Monthly Archives: August 2017

Human Reason, Gender Identity et al.

In posts constructing a conceptual model of the Paschal Mystery, I have written about human reasoning and especially human moral reasoning as containing certain thoughts such as “violation of moral laws ought to result in undesirable consequence.” As a philosopher, I acknowledge assumptions I make about what there is. “Ontology” is the title for the topic of making assumptions or offering definite claims about what there is. In the ontology for these blog posts I assume that there is human thinking above and beyond the thinking occurring in the minds of individual people.

Most people make this assumption at several levels. I assume, for instance, that there is a collection of thoughts which could be called the public opinion of residents of Columbus, Ohio in August 2017. I assume there is a system of thought which could be labelled “what Catholics think.” Many more examples come to mind: What climate scientists think, What liberals think, What mathematicians hold, etc..

Of course, I go much further to assume that there is a vast collection of thoughts composed of what humans have thought, presently think and will think. I call this “human reason.” It is the reasons and reasoning available to aborigines and scientists at MIT. This universal human reason is the location of the thought of setting aside morality. This thought reserving a right to override morality once in awhile is the original sin which we all inherit* just by virtue of being the kind of animal which can think some of the thoughts in universal human reason.

There is so much to say about this human reason that I could easily fill a book with my views as well as theories of philosophers such as Hegel and Kant. I develop no theory of what human reason is. Here I make a few remarks with especial attention to how we can get truth since this universal human reason is so comprehensive that it seems we cannot get beyond it to determine whether or not our thoughts represent reality apart from thoughts. Can we put thinking in the back of our minds to simply look and listen at what makes our thinking correct?

This universal human reason is not the actual thinking of some mind above and beyond the minds of individual human beings. Human reason itself is not aiming at any goal although there are many thoughts about goals in human reason.

As a collection of thoughts, human reason is logically inconsistent. A problem for individuals who think the thoughts contained in universal human reason is coping with inconsistencies in our thinking. Inconsistencies, when identified, can be set aside so that complete logical chaos is avoided in an individual’s thinking. Hidden inconsistencies give us trouble.

Much of what we make truth claims about in daily life have been constructed by human reason. Without human thinking there would not be any social facts such as those about economics, politics, wars, revolutions, etc.,. Indeed this human reason being discussed in this post is constructed by human reason. However, I am not a philosophical idealist who holds that there is not reality beyond thought which provides justification for what we think. I am a realist who holds that there are things in themselves apart from human thinking which make thoughts in human reason correct or appropriate. However I concede that realism could be wrong**

Current disputes about gender identity provide a way of illustrating my stance on truth. Both biological sex and gender are social constructs in so far as the conceptual schemes used to talk about them are both components of universal human reason. Universal human reason is, as noted above, a social construct. Now however, consider two claims:

1.Henry’s biological sex is male
2.Henry’s gender is female.

If we turn to realty to find which claim is true, we find that if (1) is true (2) is false. If (2) is false, then Henry, and those who agree with his female impersonation are, if not lying, at least misrepresenting the way things are. To be sure, I have assumed that gender depends upon biological sex. This claim about the gender depending upon biological sex must also be verified by recourse to reality. I think reality verifies it. Unfortunately, others do not. That is why there is dispute. However, dispute does not show that there is no reality which shows that one side or the other is wrong.

In Chapter X*** of my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism, I develop more fully my thoughts on confronting reality to discover truth.

I do not think that only factual claims fit or do not fit thought independent reality. Value judgments can be correct or incorrect because of what is in reality. This is very significant because it goes against the widespread assumption of a fact/value discrimination. It is popularly assumed that factual claims might be true but that judgments of right/wrong, good/evil are inevitability opinions. Opinions get ranked as warranted or unwarranted only by other thoughts; never by conditions outside thought. So, in my ontology, I accept conditions in reality which make value judgments correct or incorrect as well as radically**** different kinds of conditions which make factual claims true. That is why I use “look” and “listen” when talking of turning to the way things are.

This is enough, if not too much, on universal human reason. In the next post, I plan to elaborate on the construct of angels and their role in my construction of a Christian conceptual model of our salvation

*How Original Sin is InheritedConfession of a Truth Sceptic
*** My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $3.99 plus $3.71 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
****I am speculating that this reality in itself which justifies, or refutes, our thoughts is personal in so far as it gives commands: You ought to assert P as a statement of fact, You ought to deny that Q states a fact, You ought to do act A, You ought not do act B.

Jesus Has Saved Us From Nihilism Being a True Account of the Human Condition

In this post I begin my case that we need not understand the torture and death of Jesus as a human sacrifice God demands in retribution for humanity having original sin so that He will forgive us for having original sin. Instead I will be arguing that our morality, to which God in his mercy allows us to be bound while having original sin, demanded the execution of Jesus in retribution for our having original sin so that we can be forgiven for having original sin.

