I Think Therefore I Am

If it’s not about Jesus, it’s not about anything 

 (Motto of the Fountain of Life)

A Philosophical Look at CONTRADICTION

There is an old song about the immovable object and the irresistible force.  It actually illustrates a profound philosophical point.

 

“When an immovable object like me meets an irresistible force such as you; One thing’s sure as sure as you live; something’s got to give; something’s got to give; something’s got to give.”

The irresistible force; the immovable object; the two concepts may and can stand alone.  They cannot stand together in the same time and space.  If I say they exist together, that is a contradiction.  When you find contradiction in an argument that proves the argument false.  In philosophy that is called the law of non-contradiction.  When you persist in believing the contradiction that is irrationality.

 

Today our SPS (Sermon Purpose Statement) becomes our SPQ:

 Specific purpose question:  Are we someone’s dream; true or false?  A more salient question is; true or irrational?

 And, is the Bible rational?

This sermon will not have as many scriptures as most.  It is given in the spirit of Psalm 19:1 and Romans 1:20, “The heavens declare His glory,” and “the invisible things are understood so that they are without excuse.”

Our Petropolis Bible study in Wheeling, WVA is covering the Apostles’ Creed.  We are using a text formulated by Swiss Theologian Karl Barth from university lectures given in the semi-ruins of the Kurfusten Schloss (Castle) in Bonn Germany.  The Schloss would later become the university.  The time was 1946.  His students began classes at seven a.m.  Barth says they always began with singing a psalm or a hymn to cheer them up.  At eight they would hear the rattle of rebuilding reverberating through the rubble wrought by World War II.  (Brethren, read Pastor Todd Crouch’s post on Karl Barth and the Barmen Declaration on the Fountain of Life Blog:

  [http://thefountainoflifechurch.blogspot.com/).

 Karl Barth

Our study is grounded solidly on the Word of God.  Barth would not have it any other way.  Barth shows that the creation, i.e. earth, heaven, us is not God and God is not the creation.  This fact easily refutes pantheism that God is everything.  His approach is ideal for believers on the Word of God.  Yet in this skeptical world any reliance on the Bible as a proof is dismissed if not ridiculed.  Proof in a postmodern world must be visible, tangible or experiential.  In fact, I think you would agree, as long as any teaching is not the Bible, it will receive acceptance.  Acceptance implies respect.  Does modern culture respect Christians?  The more incredulous a belief the more interest it receives.

Barth strongly and correctly taught that any knowledge garnered from natural sciences or philosophy etc. is not efficacious for salvation.  Philosophy is introduced here because it is helpful and a useful tool.

Some may remember in the 1960’s Carlos Castaneda wrote “A Separate Reality.”  Don Juan, who was a Yaqui witch doctor, led Castaneda into an odyssey of discovery.  It was not an abstract journey nor theoretical; it was experiential, participatory.  It was religious, drug induced, demonic.  And to Castaneda it was very real.  The Yaqui spirits were dangerous.  The book gave me, an atheist at the time, a nightmare.  Was Castaneda’s odyssey a perception of reality or was it a real separate reality?

Barth’s point that we are not God nor is God creation implies that God and creation both exist and are both real.  God is non-contingent, we are contingent beings.

 That loosely means that God does not exist for Himself; if He did we would not exist.  Existence is an important concept. We are not someone’s dream.  We are real. 

Is, Is

 Parmenides taught long ago in the 5th Century B.C. that “Whatever is, is.”  Many philosophers question that premise.  Castaneda was correct that there exists an invisible spiritual reality which is distinct from our physical reality.  However, his glimpse into that separate reality came from peyote induced visions and dreams, not from clear thinking.  Where do we obtain proof of our is-ness, our reality outside the Bible?  Pilate asked, “What is truth?”  Today we have to ask what is real?  How do we engage the truth of God with someone who does not accept the Bible, who believes we are a dream?

 

Reality is a dream:  that statement is easy to say, but by definition it is a contradiction and cannot be true and need not be examined further.  Let’s go, however, beyond words and delve into concepts and again ask; am I real?

 That is a question worthy of an answer.  How can we know?

 How do we speak to someone who contends that we are somebody’s dream and also believes the Bible to be a fairy tale?

St. Augustine

 

Our five senses say we are real.  Can we trust our senses?

 St. Augustine noticed that when a straight oar is placed into water, the straight oar appears bent to our senses.

 We cannot see infrared; we cannot hear ultrasound.  We cannot see the North Star.  We see where it was 434 years ago, but we do not see it.  What else can we not perceive?

 What do we think we think we know?

