Reading over at Church Discipline reminded me of an old theology quiz I took years ago, and sure enough, it's still around -What's your theological worldview?
I'm usually bored out of my mind by internet quizzes, partly because I have some friends who can just keep taking inane, inconsequential meaningless quizzes for hours at a time. But I always find theology questions interesting (and if you take this, you need to think about the wording of each question carefully), and I tend to resist labels, unless they are something I've carefully decided to back up.
So turns out, according to this guy, I'm still an Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan/Methodist.
Right now, having recently moved, I'm in between churches - but I've mostly found myself ending up in nondescript, fairly mainstream Baptist churches in the past. However, every single time I've read John Wesley, I've been really impressed. So if that's the traditions of the Methodist Church, then I'm all for it. Being only 50% Reformed and only 36% Fundamentalist actually makes sense.Meanwhile, this one is the one I hadn't seen before -
Christian Traditions Selector
- and it seems more denomination specific. According the guy who made this one, I'm Baptist (non-Calvinistic)/Plymouth Brethren/Fundamentalist.
I can only assume that these guys are using the term "fundamentalist" in two different ways then.It's funny because, in basic theological terms, I agree with fundamentalists (I've always admired anything I've read of Carl F. H. Henry) particularly on the inerrancy, infallibility and sufficiency of Scripture. But, culturally at least, it seems like I'm always parting ways with fundamentalists. On the one hand, I find the average emergent church trite, vapid & effeminate, while on the other, I find the average fundamentalist baptist church legalistic, dull, & sheltered.
All this to say that I have not found it necessary to call myself by any denomination in particular. I'm a Christian, or a "Mere Christian" for the time being. But according to these tests, I'm apparently supposed to be a Wesleyan Baptist or a Fundamentalist Methodist. Interesting.
And no, I'm not going to go to a Plymouth Brethren (although I have friends who do, and my grandparents used to for a quite a long time).
Try 'em out and see which sides in the religious wars you belong in.
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(This post is uncomfortably too much about me. That's how blogs end up dying or succumbing to narcissistic, self-indulgent expletive-deleted. Mental note to self: keep focusing on theology (or, in more trivial moments, football or baseball) and do not bore the reader with talking about yourself. I'll let this one pass because it was about belief systems.)
4 comments:
Persiflage,
We are discussing your current debate with Leaf within a forum called talkrational.org. In it, I criticize you and then your challenger. You may value my criticisms for your challenger.
See: http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=17962
Best wishes,
SMS
Oh, I almost forgot to add. You should supplement your cosmological argument by defending this statement:
P1: if it is logically possible that all the contingent trues have have explanation, then such contingent trues have an actually true explanation.
Hence, we go from logical possibility to actuality. The argument for this is simple.
If there exists proposition, r, in some possible world, w, that explains all of our contingently truths, p, then possible world w, contains p, r, and the proposition that r explains p. lets call this proposition q. Hence, possible world w contains p (our contingent truths), r (the proposition that explains p) and q (the proposition that r explains p).
But any possible world that contains all of our contingent truths is our world! After all, possible worlds contain only 3 types of modality concerning propositions: necessary, impossible and contingent. Impossible and necessary propositions are shared across worlds. Thus, what differs the possible worlds are their contingent truths.
Now since possible worlds are maximal, then every proposition is either true or false in every possible world. So now you should understand that if some possible world contains all of our contingent truths, then it is identical to our world. Thus, if it possible that our collection of contingent truths have an explanation, then they do have an explanation. This strengthens your argument.
Now since it would make no sense that an explanation explains all of our conjoined contingent truths but single conjuncts, then we can say that if it is logically possible that some contingent truth has an explanation, then it has an actual explanation.
After all, it makes no sense to say that some explanation r, explains the contingent facts:
a & b & c & d, etc
but does not also explain simply
a, or b, or c, or any individual contingent fact. This is because explanations of conjunctions explain their conjuncts, too. Think about it: If r explains the formation of the earth and the formation of the sun, then it should also explain, in isolation, the existence of the earth.
So, then, what is r? Well, r cannot be necessary because necessary causes entail necessary effects. Hence, there would be no contingent truths. thus, r must be contingent and hence a part of p. To be a part of p and also explain p, then it must explain p and also be self-explanatory. What fits this bill? Well, libertarian free will, of course! God's libertarian free will.
SMS
thanks, SMS, for the input
Arguments for the existence of God are very interesting for me since I don't believe you need "faith" in order to know that God exists (Rom. 1:19-20). So, yes, I'm testing out what the usual atheistic objections to arguments for the existence of God are.
You said - "If there exists proposition, r, in some possible world, w, that explains all of our contingently truths, p, then possible world w, contains p, r, and the proposition that r explains p. lets call this proposition q. Hence, possible world w contains p (our contingent truths), r (the proposition that explains p) and q (the proposition that r explains p)."
My problem is that really intellectual theology and philosophy people make these sorts of arguments that no regular human being on the street would be able to follow, much less desire to. I'm trying to figure out how to explain "arguments for the existence of God" in very simple, layman's terms that anyone can understand.
So here's what I'd take from your argument that I believe could be useful in discussion with almost anyone -
"... every proposition is either true or false in every possible world."
Agreed.
"... if it possible that our collection of contingent truths have an explanation, then they do have an explanation."
And there's where I'd lose people again. Instead, I'd try and explain merely that "contingent" simply means a thing whose existence depends upon something else.
"If [something] explains the formation of the earth and the formation of the sun, then it should also explain, in isolation, the existence of the earth."
Agreed.
"So, then, what is [this something]?"
Precisely the question I'm interested in asking.
But ...
It seems you mean by p - something that explains the existence of all contingent things. But I have to work hard to distinguish between what you mean by p and by r.
(And even writing that last paragraph made me feel like I've already gone too far over the heads of a regular layman reader).
I appreciate your suggestion that all of this leads to some sort of "will" or "free will" which then would have to be God's. But I guess I'm working on figuring out how to explain things so they sound concise, simple, and less academic than that.
In this discussion on arguments for the existence of God, my goal is not to score points or to look good on some internet forum by coming up with an abstract academic chain of reasoning that defeats the other guy. Instead my goal is to understand the argument better and learn how to explain it in a way that can be understood by someone other than a college algrebra professor.
Thanks for you enthusiasm though, and I'll keep reading the discussion over at talkrational.org just to see how things are going. If I think it would be useful, I'll even sign up and contribute over there.
Alright, have it your way.
you should, however, use my criticism regarding your challenger's misunderstanding between necessity de dicto and necessity de re.
It's on the talkrational thread. It's an arcane point but it needs to be made because its an arcane objection.
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