All posts by kielkopf1

About kielkopf1

I am Professor philosophy (emeritus) of the Ohio State University. I am blogging to promote a book on sexual moral philosophy and to develop further themes not fully developed in the book. I live in Columbus, Ohio with my wife Marge. My three sons: Charles P., Mark S. and Andrew J. live in Columbus. My daughter Judy lives in Rhode Island while my daughter Susan lives in Fresno, CA. My wife and I are daily Mass goers at our Catholic parish: Immaculate Conception. Marge is an active Lay Cistercian and I am very active in the works of the Society of St. Vincent dePaul.

Atheism vs the Transcendent

Core philosophy, Philosophical Theology, Philosophy of Religion

In my previous post,Immanence of the Transcendent I maintained that religious propositions are objectively true or false if and only if the Transcendent is immanent as truth conditions for such propositions.

I further observed that it is not inconsistent to maintain that the Transcendent is immanent as truth conditions. It would be inconsistent to say that the Transcendent is immanent without qualification. But I have qualified the Transcendent as being truth conditions. The Transcendent preserves its transcendence of our understanding by existing as truth conditions. Truth conditions make true or false propositions using our human ways of representing. But we can never think of how those truth conditions are apart from our ways of representing.

I had to concede, though, that the Transcendent as truth conditions does not transcend existence. Truth conditions exist. They are “in the world.”

How might an atheistic critique of my position proceed?

Of course, there could be rejection of the argument for the Transcendent.See . This might be a challenge to the meaningfulness of asking “On what does everything existing depend upon for its existence?”

However, accepting a transcendent beyond anything existing or comprehensible is no threat to atheism. It leaves room only for mysticism which holds and practices nothing beyond interior states of mystics. Religious threats to atheism arise when we try to go beyond total transcendence.

How have I gone beyond accepting total transcendence?

There were attempts to characterize the transcendent as the Transcendent creator and sustainer of features of what exists – the immanent. Traditional arguments for God’s existence were presented as characterizing the Transcendent.

Atheists could dismiss these efforts as worthless for showing that religious propositions are objectively true or false. At best these efforts would get, amongst philosophers and theologians, agreement on some characterizations about the Transcendent as warranted beliefs. In trying to characterize the Transcendent, we do seek only consensus on what is an apt characterization, not objective truth.

I have maintained that the Transcendent be immanent as truth conditions for religious propositions.

This position relies on a “Kantian” realism that truth conditions exist as things in themselves transcending our ways of thinking.

An atheist could reject this model of realism. But I do not think this is philosophically viable.

An atheist could stay a realist but hold that there need be no truth conditions for religious propositions because there really are no religious propositions. Properly understood, the so-called religious propositions say something else which is not a truth claim or a truth claim about something other than what speakers think they are talking about. This roughly describes reductionist critique of religion.

An atheist could accept some type of idealism about truth. In this case the atheist would give arguments to persuade people that there is no reason to warrant any religious belief.

The atheistic critiques of my position bring out that the introduction of God as the Transcendent does little or nothing towards responding to atheistic criticism of religious belief. At most it shows that atheists with a metaphysical temperament can be mystics and should concede that traditional arguments for God’s existence are legitimate philosophical efforts to construct a model of transcendence.

Religious apologetics remains as always. We need to show that religious propositions are genuine truth claims about a special subject matter and that many religious claims warrant belief because genuinely accepting them as true promotes human flourishing.

Immanence of the Transcendent as Religious Truth Conditions

Realism vs. anti-realism

Thesis: Religious propositions are true or false if and only if the Transcendent is immanent as truth conditions!

I focus on establishing the “only if” part.

Religious propositions are truth claims about what is immanent. For instance, “God is the father almighty creator of heaven and earth” is about the whole of what is immanent while “Jesus rose from the tomb after being crucified” is about a particular event within the immanent.