  

Let us dwell with these questions.  We are created in the image and likeness of God.  The ability to reason is included in that image and likeness.  Even those who doubt the existence of God often pride themselves on their reasoning ability.  Here, reason will come to our aid.

 of logic

 Aristotle discovered the laws of logic.  He did not invent them.  The laws of logic do not tell us what to think, they tell us how to think or how to reason accurately.  They are:

1.    The law of non-contradiction.

2.    The law of causality or cause and effect.

3.    The basic reliability of the senses.

4.    The analogical use of language.

I believe that these are our human perception default operating system.  Other proposed systems must deny one or all of these laws.  The irony is that other systems use these laws of reasoning to prove their deviations from these laws.

 Think, I am

Rene Descartes (1569 – 1650) was the philosopher who said, “I think; therefore. I am.”  (Cogito ergo sum.)  Descartes tested the certainty of knowledge.  He did that with unrelenting skepticism.  He poured seeds of doubt upon everything and continually asked and challenged:  “Do we really know that this is true?”  Just as Augustine noticed that an ore placed in water appeared bent although it was really straight, Descartes wondered if Satan, the great deceiver, gives a false view of reality.  Descartes wanted to know how can we be certain that reality is what we perceive it to be?

His solution was to doubt. He speculated this way:

 Whatever I am doubting there is one thing and one thing only that is certain.  That is that I am doubting.  In order for me to doubt, there must be cognition.  Cognition requires thinking.  Therefore to doubt means to think.

 Even if I think that I am not thinking I would still have to be thinking to think that.  That which does not exist does not think.  If I am thinking I must exist, I must be.

 If I am, I exist.  Therefore if I think I am, I am.

So we can see that if I am your dream I am of dream stuff, not reality stuff.  If I am not real I am not corporeal or even sub atomic.  If I am not corporeal and not real, I do not exist.  If I do not exist, I cannot even think that I am a dream.  To think that I am a dream means that I am real.  And because I am real, I cannot be a dream.  I cannot be both real and not real at the same time (The law

of non-contradiction).   To say, “I do not exist,” or to

say, “I am a dream,” is irrational, because you must think

it to say it.    And to think you must be real.

To those who contend that the Bible is irrational, Barth contends that, “Christian faith is the illumination of reason in which men become free to live in the truth of Jesus Christ and thereby to become sure also of the meaning of their own existence and of the ground and goal

of all that happens.”   He advises the Church not to be in

opposition to reason.    Eusebuis, the early Church

Historian reports that Justin Martyr’s conversion from Greek philosophy did not happen irrationally but was the result of cool deliberation, (Eusebius by Paul Meyer page

141.)

 A Rational Book

The Bible radiates rationality.  It was inspired to be understood rationally.  There is cause and effect.  In Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created (That is the first cause) the heavens and the earth"(That is the first

effect.)  Jesus spoke (the cause) and the storm on the lake ceased (the effect).  Peter threw out the net (the

cause) and fish were caught (the effect).  The fish did not gather themselves together on the shore and yell to Peter, “Here we are Peter.”

Our senses are reliable.  Although we agree that water appears to bend the oar that is not a warrant to dismiss the sight of Jesus Transfigured on the Mountain or of visual witness of Jesus Ascending into heaven.  Just because the oar bends is that a warrant to dismiss all of astronomy or particle physics which concern things which our senses cannot touch nor even see?

 

There is the analogical use of language.  We understand human goodness, love, kindness etc.  If any good exists anywhere, there exists somewhere the one ultimate good from which all good flows.  God is transcendent therefore we will never perfectly understand His goodness and love etc.  Just because we can’t understand infinite goodness that is not a warrant against acknowledging God is good (Psalm 100:5).  Although God’s attributes, time and space are free from the limitations which bind us, nevertheless we are made in His image and likeness and therefore He is not so different that we cannot sense His love and goodness.  We have the warrant to analogically apply our understanding of goodness, love and tec. to God and sense what His perfect goodness may be.

There is non-contradiction at the Wedding Feast at Cana; the water was not wine at the same time in the same jar.

 The 10 lepers were not clean and leprous at the same time.  Lazarus in the grave was not dead and alive at the same time.  The water, the lepers and Lazarus were all in one distinct state until they were changed into another distinct state.  They did not, cannot occupy two distinct states at the same time.  It is irrational to say that all married men are bachelors.  It is irrational to say that the light yields darkness.  In fact it is irrational to say that there is no God (Psalm 14:1).

Brethren may the real grace and peace of God our Father and Christ Jesus our Savior be with you all.

Rev. George Relic, Assistant Pastor

Fountain of Life, Washington, Pennsylvania A congregation of Grace Communion International