RE: What beliefs would we consider reasonable for a self proclaimed Christian to hold?
January 30, 2018 at 6:14 pm
I'm not quite sure how to define the term 'Christian' in a way that is consistent with 'reasonable' since the defining concept 'Nicene creed' seems to be inherently unreasonable.
So, what would I expect out of a reasonable *theist*?
I think one expectation is an admission that anything to do with the supernatural is an *additional* assumption on top of what has already been discovered through science. Also, that such assumptions should only allow ideas that are inherently untestable. This makes them 'independent' from what can be done through the sciences and thereby a *possible* axiom.
This, by the way, happens in mathematics: we know, after Godel, that any formal system we are interested in will have truths that cannot be proved. Such truths have to be *assumed* in addition to the other axioms. And, to some extent, the choice is arbitrary.
An admission that the assumption of 'God' is similar to the assumption of the axiom of choice would go a long way to establishing some sort of 'reasonableness' to the system.
So, what would I expect out of a reasonable *theist*?
I think one expectation is an admission that anything to do with the supernatural is an *additional* assumption on top of what has already been discovered through science. Also, that such assumptions should only allow ideas that are inherently untestable. This makes them 'independent' from what can be done through the sciences and thereby a *possible* axiom.
This, by the way, happens in mathematics: we know, after Godel, that any formal system we are interested in will have truths that cannot be proved. Such truths have to be *assumed* in addition to the other axioms. And, to some extent, the choice is arbitrary.
An admission that the assumption of 'God' is similar to the assumption of the axiom of choice would go a long way to establishing some sort of 'reasonableness' to the system.
