor 5, and I'm not wasting my time on your comments.
Bachiochi deals with 1 cor 15:50 on page 268
http://www.friendsofsabbath.org/Further_Research/Bacchiocchis%20Research/Immortality%20or%20Resurrection.pdf