Right. Yes I am influenced by the theology of Paul and Hans Urs Von Balthasar, John Macquarrie, and others who say God is the ground of being. But that’s another book. I don’t go into that too much in the Trace of God. I agree with Balthasar and not Tillich that God is consciousness (except a certain reading of Tillich might imply that God is conscious. Tillich says God is “the ground of consciousness,” depending upon how one takes that…)
How does your argument using experience-results as evidence, not amount to discovering characteristics (and thus basing doctrine by reference to one rather than another set of characteristics) of something “fundamentally beyond doctrine”? If it’s fundamentally beyond doctrine, how can that not mean it’s fundamentally beyond any ability to infer facts about it (including by means of appeal to a co-determinate as evidence, the “trace” of it?)
(Note: that’s what I call throwing a softball. )
You are saying the argument for co-determinate is a soft ball? The first chapter is about why we have to have arguments and why we cannot just make observations directly of God at work. God is not given in sense data because he’s the foundation of sense data, of all there is, not a thing in creation to be given in sense data. If you think it has to be direct empirical knowledge to be “hard ball” whatever that analogy means in terms of philosophy, how are you going to get that in dealing with something that is not subject to empirical data? God is beyond our understanding. One might think to do “hard ball” one would need to understand. The God correlate as Tillich called it, co-determinate is associated with Schleiermacher, the best we will get. Is that soft ball?
The first thing you have to do is find a means of demonstrating what the co-determinate is, or could be. If you already know then you must already know God exists and you don’t need the argument. To see how I do that, you need to read the book. Chapters 1 and 2.
I’ll give you a hint, I make two major God arguments. (1) Co determinate and; (2) argument from epistemic judgement.
(1) says we have a set of criteria which we can take to be the trace of the divine, for historical and other reasons. Then these characteristics are found in mystical experience. The result of the experience is life transforming. I use this term to group all the different results into one label. That label is meant to imply positive dramatic long term changes. Your life changes for the better and that can be broken down into different categories distilled from the findings of two studies, Wuthnow and Nobel.
Wuthnow:
*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
•Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style
Noble:
*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion
That’s from that council on spiritual practices page that I already linked to.
All of that together I germ “life transforming.” That is what religion promises. That’s the nature of religion to offer life transformation and these experiences are religion delivering on that promise. Therefore we should be able to assume that this is the Trace, it’s the effect of God on human lives.
The second argument is epistemological. I set up a criteria through which we understand that our experiences are real. We understand the reality of our experiences according to a criteria that we employ naturally. That is:
regular
consistent
shared (inter-subjective)
enables navigation.
If the phenomena is regular, every time I try to walk through walls I bounce off, I always bounce off in the same way, the wall appears to be solid. I eventually learn “I can’t walk through walls.” I check my experience against that of others. no one I have ever met can walk through walls. Of course we don’t spend a great deal of time worrying about it. We conclude these things immediately but that’s basically the process we observe, and when a phenomena is regular and consistent and shared by others, we assume it’s real.
We also assume it’s real if the enables us to navigate in the world. We do what works. Think of Dr. Phil’s annoying and shallow little question “how’s that working for ya?” There is a point to it, if it’s not working why are you still doing it? Although I do want to punch him when I hear him say that.
So religious experience meets this criteria. I find that it’s regular and consistent and so many others. Every time I pray if I really seriously put attention into it I’m not dashing off “thanks for the food,” I feel a presence of holiness. I say that because it’s also the same kind of feeling. It’s both regular and consistent. Then, not that my very experience is shared, but I find other believers describing similar sounding feelings when they pray. So I assume it is a shared experience in kind.
That is borne out by these studies. They are not just anecdotal, they giving us quantitative analysis which establishes scientifically that these are the effects of religious experience. Something is being experienced it’s not a trick of the mind, and it fits the criteria we use to judge reality.
As for “navigation” the studies also show that the effect of the experience is enable one to navigate in live in the sense that one is able to cope with the vicissitudes of life. One is better able to make decisions in a clear headed mature way by having the mental capacity, wisdom and understanding of life to do so. These are the result of those experiences.
Since the experiences fit the criteria we use to decide reality, we should trust that they are indicative of a reality. We are not imposing wishful thinking. Since the experiences fit the criteria for epistemic judgement we should assume we are experiencing a realty beyond ourselves.