Bob Thune 2004-03-11
From Summa Bergania
From : David Bergan
Sent : Thu, 11 Mar 2004 11:47:48 -0600
To : Bob Thune, Jr
Subject : Reason
Dear Pastor Bob,
First, a picture, so at least you will be able to recognize me if you see me in a coffee shop. I'm the one on the far right. The other two guys are my brothers and my great aunt is in the middle.
I'm glad to hear that my arguments are weak, because I would like to be rid of them if I could. I don't have a problem with confrontational writing so long as it isn't blatant namecalling or bullying. But my biggest concern is the snowball effect - that as two people continue an email discussion, the responses on each separate issue become longer and longer to the point that it takes several hours to make a reply. To stop that problem, we will have to let go of some things and focus on the important ones... and of course we can always go back to the peripheral issues later.
Issue 1) How do we know absolute truth?
"Reason is a whore, it will do anything for money." -Martin Luther
I understand the idea behind Luther's quote, that men are inherently selfish and will rationalize anything to believe what they want to believe. But on the other hand, with what did Luther combat the Catholic church? In his own words it was "Scripture and plain reasoning."
Hume, Jefferson, and the Deists all lived in the time that history labels "The Age of Reason." But that doesn't mean that their beliefs were necessarily the result of sound reasoning. Hume's argument against miracles is flawed, as shown by CS Lewis in Miracles: A Preliminary Study. If one of the facts of the universe is that a God exists who created it, then it is not unreasonable at all to believe that the creator God could interrupt His creation with His power. Virgin births and parted seas make logical sense when it coincides with an omnipotent God's Will.
You said that if reason is our standard we have to throw out any sort of certainty. I must disagree. There is nothing more certain than the multiplication tables - which is reason in the purest form. Same for the basic truths of geometry, logic, and metaphysics. People can doubt the Bible, but they cannot doubt arithmetic.
I am not going to defend bad reasoning... the inclination of fallen people to get their way with poor logic... the lazy efforts of self-indulgent people to justify their lifestyle with half-baked questions about God. But what I believe is the ultimate source of truth are sound conclusions reached from true premises and valid deduction. Isn't that what we are assuming to even have this discussion? When you tell me to see in 2 Peter that Peter is equating Paul's writings with Scripture, aren't you trying to convince me that that conclusion is logical? And if it weren't logical, could you really blame me for not being convinced? This assumption seems to put reason right at the top. And since any effort to take it down would necessarily be done through logic, that makes a pretty conundrum.
Well, I'm going to wrap this up for now. Let me know if my position is clear and whether you have any objections to it. If not, I'll move along to the next issue.
Yours,
David
PS I will be away from email from Friday through Sunday.
--David Bergan
"I wish I had never been born," she said. "What are we born for?"
"For infinite happiness," said the Spirit. "You can step out into it at any moment..."
-CS Lewis (The Great Divorce)
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