Prejean continues to regale us with his own homegrown brand of theology:
http://www.crimsoncatholic.blogspot.com/
“Likewise, it [faith] faces inherent limitations, in that it must always return to these sensory concepts that are necessarily inadequate, which convey truth only analogically according to the creature/Creator distinction.”
i) This takes empiricism for granted, and uses that as a theological filter on God-talk.
ii) Even if we were to grant his theory of knowledge, it isn’t obvious why sensory concepts would be “inadequate.” We use analogical reasoning all the time.
iii) I don’t believe that Thomism restricts all God-talk to analogical predication. As I recall, the transcendentals are univocal.
iv) There are other problems with Prejean’s grasp of Thomism, but since he hasn’t bothered to defend Thomism in the first place, there’s no particular reason to discuss him many misunderstandings.
“Concepts are used only instrumentally in this sort of faith as a kind of means to sustain the principle of right action, so they do not convey knowlege in the scientific sense, but a sort of practical wisdom…This is also the Catholic view of Scripture. Inspiration is fundamentally a practical kind of knowledge, with the author (or angel) guided by a principle of right action, but not in the anthropomorphic sense of some conceptual content being communicated to him as in human speech. The inspired agent remains an agent, not a mouthpiece, guided by wisdom and faith. Thus, they are not communicating concepts delivered to them by God; rather, they are through their own proper action expressing this practical wisdom guiding them to act.”
i) Notice the false antithesis between “agent” and “mouthpiece,” as if the inspired writer cannot be an “agent” in case the Lord conveys certain concepts to his mind.
ii) Apparently, Prejean rejects propositional revelation. In that event, the Bible doesn’t convey factual information about the church or the papacy or the Virgin Mary or the sacraments or any of those other dogmas which Catholic theologians claim to find, at least implicitly, in the pages of Holy Writ.
iii) Observe that Prejean simply issues his armchair theory of inspiration without any reference to the self-understanding of Scripture.
Let’s take the category of visionary revelation. Not only does this include visions, but it often includes auditions as well. The seer will hear God or an angel or a heavenly saint speaking words to him.
This is far stronger than planting raw concepts in his mind. Rather, fully verbalized concepts are planted in his mind. He doesn’t even have to articulate the ideas, in his own words, but simply quote what he heard in his vision. Not all verbal revelation has to be that direct, but it illustrates the principle.
Yet Prejean’s arbitrary and a priori theory of inspiration has no room for this phenomenon, even though it’s a major category of divine revelation in Scripture. It would be beneath Prejean to consult revelation for a model of revelation. It would be beneath Prejean to consult the Bible for a theory of Biblical inspiration. Instead, he sits in his room with the shades drawn and intuits theology.
Presuppers deny neutrality but it appears to me that denying neutrality presupposes neutrality because you are already involved in epistemology discussion by the inquiry of whether neutral ground is possible or not, and the "fact" of the nonexistence of a neutral ground will be a fact that will be true for all worldviews; but not a truth about any of the particular worldviews but rather about the inter-worldview space; which is the neutral ground itself.
ReplyDeleteA second objection I want to raise is how presuppers condemn pragmatism as a form of relativism yet when it comes to picking a worldview they operate on the principle that which worldview "works" is the true one. They say that Christianity is coherent, probably the only coherent worldview out there, so that works for you, you should embrace it if you want a working worldview. But I don't think coherence alone can make a worldview true. Christianity has a lot of historical claims and a discussion of historical evidence is essential to tell if that religion is true.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteWhy do you keep taking over the combox and posting comments irrelevant to the subject of the post? And, I left you with some arguments in the last thread which you just ignored, only top "pop up" now and offer new objections.
"Presuppers deny neutrality but it appears to me that denying neutrality presupposes neutrality"
So we *presuppose* a position, thus we're not neutral after all. Nice one, Mike!
"because you are already involved in epistemology discussion by the inquiry of whether neutral ground is possible or not"
So to deny neutrality (or affirm it) presupposes an epistemolgy in terms of which you can do so? Nice one, Mike!
"and the "fact" of the nonexistence of a neutral ground will be a fact that will be true for all worldviews; but not a truth about any of the particular worldviews but rather about the inter-worldview space; which is the neutral ground itself."
God ownes all the ground. He's the exemplar of rationality. Are you denying this from the start? Jesus says one is either for him or against him. Where's the "inter-worldview ground?" That's not neutral. You're starting from the assumption that Jesus is wrong. I thought you wanted to be neutral? Nice one, Mike!
"A second objection I want to raise is how presuppers condemn pragmatism as a form of relativism"
Do you have quotes and context?
"yet when it comes to picking a worldview they operate on the principle that which worldview "works" is the true one."
Do you have quotes and context?
And, most presuppers don't say that one "picks" his worldview. In fact, they have stated otherwise in their literature.
And, lastly, many presupps have not argued against pragmatism per se, but rather have said that a pragmatism that leaves out God and his revelation is problematic. That is, if you really want to be a good pragmatist, become a Christian. So, you don't even understand the position you're attacking. You're making atheists everywhere look like lazy hacks. Nice one, Mike!
"They say that Christianity is coherent, probably the only coherent worldview out there, so that works for you, you should embrace it if you want a working worldview."
Do you have quotes and context?
So, they don't condemn pragmatism? You're now saying that they are appealing to it, but above you said they deny it. Which is it, Mike. Or, is setting up your opponant to contradict himself within two sentences the way your normally critically interact with positions?
"Christianity has a lot of historical claims and a discussion of historical evidence is essential to tell if that religion is true."
There are some presupps who would deny this, Mike.
And, do you have quotes and a context?
Mike, the above was sloppy and incoherent, and downright lazy.
In the meantime, quit trolling the comboxes here, especially with the above kind of tripe.