Your position on naturalism

[rado84]

I'm a physical naturalist - a guy who believes men and women should be walking the earth completely natural - as nature meant for us to be: without clothes.

[robvalue]

People sure are uptight about wearing clothes.

Oh no, someone saw a naked person! It's all over!

[Ignorant]

The basic problem I find with my own interpretation of Ignorant's position is that from my perspective it seems as though Ignorant is saying that God is noumenal and to know God himself is to know reality itself as opposed to knowing merely our own perceptions of it. [1] And so Ignorant is saying That's Why God Is Important. [2]

Unfortunately from my perspective it seems like the following question begging scenario:

How can God matter to us within the phenomenal realm?
Because God is reality itself, God is goodness itself. God is being itself. So God is the only thing that can matter to us.
But that's the noumenal realm and inaccessible by definition. So, again, my question is how can God matter to us within the phenomenal realm?
No, God exists in both realms and by definition God is the only thing that can matter to us.
But the phenomenal realm is all that matters to us because it's all that's accessible to us. [3] [i]

---

 [/i]So, again, how can God matter to us within the phenomenal realm?
Because God is reality itself, God is goodness itself. God is being itself. So God is the only thing that can matter to us.
But how?
Because God is the the only thing that can.
But how?

---

The problem is that to me it seems as though there's a relevant question being asked about epistemology: "How can we know God in a way that matters to us?" that is being answered with an irrelevant statement about ontology: "Because God is the only thing we can know that matters within our reality." [4]

The question is "How?" but the answer is "What!" [5]

I'm sure that you don't see it this way and probably feel I have strawmanned you, Ignorant. But remember this is just how I see the problem from my perspective. I hope that at least giving you the way I interpret the problem can be of some value or use to you. [6]

1) This is more or less a fair restatement, even if I don't particularly find the Kantian categories helpful. I can try to work with them if it helps. God, in that language, would not merely be a "positive" noumenon. In other words, things like "angels" or "demons" or "ghosts", if they may be called noumena even while lacking sensible (i.e. phenomenal) apprehension, would be "positive" noumena. These are impossible to intuit through the senses, and (on the Kantian account), impossible to know at all through experience and reason.

I don't consider god in this "positive" sort of category. That is the sort of god a Zeus would be.

The analogue from the Kantian categories to my view is this: Noumenon <=>is like<=> Nature/essence/substance  --AND NOT--  noumenon <=>is like<=> "being"

Things are-being something. That something is its noumenon. 
Things are-being noumena. Noumena give rise to phenomena. We experience/know the phenomena.

I think, Alasdair, you are held up at the epistemological level. How can we know the noumena? This is an important question, especially in regards to "Why care at all?".
What I am proposing here is the metaphysical level. What are we trying to know? You even mention that in your post. I understood this thread to be the metaphysical level, and not the epistemological.

"What does to-be mean?" is not an epistemological question. 
The epistemological question would be: "How do we come to know reality?"

2) Well, while I would certainly say that is why God is important, that is not my intent in this thread. My intent here is to affirm that I don't consider god as floating outside of everything else that isn't god in some "supernatural" realm, popping in from time-to-time to show up on toast. The nature of what it means to-be-at-all, according to me, means that "being-itself" is intimately involved at every level of anything which is, while its own manner-of-being is radically and even transcendentally different than everything else's. God isn't "over" or "beyond" nature, on that account. Instead, god is the act-of-being that makes nature what it is, WITH nature, and THROUGH nature.

3) Ah yes, this picks up where that other thread left off. I will respond to this, but after, I'd like to remain on the metaphysical discussion rather than the epistemological: If the "phenomenal realm" is indeed the only thing that matters, then that begs some other questions. 

Do the things which give rise to phenomena (i.e. the noumena) have zero importance merely because they are unknowable in-themselves? If you buy that system, then the mere presence of phenomena logically requires the presence of the noumena giving rise to them. You don't know the noumena in-themselves, but you do know of-them indirectly, as mediated through the phenomena.

In short, even if we may only know the phenomena we experience, that still implies the reality of the noumena... even if we can't know them directly. No noumena, no phenomena. Seems at least slightly important.

If the noumena are important and indirectly and imperfectly knowable through phenomena, then maybe "being" (which is more fundamental than noumenon/nature) is similarly knowable. Maybe even "being-itself"?

