The Nexus of Psychology and Religion

No difference in syntax without semantics.

For those who have ears that don’t hear?

I’ll admit a subtle difference in meaning between a regress and a regression. So if you’ll allow a small revision, you can presumably see the difference between an infinite number of mirrors, and a collection of mirrors that proceeds to infinity.

I thought Aquinas, made the distinction between the possibility of a collection proceeding to infinity, and the impossibility of the collection becoming actually infinite.

I would have sworn that’s what Rowe quoted Aquinas as saying in his book on the cosmological argument. I even wrote a paper quoting it. Almost 15 years later, I found a copy of Rowe’s book, and was beside myself in discovering that I apparently misread the passage (or dreamed it) :grin:

Wao! I must have quoted that at least a dozen times over the years. It’s still true, but I’m not sure Aquinas in fact made that distinction.

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Aquinas and his 3rd rate inverse apotheosis Lane Craig (at the last Aquinas realised it was time to shut up) failed (who knows, Aquinas might have realised) and utterly fail respectively, to realise that eternity is the single greatest inference of existence. If rationality is to be believed.

I still think he understood that a collection can proceed to infinity, whether it begins in the past or the present. That’s a pretty strong inference for eternity.

For those who have eyes but do not see:

  • The difference between a regress and a regression is moot and unimportant.
  • The distinction between a regression of things, i.e. a collection proceeding backwards in time, from now to infinity, and a progression of things, i.e. a collection proceeding forwards in time, from now to actual infinity is merely the distinction between The Past and The Future, which is nonsense if The Now does not exist. Relativists who reject The Now–which is possible only when Space, Time, and Simultaneity are Absolute–are left to prate about an infinite numberless number of “nows”. Without the Now, distinctions between a regression and a progression in Time are “relative distinctions”.
  • In Paul’s speech at the Areopagus [Acts 17:22-29], he said:
    • “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man."
      • In the words, “for in Him we live and move and exist”, Paul was quoting from the poet Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus, to wit:
      • Most honored of immortals, many-named one, ever omnipotent,
        Zeus, prime mover of nature, steering all things by your law,
        Greetings! For it is proper for all mortals to speak to you:
        For we all descend from you, bearing our share of your likeness
        We alone, of all mortal creatures that live and move on earth.
        So, I shall make song of you constantly and sing forever of your might.
        Truly, this whole universe, spinning around the earth,
        Obeys you wherever you lead, and willingly submits to your rule;
        Such is the servant you hold in your unconquerable hands,
        A double-edged, fiery, ever-living thunderbolt.
        For by its strikes all the works of nature happen.
        By it you direct the universal reason, which pervades all things
        Intermixing with the great and small lights of the heavens.
        Because of this you are the greatest, the highest ruler of all.
        Not a single thing that is done on earth happens without you, God,
        Nor in the divine heavenly sphere nor in the sea,
        Except for what bad people do in their foolishness.
        But you know how to make the crooked straight
        And to bring order to the disorderly; even the unloved is loved by you.
        For you have so joined all things into one, the good and the bad,
        That they all share in a single unified everlasting reason.
        It is shirked and avoided by all the wicked among mortals,
        The wretched, who ever long for the getting of good things,
        Neither see nor hear God’s universal law,
        By which, obeying with understanding, they could share in the good life.
        But instead they chase after this and that, far from the good,
        Some in their aggressive zeal for fame,
        Others with a disordered obsession with profits,
        Still others in indulgence and the pleasurable exertions of the body.
        [They desire the good] but are carried off here and there,
        All the while in zealous pursuit of completely different outcomes.
        But bountiful Zeus, shrouded in dark clouds and ruling the thunder,
        Protect human beings from their ruinous ignorance;
        Scatter it from our souls, grant that we might obtain
        True judgment on which you rely to steer all things with justice;
        So that having won honor, we may honor you in return,
        Constantly singing of your works, as it is proper
        For mortals to do. For neither mortals nor gods have any greater privilege
        Than to make everlasting song of the universal law in justice.
      • Cleanthes: “For we all descend from you, bearing our share of your likeness
        We alone, of all mortal creatures that live and move on earth.”
        Paul: “…for in Him we live and move and exist,…”
      • Trivial pursuit into a rabbit hole: Was Paul saying that Zeus is god or that god is Zeus?
      • However, … what’s the difference between “God in whom we live, move, and exist” and "a single cosmos–infinite in volume and in duration–in which we live, move, and exist.
  • Here is a cubic unit of the cosmos–natural nature, if you will–and within that cubic unit in Absolute Space and Absolute Time, are a collection of things, some living, some non-living–all of which move and exist.
    Doc5a
  • Subtract all those from the picture, and reflect on what a cubic portion of God looks like, in Absolute Space and Absolute Time:
    Doc5b
  • How does a cosmos full of things compare to God, apart from those things, much less a God outside of relative Space and relative Time?
  • An infinite progression of mirrors is as false as a married bachelor; so is an infinite regression of them.
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This is confusing me

  1. The possibility of a collection proceeding to infinity, and the impossibility of the collection becoming actually infinite.

  2. The impossibility of a collection proceeding to infinity, and the possibility of the collection becoming actually infinite.

In all my days, I never thought I’d see 2. being claimed as true.

Extending toward future eternity from now whereas actually extending to past eternity of actual nows is what reality does.

Most perfectly with you (or me?) at the center of it… the nexus of psychology and religion.

An interesting article in this months ASA journal, looking at seeing how faith can benefit psychology:

I have just scanned, but will read more carefully later.

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We are each at the centre of two eternities certainly, but only one is real.

Klax, I’m afraid you do or do not know what it is you are saying.

I prefer the mystery of God’s eternity which we can miraculously share.

How can there be any doubt that I know what I’m saying? Unless rationality is meaningless. And what is the mystery of God’s eternity? Real past eternity is the fact, God or no.

Because you are saying that one of us is at the center of eternity.

Only by God being at the center of eternity, can we have any meaningful existence.

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Unless rationality is meaningless.

It is if it is based on fallacious presuppositions, no matter how preveniently true, self-evidently axiomatic and brute fact the holder imagines them to be.

“Unless rationality is meaningless”

The critique of pure reason is that the deductive arguments prove God, but not God apart from oneself.

So reason is meaningless, and it isn’t.

No I’m not. How could I? And what happened to you that you could say that I am? Everyone and everything is always at the centre of eternity. If it is centred in God, then there is meaning, yes.

And God is not proven by deductive reasoning. He can be inducted or abducted.

God has a providential M.O. that can be deduced, red herrings and strawmen notwithstanding – you know, like in the case of the incarnational George Müller.

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Aye Muller… does anyone doubt the faithfulness of his account?

Tim Challies has a travel video series on the Zondervan site where he spent an episode visiting England and went to Muller’s orphanage and sat at his desk :nerd_face:

Here’s a 5 minute version that has a couple second clip of the scene.

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That’s what the serpent said when it used the plural pronoun to say that you will be like God.

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