Here, I give the broad outline of my argument and elaborate on details in subsequent posts. *s refer to notes at the end of this post linking to earlier posts on the topics marked.

A crucial question answered in this post is “From what does Jesus’ suffering and execution free us?” I am struggling to express clearly an insight that Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection brought it about in “the fullness of time” that the human condition is not as nihilists describe it.

Despite our having the original sin of repudiating God and morality, God still gives us morality as the means for attaining our good.* Our good is being as we ought to be. But we have morality while still repudiating it. Our reasoning is in conflict.** Satan exploits this conflict

Satan, who has the power of adding thoughts to human thinking*** adds thoughts which push human moral thinking to an extreme which would destroy the very moral thinking it exploits.

Moral thought goes to the extreme by leading us to think that there ought to be elimination of humanity for having original sin and acting on the original sin we have. Put another way: The original sin we have is a choice to be amoral animals. Moral thinking rightly requires that there be unpleasant consequences of wrong acts which are somehow in proportion to the wrong done.**** The extreme moral thinking alleges that our repudiation of morality requires that we suffer the consequences of choosing to be amoral beings. A consequence of choosing to be amoral beings is exactly that, viz., being amoral beings. In addition the horror story dimension of human history is brought up to make a case that humans are such a vile species that we should be eliminated. “Killer Angels,” the title of Michael Shaara’s 1974 novel of the Battle of Gettysburg seems an apt description of human beings.

But what would it be to eliminate the human species whose members are animals with a moral destiny, a morality to attain that moral destiny but yet are animals who repudiate that morality?

Simply having the human species be eliminated by a catastrophe or becoming slowly extinct would not be the elimination of humanity as moral beings. Such an extinction is likely to happen well before the end of the ages. But the human species with a moral end would not be actually eliminated The physically extinct species would still be a species which had the moral destiny God set for it. And some members may be enjoying this moral destiny after the extinction of all human beings in the natural universe.

The way to eliminate the human species, as we know it now, would have been to reduce the human animal to an amoral animal with no moral destiny. If so reduced the human condition would be accurately described by nihilism. Nihilism holds that everything is permitted for humans if they can get away with it. There is no way, according to nihilism, that humans collectively or individually ought to be. With no goal of the way we ought to be there is no purpose for which we should live. We are simply an animal which has evolved with an extremely clever intelligence but there is nothing which this intelligence ought to accomplish since evolution alone has no purpose or purposes. Nihilism describes the human species as one amongst millions of species which come into existence and pass into extinction for no purpose whatsoever.

How can humanity be annihilated as it ought to be but yet undergo this annihilation so that it still has the good God originally set for humanity?

A solution is that one human being pass through the pain and annihilation required by morality. What would such a human be like? I have argued that the logic of moral thinking does not preclude the permissibility of a person, or persons, who have not done the wrong undergoing punishment to atone for the wrong.****

A human who was truly human and truly divine could pass through pain and annihilation required by morality and still have the end set by God if that being reincarnated Itself entitled to have the end God sets for humanity. Jesus of Nazareth who I accept as true God and true man is such a person.

In his death on the cross the man Jesus underwent for all humanity the annihilation of humanity. He vanished as nothing as nihilists posit as the fate for all of us. Non-being is total evil. So vanishing is a “descent into hell.” Jesus’ dual nature allows for the radical discontinuity of vanishing but yet continuing. As a human he vanished as God he remained so that at the resurrection the risen Jesus was the same dual nature being but with the human nature which justifiably has a moral destiny.

This resurrected human is a human as humans ought to be. By the action of this resurrected human the thought that we are justified in holding that we have a goal set by God is in our common reasoning. The Paschal Mystery justifies us in believing that we are justified – have a right to salvation, viz. attaining what we ought to be..

This is more than enough for a single post. As promised subsequent posts will elaborate on this conceptual mode of the Paschal Mystery which I am trying to construct.

But one last question. What about human sacrifice in the Paschal Mystery?

God sacrifices Himself by incarnating Himself so that He can be the representative human executed in accordance with the demands of human morality.

In my book on sexual morality I show how if it is true that all sexual acts are in principle permissible then nihilism is a correct philosophy of the human condition.

My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. Email kielkopf.1@osu.edu to request a free copy.

* Can God Love Humanity After Original Sin?
**Human Reasoning is Inconsistent: Thank God
***There is a Satan in Opposition to God
Retributive Punishment is Consistent with the Logic of Moral Thinking
For those who might like a biblical passage suggesting my thought of Satan using morality to condemn us consider.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.” Rev. 12:10 New American Standard