Although motivated by religious concerns, philosophical characterizations of the Transcendent are claims of philosophical theology. Admittedly, attempts to characterize the Transcendent are not even true or false. But in this post, in which I am engaged in philosophical theology, I am not interested in the status of claims within philosophical theology. I want to justify the following thesis.

If there are religious truths, then the Transcendent is immanent.

Unfortunately, my thesis is a “two edged sword” with respect to establishing immanence for the Transcendent. I want to conclude that the Transcendent is immanent because there are religious truths. Sophisticated atheists will use it to proclaim that there are no religious truths because it is incoherent to hold that the Transcendent is immanent.

Religious propositions are claims about the Transcendent although using our concepts for making claims about the immanent. So, if some religious propositions are objectively true, then some claims about the Transcendent using concepts for making claims about the immanent are objectively true.

Bear with me while I work this out through a series of hypotheticals.

If some claims about the Transcendent using concepts for making claims about the immanent are objectively true, then the Transcendent creates and sustains conditions in the immanent which make those claims about it objectively true or false

If the Transcendent creates and sustains conditions in the immanent for making claims about it using concepts appropriate to the immanent true or false, then the Transcendent creates and sustains conditions amongst things in themselves for making claims about it using concepts appropriate to the immanent true or false.

If the Transcendent creates and sustains conditions amongst things in them for making claims about it using concepts appropriate to the immanent true or false, then those conditions are the Transcendent as truth conditions or those conditions are not the Transcendent as truth conditions.

If those truth conditions are not the Transcendent as truth conditions, then those truth conditions are not truth conditions.

How do we get this contradictions for a reductio ad absurdum argument?

Religious claims are about the Transcendent using concepts for the immanent. If the Transcendent was not amongst things in themselves, none of the religious claims would be true or false because they would have nothing about the Transcendent to make them true or false.

So, we can conclude: Truth conditions for religious claims are the Transcendent as truth conditions in the immanent. (Recall that all truth conditions are things in themselves in the immanent.)

Now what about an atheist claim that it is oxymoron to hold that the Transcendent is immanent.

It is not incoherent to hold that the Transcendent is immanent as a thing in itself because the Transcendent does not lose its character as transcending our understanding. For things in themselves transcend our understanding for we cannot think of how they are apart from our ways of thinking.

Here we see a benefit to religion from adapting a “Kantian realism” that truth conditions are things in themselves transcending our understanding.

In the next post I wish to explore an atheistic reaction to a thesis that religious truth requires the immanence as truth conditions of the transcendent. Thesis: Religious propositions are true or false if and only if the Transcendent is immanent as truth conditions!

I focus on establishing the “only if” part.

Religious propositions are truth claims about what is immanent. For instance, “God is the father almighty creator of heaven and earth” is about the whole of what is immanent while “Jesus rose from the tomb after being crucified” is about a particular event within the immanent.

Although motivated by religious concerns, philosophical characterizations of the Transcendent are claims of philosophical theology. Admittedly, attempts to characterize the Transcendent are not even true or false. But in this post, in which I am engaged in philosophical theology, I am not interested in the status of claims within philosophical theology. I want to justify the following thesis.

If there are religious truths, then the Transcendent is immanent.

Unfortunately, my thesis is a “two edged sword” with respect to establishing immanence for the Transcendent. I want to conclude that the Transcendent is immanent because there are religious truths. Sophisticated atheists will use it to proclaim that there are no religious truths because it is incoherent to hold that the Transcendent is immanent.

Religious propositions are claims about the Transcendent although using our concepts for making claims about the immanent. So, if some religious propositions are objectively true, then some claims about the Transcendent using concepts for making claims about the immanent are objectively true.

Bear with me while I work this out through a series of hypotheticals.

If some claims about the Transcendent using concepts for making claims about the immanent are objectively true, then the Transcendent creates and sustains conditions in the immanent which make those claims about it objectively true or false

If the Transcendent creates and sustains conditions in the immanent for making claims about it using concepts appropriate to the immanent true or false, then the Transcendent creates and sustains conditions amongst things in themselves for making claims about it using concepts appropriate to the immanent true or false.

