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jazen
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« on: September 28, 2007, 11:25:23 am »


This is an essay I'm working on for my Philosophy Course, any comments would be welcome, especially focusing on the layout of the sections, grammer, punctuation and spelling.

Explain why Dionysius advocates the via negative as the only way we might talk about God,

Dionysius advocates the via negative as the only way we might talk about God as he feels that there is no way that the human mind can understand even in part, the utterly transcendent, totally ineffable, indescribable God. It is much easier, however, for us to understand what God is not, for example, a monkey.
He also believed that words are inherently unstable, and therefore to use them to describe what God is, is impossible. The central idea to Dionysius’ work is that God is beyond and outside of all categories of human thought.
Dionysius, does however allow for people to use the via positive to describe God in two ways, the first of these methods is to confirm the knowledge using a source such as the bible to confirm the quality. This is because attributes of God are believed to be revealed through out the book, however it is revealed in a way that is symbolic (means something) to humans and is within their understanding.
The second method is to use the sentences or phrases as you normally would however to accept that God is beyond human understanding and therefore say that he is beyond these things, for example, beyond benevolent, to say that he is more than all loving. This method can be said to lead people to a deeper spiritual awareness.

What are the immediate problems faced by this approach?

The immediate problems that Dionysius faces with this approach are many. First of all, if we cannot use positive statements because words are inherently unstable, or meaningless, then how are negative statements any better you are still using meaningless statements to describe God.
To describe what God is not, you must (to some degree) have an understanding of what he is, otherwise how can you be certain that what you are saying is correct? God might be able to be found in that monkey from the Caribbean, but you can never know, (of course the bible does say that God can be found everywhere so technically, he can be found even in the closet where you stashed the skeleton of the rat you killed when you were a child, which you should probably clean at some point it must be beginning to stink by now).
Next Dionysius has advocated the use of via positive statements so long as they are backed up by a source such as the bible, however, how can we be sure that the bible is both correct in the first place and being interpreted correctly. How can the words used there be any more meaningful than the words we use today, in fact aren’t hey in many ways less meaningful as we do not use these words in everyday life and therefore do not have as good an understanding of their meanings.

« Last Edit: October 03, 2007, 10:59:59 pm by jazen » Report Spam   Logged

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Tau Worlock
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« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2007, 12:13:57 pm »

Quote
This is because attributes of God are believed to be revealed through out the book,
does not read right

Quote
God might be able to be found in that monkey from the Caribbean, but you can never know, (of course the bible does say that God can be found everywhere so technically, he can be found even in the closet where you stashed the skeleton of the rat you killed when you were a child, which you should probably clean at some point it must be beginning to stink by now).
run on sentence, also a coma betwen 'point' and 'it'

as for the pice itself it reads ok, i can understand it all so a non philosophy expert knows what this is about. go to go, lecture in a few min
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jazen
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« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2007, 11:02:41 pm »

Thank you Tau_Worlock,
Scond, well not quite an essay this I guess. This piece of work was an either or about 2 Principles, you could do either the falsification
or the verification, im doing the second, though I may do the first at a later date as I need to know it anyway,

Explain the Fundamental ideas behind the verification principle
The Vienna circle, also known as the logical positivists, derived the verification principle. They say that the only types of statements that are knowable are those that are analytic and those that are synthetic.
The Verification principle states that we know the meaning of the proposition only if we know the conditions under which it is true or false. If a thing cannot be measured analytically or empirically then by this principle it is considered meaningless.
A.J, Ayer was a British Logical Positivist and he argued that propositions of science are meaningful as they are based on experimentation, but that religious language is meaningless.
He thought that there were 2 types of verification, strong and weak. Examples of strong verification include statements such as ‘the squirrel is red’ or ‘the sky is grey’. There is no doubt about the fact that they are true (unless you live somewhere where you are lucky enough to get a blue sky).
Weak verification on the other hand means that there may be some evidence towards it being truth but we cannot be 100% certain, such as ‘Julius Caesar was murdered’ or ‘Einstein had Aspergers’. These statements cannot be proved by their own criteria either analytically or synthetically.
It is argued by Hick that at the point of death we will have evidence of the existence of God as those who believed in him in life will perceive him in death.This is called eschatological virification.
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AMERICA here I come,
I will be out of the country - and away from internet - for the next 2-3 weeks.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step,
A story of a thousand words starts with a single thought.
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