Thorongil

Yes, this is what I got from your last post. Having now clarified, I don't disagree with you. Terms must be defined and mutually understood before bei...

I don't see that there had to have been for me to bring it up.

Huh? No. You quoted a couple verses from Isaiah as if we could interpret them solely on their own, apart from any other considerations (like the rest ...

I should add that the Bible is not the Quran. The Quran is considered to be dictated line by line by God, meaning that Muhammad didn't write a word of...

Right.

I would say that God can be and is responsible for evil, since he is responsible for his creation which contains evil. But that's different from sayin...

It was never otherwise, though, so this is a non-story.

I'm not about to take Putin as an authority on anything other than his own ego. He thinks Eastern Orthodoxy is closer to Islam than to Catholicism? Th...

Also, you're allowed to drink from the chalice instead of taking the wafer, if you can't take the latter. Taking one or the other is to receive the wh...

The problem is that one can't walk all the paths at once. It's impossible. So there must be some way to whittle down one's live options to those that ...

By my own judgment, I'd like to think it's truth. By others' judgment, it would probably be integrity.

It's true, if salvation is impossible, I see no reason to live. But that doesn't mean that if I deem it impossible I will commit suicide. It might mea...

?

Now you're critiquing the concept, but I'm not a Buddhist, so you'd have to ask them. But speaking on behalf of them, I would say that a permanent, un...

That there is no permanent, unchanging self. We're speaking of the truth of one interpretation over and against others, are we not? How is it not epis...

John said this? Then why the hell is he disagreeing with me?! Lol. Btw, it looks like Pannikar was educated at a Jesuit college, so things are not loo...

Yes, because, at minimum, it is exactly that. That's not all it is, though, clearly. Mhmm, but one interpretation must be right and the others wrong, ...

A bold claim and one that is surely false. Let's test it, shall we? The doctrine of anatman, or not-self. Is this claim exclusive to Buddhism or is it...

I notice you haven't answered my question.

(Y) It's a deal, then, my friend.

You're right. I haven't read it. But you haven't read the Scotus book or the reviews on The Smithy, have you? Will you? If you promise me you will, th...

Okay, so give me the "shade of grey" position. Regardless of its existence, religions still either make mutually exclusive truth claims or they do not...

Yeah, but does he actually present arguments against voluntarism and nominalism or does he just bemoan their purported societal effects? It could be t...

Does he advocate a kind of universalism or does he acknowledge that said traditions, similarities between them not withstanding, actually make mutuall...

In the case of the truth about why God allows suffering, I'm saying that that might not be communicable, not that all truths about God are incommunica...

So, it is independent of reason, thus making you a fideist in this sense. If so, then I'm baffled as to how you think you can "invite" people to becom...

How about you answer your own questions there? I'd be interested to know your answers to each of them.

A simple question: are you a fideist?

A complete apophaticism would be indistinguishable from atheism. There must be some positive statements one can make about God or else you're just eng...

But he can't change his nature, which is goodness itself, which means neither that which is right nor that which is wrong can change their status. If ...

The hell if I know.... Poppycock. Cataphatic just means "positive" in Greek. The creeds and other dogmatic statements use nothing but positive stateme...

So you think. New scientific theories that purport to explain the same phenomena could arise that repudiate or replace the current ones. Whence progre...

I see clearly enough to know that God cannot commit evil. Period. And I've given an argument as to why. Not absolutely. He's not free to commit evil, ...

That doesn't get out of the contradiction! If God can do right by doing wrong from our perspective, then he's still doing wrong. But God can't do wron...

Clarify this negative. Nope as in, "no, God wouldn't do what we deem wrong," or nope as in, "you're wrong, Thorongil."

Could it be that the more of certain facts you know, the less meaning your life has? Knowing facts and knowing the truth might not be the same thing. ...

Sure, but they wouldn't include doing that which is wrong among creatures, for then you're faced with a contradiction: God can do right by himself by ...

So God violating someone's will becomes right by virtue of God simply doing so, even though it would otherwise be wrong? That produces a rather nasty ...

That doesn't refute my claim. God can create someone and yet it still be wrong for him to violate that person's will. "I created you, therefore, I can...

I would say it's because he can't. Violating the will of his creatures would be wrong, and God cannot commit wrongdoing.

Why not?

Quite the voluntarist conception of God you have there. Aquinas would not approve. I don't think God can create a square circles, perform evil, or mak...

Haha

Wot...

A most clever and ironic juxtaposition of the word tulip with the unsavory doctrines of Calvinism. (Y)

I think that would violate his nature, so I don't think he could do this.

Not really, since the dogmas use cataphatic language. Sigh.... Catholicism and many Catholic mystics recognize that such private, incommunicable revel...

An oxymoron. Calvinism is in fact a quite radical form of Christianity, for it breaks, and conserves little, from Christianity as it existed for 1500 ...

You're moving the goalposts. I never claimed that atheists do not enjoy living. Most, if not all, will tell you that they do enjoy living. I'm saying ...

I see. Well, Calvinism is a rather nasty form of Christianity, in my estimation, and certainly not normative.