If the Transcendent creates and sustains conditions amongst things in them for making claims about it using concepts appropriate to the immanent true or false, then those conditions are the Transcendent as truth conditions or those conditions are not the Transcendent as truth conditions.

If those truth conditions are not the Transcendent as truth conditions, then those truth conditions are not truth conditions.

How do we get this contradictions for a reductio ad absurdum argument?

Religious claims are about the Transcendent using concepts for the immanent. If the Transcendent was not amongst things in themselves, none of the religious claims would be true or false because they would have nothing about the Transcendent to make them true or false.

So, we can conclude: Truth conditions for religious claims are the Transcendent as truth conditions in the immanent. (Recall that all truth conditions are things in themselves in the immanent.)

I had to concede, though, that the Transcendent as truth conditions does not transcend existence. Truth conditions exist. They are “in the world.”

Now what about an atheist claim that it is oxymoron to hold that the Transcendent is immanent.

It is not incoherent to hold that the Transcendent is immanent as a thing in itself because the Transcendent does not lose its character as transcending our understanding. For things in themselves transcend our understanding for we cannot think of how they are apart from our ways of thinking.

Here we see a benefit to religion from adapting a “Kantian realism” that truth conditions are things in themselves transcending our understanding.

In the next post I wish to explore an atheistic reaction to a thesis that religious truth requires the immanence as truth conditions of the transcendent.

Objective Truth and the Transcendent

Core philosophy, Realism vs. anti-realism

In a philosophic framework positing an immanent reality dependent for its existence on a transcendent, what is further posited by a philosophic stance that there are objective truths?

The immanent consists of human representations along with things in themselves. Things in themselves exist independently of being represented. Representations themselves are things in themselves in so far as they do not need to be represented to exist. We never think of things in themselves as they are in themselves. For we always think with representations. Yes, even when we think about our thinking we do not represent the thought which is thought about as it is independently of our thinking about it.

In this post, I am not primarily interested in the representation of representing or thinking about thinking. This is called “reflective thinking.” Unfortunately, I cannot ignore reflective thinking. I am engaged in it while writing this post. I am mostly interested in things in themselves as an existing reality which we can accurately or inaccurately represent. Some representations are truth claims. Let us call these truth claim representations “propositions” or” statements.” They are representations that such-and-such is the case. For example: Joe Biden was inaugurated president of the USA on January 20, 2021. There are religious propositions. An example of a religious representation truth claim asserts, “Jesus rose from his tomb after being crucified and buried.”

Propositions allegedly represent the order and connection of things in themselves.
Propositions are objectively true if what they allegedly represent of things in themselves is the way things in themselves exist. Otherwise, they are objectively false. For truth realists, agreement is not essential for the truth of a proposition. There could be unanimous rejection of a true proposition.

If there are no things in themselves, no propositions are objectively true or false.

Truth realism holds that there are objective truths. Since, when we as philosophers reflect on our thinking, we realize that we cannot directly think of things in themselves, we realize that we cannot represent whether a proposition corresponds with what it allegedly claims to exist. Hence, we can always be philosophically uncertain whether there is objective truth. Realism about objective truth is a philosophic stance requiring faith.

Truth realism is a well founded faith. When we try to discover what is the case, we find ourselves compelled to accept some propositions while rejecting others. In Newman’s sense we give real assent to a belief that there is a way things are apart from out thinking. However, again using John Henry Newman’s ideas, we cannot give full notional, or theoretical, assent to an objective reality.

