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From: REXLEX@fnal.fnal.gov
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Subject: Re: Certainty and Arrogance
Message-ID: <Apr.15.00.58.31.1993.28903@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 15 Apr 93 04:58:32 GMT
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In article <Apr.13.00.08.33.1993.28409@athos.rutgers.edu>
kilroy@gboro.rowan.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie) writes:
>
>There is no way out of the loop.

Oh contrer mon captitan!  There is a way.  Certainly it is not by human reason.
 Certainly it is not by human experience. (and yet it is both!)  To paraphrase
Sartre, the particular is absurd unless it has an infinite reference point.  It
is only because of God's own revelation that we can be absolute about a thing. 
Your logic comes to fruition in relativism.  
>
>"At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded."
>                                                    -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ah, now it is clear.  Ludwig was a desciple of Russell. Ludwig's fame is often
explained by the fact that he spawned not one but two significant movements in
contemporary philosophy. Both revolve around Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus
('21) and Philosophical Investigation ('53).  Many of Witt's comments and
implicit conclusions suggest ways of going beyond the explicit critique of
language he offers.  According to some of the implicit suggestions of Witt's
thought, ordinary language is an invaluable resource, offering a necessary
framework for the conduct of daily life.  However, though its formal features
remain the same, its content does not and it is always capable of being
transcended as our experience changes and our understanding is deepened, giving
us a clearer picture of what we are and what we wish to say.  On Witt's own
account, there is a dynamic fluidity of language.   It is for this reason that
any critique of language must move from talking about the limits of language to
talking about its boundaries, where a boundary is understood not as a wall but
a threshold.
  vonWrights's comment that Witt's "sentences have a content that often lies
deep beneath the surface of language."  On the surface, Witt talks of the
insuperable position of ordinary language and the necessity of bringing
ourselves to accept it without question.  At the same time, we are faced with
Witt's own creative uses of language and his concern for bringing about changes
in our traditional modes of understanding.  Philosophy, then, through more
perspicacious speech, seeks to effect this unity rather than assuming that it
is already functioning. Yes?  The most brilliant of scientists are unable to
offer a foundation for human speech so long as they reject Christianity! In his
Tractatus we have the well nigh perfect exhibition of the nature of the impasse
of the scientific ideal of exhaustive logical analysis of Reality by man. 
Perfect language does not exist for fallen man, therefore we must get on about
our buisness of relating Truth via ordinary language.

  This is why John's Gospel is so dear to most Christians.  It is so simple in
it conveyance of the revealation of God, yet so full of unlieing depth of
understanding.  He viewed Christ from the OT concept of "as a man thinketh, so
he is."  John looked at the outward as only an indicator of what was inside,
that is the consciousness of Christ.  And so must we.  Words are only vehicals
of truth.  He is truth.  The scriptures are plain in their expounding that
there is a Truth and that it is knowable.  THere are absolutes, and they too
are knowable.  However, they are only knowable when He reveals them to the
individual.  There is, and we shouldn't shy from this, a mysticism to
Christianity.  Paul in ROm 8 says there are 3 men in the world.  There is the
one who does not have the Spirit and therefore can not know the things of the
Spirit (the Spirit of Truth) and there is the one who has the Spirit and has
the capacity to know of the Truth, but there  is the third.  THe one who not
only has the Spirit, but that the Spirit has him! Who can know the deep things
of God and reveal them to us other than the Spirit.  And it is only the deep
things of GOd that are absolute and true.
   There is such a thing as true truth and it is real, it can be experienced
and it is verifiable.  I disagree with Dr Nancy's Sweetie's conclusion because
if it is taken to fruition it leads to relativism which leads to dispair.  

"I would know the words which He would answer me, and understand what He would
say unto me."  Job 23ff

--Rex

suggested, easy reading about epistimology:  "He is there and He is not Silent"
 by Francis Schaeffer.