4) Well, I would not claim that god is the only thing that matter in our reality. Everything ABOUT reality "matters" in some sense. But the thread is not epistemological, it is metaphysical. Epistemological questions are being asked in order to tease out some metaphysical details.

5) HA! Exactly! The OP questioned the "what" of reality. Does it include "supernatural" things (i.e. does it include super-noumena?) While the epistemological question, "How would you know?" is a good and important one... it isn't exactly what the thread asked.

6) I always appreciate your feedback! I wouldn't call it a strawman, even if it does miss the mark when it comes to god as being-itself. I look forward to your response.

[Ignorant]

Are you defining God, or saying one of His aspects or properties? [1] It would seem strange for "being, itself" to manifest as a burning bush, or to play party tricks with jugs of water. [2]  It would make much more sense for "a" being to do so. [3]

But "being" is a -ness that should be global-- any individual being, if it is separate, should not be "being, itself." [4] And since Jesus had place locality, and spoke as an individual entity rather than a global property, it would seem that Jesus must have been a man, somewhat like me, and cannot have been God in the sense that you are here defining it. [5]

1) Well, I don't think god is definable in a full sense. Like I've said elsewhere in the thread, the "closest" we get are things like, "being, itself", "goodness, itself", "truth, itself", "love, itself" etc. These are not aspects or properties. These are intended to say something about god's nature, but not everything. Saying everything about it is impossible.

2) YES! These are very strange things, indeed! There is a reason the Greco-Roman culture thought it was foolishness ! "But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Cor 1:23). But to say it is strange is not to say it is something being-itself can't do. Even so, those things involve Judeo-Christian revelation, and so they move beyond the purely philosophical description of nature and god. I am not sure that is where this thread intended to go.

3) I'm not sure I follow you. What about a-being lends itself to doing strange things, over and against being-itself?

4) Yep. I agree.

5) Welcome to the central Christian mystery of the Incarnation: Being-itself united a human-nature to itself. Jesus is being-itself united to a human-being in a single person. It's the strangest of things. Being-itself lives, speaks, acts, IS... ALL as the man united to-itself as a single, divinely human person. Jesus is BOTH being-itself and a human-being, united in a person.

Had you encountered Jesus in 1st century Palestine, there would have been no purely rational way, in principle, to conclude that Jesus is being-itself in additition to being human. That would require faith. But the fact that such a movement requires faith would not therefore mean that "being, itself" doesn't exist.

[Ignorant]

Thank you for your observation.

You really don't like having your equivocations called out, do you?

I don't mind it at all, actually. In fact, I welcome it. But so far you have only made comments about my posts in general. Do you have a particular equivocation you'd like to talk about?

[bennyboy]

If "god is being, itself" and "god is love, itself," then "being is love, itself." I don't see why a human emotion would apply to non-human aspects of being. Can you elaborate?

[Ignorant]

If "god is being, itself" and "god is love, itself," then "being is love, itself."  I don't see why a human emotion would apply to non-human aspects of being.  Can you elaborate?

Perhaps love is more than merely human emotion? Can love describe certain action? Can love be something you do?

If love is merely a human emotion felt passively, then your difficulty is well understood. If there is more to love than mere human emotion, then maybe that's a step in the right direction.

What do you think?

[Whateverist]

This all sounds very Platonic, the idea that every instance of something owes its existence to the pure, genuine thing which is not an instance but the pure form itself. I've never found Plato very convincing in this.

[bennyboy]

If "god is being, itself" and "god is love, itself," then "being is love, itself."  I don't see why a human emotion would apply to non-human aspects of being.  Can you elaborate?

Perhaps love is more than merely human emotion? Can love describe certain action? Can love be something you do?

If love is merely a human emotion felt passively, then your difficulty is well understood. If there is more to love than mere human emotion, then maybe that's a step in the right direction.

What do you think?

I think "love" is a label for the strong feelings we have toward people.  If there's some other thing than that, it needs another name.

[Ignorant]

Perhaps love is more than merely human emotion? Can love describe certain action? Can love be something you do?

If love is merely a human emotion felt passively, then your difficulty is well understood. If there is more to love than mere human emotion, then maybe that's a step in the right direction.

What do you think?

I think "love" is a label for the strong feelings we have toward people.  If there's some other thing than that, it needs another name.

Well if that is the case, then "love, itself" cannot be equated with "being, itself", and your objection is a good one.