Core idealism holds that there are no things in themselves beyond representations. Idealism about truth adds to core idealism a rejection of objective truth . Truth idealists add that since we cannot even represent our own representations as they are apart from our ways of representing, it is pointless to maintain that we can have objective truths about even our own thoughts. Propositions which are to be asserted as correct are to be establish by reference to some standard within human representations. There is no objective truth about which standards are the correct standard. Agreement or consensus is fundamental for truth for idealists. Consequently, in light of the fact that humans disagree, truth, or better warranted proposition, is relative.

Also, because there might be so little agreement about which propositions of some class of propositions are to be warranted, there arises agreement amongst many that there is and ought to be no warranted assertions for that class of propositions. Religious propositions provide an example of such a class. Many explicit, or implicit, idealists not only reject the possibility of any objectively true religious propositions. They also urge dismissing the practice of accepting any religious propositions as warranted.

Truth realists have no philosophic grounds for dismissing the possibility of objective religious truths. But that is the topic of my next post. Here, I summarize what truth realists hold about objective truth and the Transcendent.

Things in themselves as the truth conditions for propositions would be a basic feature of the immanent which depends directly upon the Transcendent for its existence. We can then go on to develop a characterization of the Transcendent as creator and sustainer of the foundation for truth.

Survival After Biological Death and the Transcendent

Authoritarian Morality, Core philosophy, Divine Command Morality

This is a type of blog essay I am reluctant to post. It is more a set of promises of philosophic work than philosophic analyses and arguments. But there are so many issues in modeling the Transcendent as a Divine authority that I have time only to sketch out how I will try to resolve those issues as I work to present a complete overview of a model of the Transcendent as moral authority. One of those issues is survival after biological death.

Phases of an argument for survival after biological death

1. Make a case that people are not their bodies. A prominent part of the case is borrowed from stock philosophical arguments that personal identity persists through significant bodily changes.

2. Make a case that all of our thoughts and deeds are known to the moral authority. A prominent part of this case is articulating and supporting an understanding of morality as authoritarian morality – command morality. I have already done much of this in development of authoritarian moral theory from my notion of moral harm as harm which ought to be for violation of a moral law. But I need to add and defend belief in personal survival after death as part of the authoritarian moral outlook.

3. Make a case that the moral authority is the Transcendent, i.e., God. We now have a divine command morality.

Phase 3 is advanced by making a case that we can characterize the Transcendent not only being aware of your personal history throughout your natural life but as eternally being aware of you – the awareness of the Transcendent does not vanish at your natural death. The Transcendent is aware of you as a person both before and after your biological death.

But what does “eternally” mean when applied to the Transcendent?

I am thinking of arguing along the following lines. If the Transcendent did not sustain you in existence in anyway at biological death, then you would vanish at biological death and the Transcendent would not be aware of you. But the Transcendent never loses awareness of you. Hence, the Transcendent sustains you in existence in some way after your biological death. But this existence after biological death is still existence in what is immanent. For nothing is transcendent except the Transcendent. There are issues in characterizing immanent existence of persons after biological death. (I am working on them.)

However, I do not want to include in my model that human beings exist in some way prior to their conception. I need to make a case that in the immanent there is genuine coming into existence.
I hope to do all of this without developing any philosophical system. As much as possible I want to use only ordinary language.

Love for the Transcendent??

Authoritarian Morality, Core philosophy, Divine Command Morality, Moral philosophy, Philosophical Theology

Love for the Transcendent

It is difficult to understand what could bring a person to say “I love God.” What, then, could possibly bring someone to say “I love the Transcendent?”

As a little boy walking home from Nativity grade school in St. Paul, Minnesota, I once wondered how classmates -usually well-behaved little girls- could tell the nun teaching the class that they loved God. When I return to St. Paul, I frequently pass the intersection -Juliet and Prior- where I had that experience, when about seven or eight, of wondering how people could say that they loved God. My experience returns to me. What were they thinking? Would they feel sad if something bad happened to God? It was so troubling that I kept it in mind as one of the many things I would have to figure out for myself as life went on. I would be embarrassed ever to ask anyone “Why do you say that you love God?”

