vessr wrote:Because you’ve posted a link to your blog in this forum, I guess that gives us the green light to critique your latest entry here.
Or any of the other essays there.
No doubt you are a smart, articulate person. The question is, does your philosophy hold up under scrutiny; i.e, have you proven ANYTHING by it. My answer is, No.
As a philosophical exploration of metaphysical concepts, I wasn't out to "prove" anything at all. For LDS, I intended to amplify and generate deeper and more imaginative critical thought and reflection on a concept they already understand to be true, but may have not reflected at length upon relative to some of its deeper implications (among which are, of course, the
literal Fatherhood of God).
For others, I only desire to plant a seed that might grow into food for future thought.
Have you edified anyone by it?
I certainly hope I have.
There are not any more philosophical and doctrinal implications of the concept of the preexistence of individual spirits than there are for any concept of existence, pre, or post, or whatever.
They are quite unique in comparison to other theories/ideas of the origin of the soul or sentient entity that is the individual.
In other words, the concept of pre-existence is not any deeper than any other concept of reality. I feel, however, that you have tried to take the subject deeper than most reasonable minds can comprehend.
I'm really not sure at all what you're trying to say here. Are the mysteries of existence shallow? Are they facile or trite? Do they matter?
We either existed before we were born, or we didn’t. We will either exist after we die, or we won’t. In either case, we cannot prove it, using logic, or reasoning, or concepts of self-awareness. Going backward or forward, logic and reason will not help us in our quest to know for sure things of faith, such as whether we will live again after we die.
You seem to wish to throw up your hands in futility and not think about these kinds of things at all. That, of course, is your prerogative, but I prefer to think about them, and think hard about them. Why? Because they're the most important thinks we have to think about.
I don't know about the term "prove" here, but I am trying to show that, as I mentioned in that essay:
“existence” is defined not only as the property of any specific existing thing, but as a fundamental ontological axiom. In other words, “existence” qua existence is an eternal, essential, and inherent quality that transcends any particular form existence may take.
Existence, in other words, must exist; being, in some form, some manifestation, some developmental stage, is
the fundamental reality. Non-existence is something that
is, and hence, is self-contradictory.
Your post to your blog on this subject sounds like you are saying you can prove a preexistence by logic or reason alone. Again, I say you cannot.
The title, again, is the philosophical implications of the doctrine. The doctrine is a matter of revealed truth. Its implications and intellectual establishment as more than a matter of faith is important because it does make sense in a logically coherent way, even though its specific details can never be established in that manner.
Perhaps we can agree that the beginnings of our attribute of self-awareness depend on whether we were aware of our self before we were born on this earth. As babies we certainly were not self-aware. That came later. So, how can we be sure that we were aware BEFORE we were babies?
1. I would argue that self - awareness is not a necessary attribute of intelligent self-existence (are ants self aware?), and that that attribute can be latent or emergent in such an entity that itself is embryonic in a developmental sense, just as it is emergent in a mortal infant. LDS doctrine teaches the existence of a primordial entity, or intelligent essence that was never created and had always existed, co-eternal with existence itself, and was capable, over time, of developing its attributes and characteristics to the point of becoming like God. This intelligent entity was, in some manner, fused with spirit bodies generated by our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, to produce the "intelligences" spoken of in the Book of Abraham, or, in other words, a self-aware, perceiving, willing, individuated self or person.
At some point, it became self-aware, but the doctrine itself is not dependent upon or concerned with that particular aspect of the teaching. There is no doctrine as yet as to whether each of the eternally existing entities that became spirit sons and daughters of God were, in some sense, sentient, and my essay was not intended to grapple with that question (interesting as it is).
The atheist would say “No, we didn’t exist before our birth and, therefore, we were not aware until some time after our birth into this existence.” The fundamentalist Christian would agree with the atheist in rare harmony with him. The agnostic would say, “I don’t know.” And the Mormon will say, “I know, by the power of the Holy Ghost, that I existed before I was born.” But that does not give us an objective basis for testing your theories of pre-existence.
But why should there be a way to test this concept "objectively?" What would count as evidence? Science is quite out of the question as its methodology and perceptual field are wholly inadequate to that task.
Our existence now and our conscious awareness of it are ONLY evidence that we exist now and are aware of our existence now.
This may be true of your physical body, and the fundamental elements of which it is composed. The problem comes when one attempts to conceive of the sentient, self-aware, self-contemplating, perceiving "I" or individual, unitary consciousness as having never existed at all in some form. Non-existence, again, is a self-negating concept. Non-existence must exist to be intelligible as a proposition; it must be a state of being (the state of non-existence) against which existence is contrasted.
While the doctrine of preexistence stands as revealed knowledge from God for LDS, its philosophical implications here at least allow for the distinct possibility that, if non-being is logically impossible in a overall sense, then entities such as those comprising intelligent, organized beings such as ourselves may also be co-eternal with existence itself; we may be discreet, individual phenomena within an eternal field of space, matter, energy, and intelligence in which phenomena qua phenomena
cannot not exist.No one has come back from the dead and proven that he or she has come back (except as to matters of faith, such as in the resurrection of Christ). But matters of faith are not provable by their very definition. If you haven’t proved anything by your reasoning, what was the purpose of your post? You cannot prove anything by posting your rationale for existing. Again, what’s your point?
Why do I need to "prove" anything to you so long as the fundamental concepts is true? What really matters is that you can know for and within yourself that the idea is true, not that others can independently verify that knowledge
for you objectively.
The fancy attributes you refer to, including consciousness, sentience, personality and perception abilities can be addressed in the same way. Either, no, we didn’t have them before we existed as human beings; or we don’t know; or we attach a belief system, whether it be the Mormon system of preexistence or another system such as reincarnation.
Again, the doctrine of the preexistence is
given, for LDS. I never intended to logically establish the concept itself, only, as I said, its philosophical implications. Clearly, if you think the entire idea is hokum at the outset, its implications will be of no particular interest.
There is no express reference to preexistence in the Bible.
Which, for LDS, is wholly irrelevant.
Any alleged reference must be qualified with “according to the interpretation of the person making the claim.” For example, whether Christ meant the preexistence or his disciples when they talked about the man born blind is up for debate. Surely, most Christian would not take the view Mormons have taken concerning the discussion.
Most Christians believe that they were created "out of nothing," as was the cosmos, an idea which this essay is meant to work toward dismantling entirely.
Why should a person who “does not as yet accept the possibility of new scripture, continuing revelation, and the existence of modern prophets, and does not recognize any such idea in the Biblical texts as we have them and as they are normatively understood by traditional Christians generally” think deeply about anything that Mormons want to discuss from a theological point of view?
Why shouldn't they?
It's too deep.
Not according to the scriptures, or to modern revelation. We take the deep waters line upon line, degree by degree, here a little there a little.