Finally, now, in my mid-eighties, I have figured out what I could mean by saying that I love God. Even with the mature, and correct, notion of love as willing the good of the other, I could not understand how I could will good for God who needs nothing. The answer, which should have been obvious to me for a long time, struck me this week after Epiphany when we have been reading the first letter of John. On Thursday we read in John 1:4 “For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments.”

The good for God is what God wills. God wills the good of His human creatures. So, aiming at the good for humans is aiming at God’s good. God has willed that the human goods be attained by humans ordering their lives in accordance with rules for attaining these human goods. These rules are the moral rules and can be considered His commandments. So, by willing to obey the moral rules we will God’s good. That is loving God!

Consequently, a Divine Command theory of morality is not interpreting God as a moral tyrant who leaves no room for human freedom. On the contrary, a Divine Command moral theory is an explication of what it means to freely love God. For we are free to will to disobey His commands. But we are also free to will to obey His commands which is to love Him.

What does this have to do with the Transcendent? In my efforts to characterize the Transcendent as the moral authority, I am working towards explicating how we can speaking meaningfully of loving God even when “God” is understood in the most austere philosophical terms.

Predestination and the Transcendent

Core philosophy

In a subsequent post, I plan to construct properties to attribute to the Transcendent as that on which a moral order with so-called libertarian free will depends for its existence. As a preliminary, I here point out that the type of omniscience already attributed to the Transcendent does not rule out free will by entailing some type of predestination. Previously in Morality and the Transcendent I attributed omniscience to the Transcendent to facilitate saying that our moral lives were transparent to the Transcendent. I quote from an earlier post.

“I propose that we attribute omniscience o the Transcendent because it is the sustaining condition for all true thoughts as true.
The Transcendent holds in existence the truth of the thoughts of our most secret sins! Isn’t this transparency to the Transcendent? “ and, I could have added “our successes in the moral struggle.

For sake of discussion, I accept using “hold its truth in existence” as “being aware of.”

An example brings out that transparency of our choices does not eliminate our choices.

Suppose that I am still alive two years from this date 1/1/21, viz., 1/1/23. I am facing a long painful last illness. Suppose also that I have an option of legal physician assisted termination of my life.

I have two choices: Accept the opportunity to end my life or reject the opportunity to end my life.

The Transcendent holds in existence the truth of this disjunction. If I choose to have my life terminated, the Transcendent holds in existence the truth of my immoral choice and its consequences. If I choose to reject the offer of assisted suicide, the Transcendent holds in existence the truth of my morally correct choice and its consequences.

So far we have only that the Transcendent is aware of whatever happens. The awareness of the Transcendent is simply a catalog of the truths.

But what about the logical truth: In 2023 Charles commits suicide or in 2023 Charles does not commit suicide? The Transcendent is aware of this logical truth, –Law of excluded middle– in 2021. Also the Transcendent is aware in 2021 that only one of these disjuncts can be true in 2023. But our attributions of awareness to the Transcendent do not require saying that in 2021 one or the other of these disjuncts is true and thereby the Transcendent is aware in 2021 of my 2023 choice.

The law of excluded middle says less than the so-called law of bivalence. Bivalence says that every statement is True or False. If we accept bivalence and that statements specifying that an action occurs on a definite date, then we can convert the Transcendent’s omniscience into a type of foreknowledge. However, we can get a type of predestination simply from assumption of bivalence and the admissibility of statements specifying dates for actions. Reference to a Transcendent or deity is irrelevant to this logic and language based determinism.

Believers in predestination or some other type of determinism would hold that in 2021 one or the other of these disjuncts would be true and thereby be in the Transcendent’s awareness. But the determinism’s elimination of choice would not come from the awareness of the Transcendent; it would be based on whatever rationalized the deterministic outlook.

Of course rejection of predestination, or better: genuine (libertarian) free-will, requires rejection of bivalence. That means accepting at least a third truth value of “undetermined.” Many, many statements about the future have this third truth value. Logic does not rule out a third value. Three, and other many value logics, are well developed. In this regard, the significant conceptual problem is clarifying and defending a metaphysical vision of an “open future.”

Religiosity and the Transcendent

Core philosophy, Philosophy of Religion

We talk of God, the Transcendent ,in both philosophy and religion, in speculation and in prayer. What is the best way?

Repetition of my philosophic recipe for constructing concepts of properties to project upon the Transcendent is useful for the following comparison of philosophic and religious ways of talking of the Transcendent.

1. Argue, or merely claim, that an immanent feature exists independently of anything else in what is immanent.
2. Argue, or merely claim, that this independent feature exists contingently.
3. From these two conclude that the existence of this immanent feature is directly dependent on the Transcendent.
4. Under the assumption “ if the existence of X depends directly upon Y, then we can characterize Y as having something analogous to the properties of X”, we modify descriptions of properties of the immanent feature to characterize the Transcendent.

Here I merely claim that the immanent feature of human religiosity meets the conditions for being directly dependent for its existence on the Transcendent. I use an elementary “World Religions Course” four Cs sketch of human religiosity. People seeking the meaning of life with a sense of the holy form Churches, formulate Creeds and Codes while having Cults or set of ritual practices. My elementary “World Religions” sketch of religiosity leaves so much undone because I want to move immediately to the relation between philosophic attempts to characterize the Transcendent and religious attempts to characterize the Transcendent.

Characterizing the Transcendent is an essential property of human religiosity. It is an essential property of religiosity, in the sense that at least the “seed” of a Creed is every religion. I think that it was the anthropologist, Evans Pritchard, who claimed that primitive religions are danced; not believed. But I think what is permissible and impermissible in the dancing -Cultic practice- would reveal some thoughts about the “whatever” which is holy.

From the philosophic perspective we say that religiosity is directly dependent upon the Transcendent. So, from the philosophic perspective we try to develop descriptions of properties applicable to the Transcendent from descriptions of properties of human religiosity. For instance, we may try to describe the holiness of the Transcendent from a modification of the human sense of holiness.

At first glance, philosophy’s role of developing characterizations of the Transcendent from religious ways of characterizing the Transcendent seems to put philosophy in a superior position with respect to characterizing the Transcendent.

But philosophy’s role is not superior and may even be dependent upon religiosity in characterizing the Transcendent. Religiosity leads philosophers to their attempts to characterize the Transcendent. It is leading me. When I work seriously at the first two steps of my recipe I may find that I cannot separate philosophy from religiosity. Creeds and codes (morality) lead to reflection, speculation, critical thinking and theology. Purely secular philosophy might be basically the intellectual tools for theology and moral theory. The independent immanent reality directly dependent upon the Transcendent for its existence might be human religiosity with human philosophic thinking as only a part. It is an open question as to whether a development of a way of thinking is superior in all ways to that from which it developed

Philosophers are in no position to say that philosophic characterizations of the Transcendent are better than non-philosophical religious characterization. We philosophers have reached the conclusion that the Transcendent is utterly unknowable by philosophical thinking. We philosophers establish skepticism about what we can discover by our philosophizing. For all that we know via philosophy, we may be acquiring truths about the Transcendental via non-philosophical religious thought, sentiment and prayer.

I should emphasize that when I refer to religious ways of thinking and feeling about the Transcendent, I am not writing as some secular philosopher imagining what some benighted religious people still believe. I reflect primarily on myself. I am a practicing Catholic. Weekly I publicly and sincerely profess the Nicene Creed. I believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist. I find a great similarity in my philosophic thoughts about what I am here labelling “the Transcendent” and my religious thoughts about God Indeed it is hard to separate them. In both cases, I say words with various thoughts and images. Sometimes I think these thoughts and images are really stupid. On occasion I think they give insight and inspiration. But always, be it philosophy or prayer, I think that the thoughts and images are never correct; they do not give the truth. What we can rely upon are the words.

If you and I try to determine whether or not we hold the same belief, we do not try to decide whether we share the varying thoughts and feelings running through our minds. We discuss a variety of claims and facts until we can agree upon using the same words to express our beliefs. In actuality, the hammering out of an agreeable formulation of a creed occur amongst many people over a long period of time. It then becomes an item in a collective consciousness in human intelligence as would a poem or song. Through the ages many people find those words apt for professing what they belief

“Is”/”ought” Gap in Support of Authoritarian Morality

Authoritarian Morality, Core philosophy, Ontology

The ontological importance of the gap between is and ought

I have finally appreciated the positive significance of Hume’s observation that we cannot logically derive an “ought” claim from an “is” claim; not even “is” claims about God. Even though this gap showed the independence of morality from facts, it still seemed mostly a troublesome problem of justifying moral claims. For it is deep seated in human moral reasoning to back-up claims about what ought to be done by reference to facts. However, now that I have begun the fundamental philosophic task of characterizing the Transcendent as the moral authority, I appreciate that the independence of morality from fact is of more value for metaphysics than it is a disvalue for epistemology.

I intend to use the structure of my model of morality as based on authority to rationalize characterizing the Transcendent as a moral authority. If I am successful, I propose that I have constructed a model of morality as being based on Divine Commands. As I noted in the previous post, a phase in this construction of a model of morality as based on the Transcendent is showing that morality, which is immanent, is independent of anything else in what is immanent. Showing independence from fact is the major step in showing independence of morality.

Showing this independence is required to establish that morality is directly dependent for its existence on the Transcendent. If morality is directly dependent on the Transcendent it becomes plausible that we can rationalize some characterizations of the Transcendent as what it would be like to be why such-and-such feature of morality exists.

I doubt that Hume would be happy with a philosopher using his logical observation that we cannot derive “ought” from “is” to make a case for Divine Command morality.
.

Morality and the Transcendent

Authoritarian Morality, Core philosophy

In this post I outline characterizing the Transcendent as the moral authority. Sketching out the line of argument sets aside at the outset two connected standard objections to divine command morality.

The objections start from the dilemma question: “Does God command the rules because they are right or does God’s command make the rules right?” The answer that God commands the rules because they are right places a standard for rightness independent of God. The answer that God’s commands makes the rules right seems to leave open the prospect of all sorts of morally horrible deeds being commanded as right.

I start with the authoritarian or command morality as fixed in what is immanent.

Recall that in my terminology the immanent is everything humans can represent along with representations. The immanent is what there is – everything! But without the Transcendent, there would be nothing.

How are the objections set aside?

Using the metaphysical notion of “depends for its existence” I develop an admittedly imprecise characterization of the Transcendent as the source of morality and thereby the Divine moral authority. With respect to knowing right from wrong, the standards for, along with the content of, morality are fixed in the immanent. With respect to their existing at all in the immanent, the standards and the content of morality are in the Transcendent.

The dilemma question above cannot be asked about the Transcendent because in our thinking what morality commands is already settled before we think about the Transcendent as that on which its existence depends.

Philosophic thought forbids itself from making discoveries about the Transcendent.

The pattern of argument for the Transcendent as the existential source of morality is simple as A, B ,C below. But the outline but conceals the need for an immense amount of philosophical labor.

A. Show that morality is a basic feature of the immanent. (It does not depend upon anything else in the immanent.)

B. Show that morality is contingent.(Its existence is dependent.)

C. Because (A) and (B) show that morality is directly dependent upon the Transcendent for its existence, make a case that characterizations of the Transcendent can be constructed from modifications of features of immanent morality that are “good enough” for thinking of the Transcendent as the Moral Authority. I hate to say that we construct a characterization and project it upon the Transcendent. But that is what I do in my philosophy.

I add a few remarks about the underlying philosophical problems.

Under (A) I need to show that my authoritarian model of morality is a model of something immanent, i.e., an accurate representation of moral thinking. There is, then, a need to show that this way of moral thinking could not be explained as coming into existence from any other way of thinking; let alone being explained as coming into existence from neurophysiological factors. I could not live long enough to do (A). But I will make a few remarks on it

It might seem that (B) is easy once (A) has been established. However, in authoritarian morality, moral claims have a type of necessity. How can one show that what is allegedly presented with necessary truths need not exist?

I cannot infer from the Transcendent is the immediate foundation for something immanent having feature F that the Transcendent has feature F or even that the Transcendent has something analogous to feature F. Nonetheless, that is what I do under (C ). I differ from philosophers who develop theories of analogical predication. They argue that since the same terms can be meaningfully applied to both God and creatures there is an analogy between God and creatures which allows such predication. I try to show that there is an analogy between the immanent and the Transcendent which justifies applying terms to the Transcendent.

The task of (C ) is not rigorous. But one can get close to being right even when being unable to tell the exact truth – or, so, I believe.

Analogical Predication of God vs. Characterization of the Transcendent

Core philosophy, Philosophical Theology, Uncategorized

It is helpful to compare my project of constructing a representation of the Transcendent as a Divine moral authority with the problem in philosophical theology for whose solution theories of analogical predication are developed. The problems are related but not the same.

A standard issue in philosophical theology arises from using the same terms to describe human beings and God. Theoretically, God is totally unlike any of His creatures. For instance, what is meant by saying that God is merciful if God is nothing at all like a merciful human judge?
There is a dilemma facing those who hold the same terms can be applied to God and creatures.

If terms applied to God and creatures are used univocally, then God is misrepresented by representing God as like His creatures.

If terms applied to God and creatures are used equivocally, then God is misrepresented by using language ambiguously.

Terms applied to God and creatures are used univocally or equivocally.

So, applying the same terms to God and creatures, misrepresents God.

Theories of analogical predication are offered to confront the dilemma by ”going between the horns of the dilemma” that terms are used univocally or equivocally. Theories show that there is a middle type of application of terms based on some type of similarity of, or analogy, between, that to which the terms are applied.

In religious practice this middle ground has been recognized implicitly. For centuries people have felt that their use of the same terms to talk of God and creatures made sense and was important although they would, I think, admit that what the terms designated were not the same in God and creatures.

The theories provide theoretical justification for this common practice. The theories go into human intelligence, collective consciousness, the archives or whatever one wants to call the repository of justifications. From that source, theories of analogical predication can be accessed by those who want to justify religious use of terms.

What am I doing when trying to show how terms can be applied to the Transcendent when by definition the Transcendent transcends any accurate application of terms?

My ultimate goal is a conceptual model of what it would be like for there to be a God who would sacrifice Himself to redeem humanity for its immorality. Crucial parts of this construction are construction of a model of morality based on authoritative commands and then construction of a model of this moral authority being God. I think that I have sketched a fairly complete outline of an authoritative morality. I want people to think that my model could represent the way things actually are. So I use the highly non-controversial notion of God, viz., the totally transcendent.

Consequently, I face the problem of pleading a case that from the bare metaphysical term “on whom everything depends for existence but which depends on nothing” we can provide “good enough” specifications of terms such as “omniscience” to say that this Transcendent is a God who is a moral authority.

I have to leave it to readers to judge whether I specify what is good enough.

Let me note also that I am addressing a problem which arises in 21st century arguments between some atheists and theists. The theists contend that atheists misunderstand theistic belief. The atheists allegedly are dismissing the existence of God as some super being amongst other beings. The theists claim that they are talking about something transcending all beings – what I have called the Transcendent. But most often theists are also religious as am I. In their religious practice they talk in a way suggesting that God is a super being. Theists should reconcile that discrepancy between their philosophical talk of God and their religious talk of God.