Video Transcript: Lesson 9 - Bob Zomermaand and Dr. Roy Clouser discussion

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - Welcome back. We're here again to do a little bit  more discussion of what Professor Clouser has been talking about and  Professor one of the things I wanted to comment on is this belief forming  capacity that the human beings have. Can I use the short piece of cloth there a  minute I see it. I left some things on here. But is is imagination the belief forming capacity, or is imagination something different?  

Dr, Clouser - I think that imagination is something different, because we can  imagine something and not believe in it, not believe not believe that it  corresponds to reality. One belief come belief formation is different. We can form a concept or imagine something, or both, without believing it at all. But when we  believe something, we have then we have been taken an idea, a concept or an  image, and entrusted ourselves to its its revealing the way reality is.  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - okay? Well, I wanted to make that clear for the  students, because that's what immediately came to mind. I started imagining all  kinds of scenarios.  

Dr, Clouser - Imagine Pegasus, the winged horse, yeah, but we don't believe it's real. If somebody else cooks up a poltergeist and does believe it's in the next  room, that's because they are trusting that concept to correspond to reality.  Yeah, so this is clearly a correspondence theory of truth. A statement is true if  and only if, what it asserts is, in fact, the case. Okay, that's what makes it true.  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - Because, for example, I enjoy reading novels.  

Dr, Clouser - They can seem very real, yes, but they're not, but they don't fool  you into thinking that, that they really took place. Now, if you read a historical  novel, that's a mixture, then you may wonder, Well, did George Washington  really do this? Or this just part of what they made up for the story, and you don't  know whether to trust it as corresponding to historical fact. And so you probably  don't, but maybe not, maybe you do so well  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - and but then the belief forming thing that you're  talking about here is something that gives us a belief that corresponds to what  reality is,  

Dr, Clouser - it gives us a belief that a concept we have does conform to real,  does represent, correspond to the way reality is so in both cases, in Aristotle's  case and in Descartes, they didn't identify this belief forming capacity with just  

forming a concept. They both said, we can form concepts all over the place. And in fact, Descartes believed that all mathematics was really just our own 

invention. There were no such things. Oh, he was a complete nominalist when it  comes to mathematics, mathematical truths are things we've imagined, we've  cooked up in our own heads. We make the rules, and if we do it right, it comes  out right. It's the exact reverse of Pythagoras, the Pythagoreans, who thought all reality is made out of numbers. What we do in mathematics corresponds to  reality if we do it correctly, because that's what the things are made of, is those  numbers. That's why it never comes out wrong. For Descartes, it never comes  out wrong because it's our pure invention. And there are no such things, there  are no quantities, there are no perfect bounds and lines and so on. So yeah, he  says those are all just just imagination. So he doesn't also trust them to  correspond to reality, that would make it a belief. So he denies that belief. Now  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - this is moving a little different, but back to your  thing about Aristotle, who, who said that, you know the earth is at the center,  and then every there's further levels until certainly you're at rationality, was that,  

Dr, Clouser - well, there's an increase in rationality with every level you get away from the Earth. Yeah, there's more and more. It becomes more and more  rational. And he believed that there were gods in those others, which were the  bearers of that kind of rationality. But you see, the gods didn't create the  spheres. Spheres made the gods possible. So it's the rationality and but it's your rationality that was generally right, that's the divine and the and the and the  particular divinities are the individual, individuals who have more of that. Who  have that kind of rationality which is more superior to humans. When he made  the earth the center of the of the universe, he was thinking of it more the way we would think of a dream. It doesn't make it superior to the rest. It's the most  inferior part. It's a black hole sucking all and this is a funny point, because a  great many atheists today look at that statement as it was taken up by  theologians. They read Aristotle, and they said, okay, the Earth at the center of  the universe. And so the the atheists attacked the Christians today on the  grounds of the Christians just wanted to make the earth the most important  place. So they said, No, it was the Christians listened to the astronomers and  got the wrong astronomy, and now that you have a better astronomy, you make  fun of the Christians for having faulty theology whereby they wanted to elevate  humans. No, it lowered it made them the worst things to the universe. Okay, now 

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - there's a course I put together for CLI on early  church history, and one of the one of the key things that it seemed the early  church struggled with was this whole concept of the levels of things in that the  physical was evil, but the Further the spiritual was what was Yeah, was good  and right? And it comes 

Dr, Clouser - quick, doesn't? It becomes real good. It infects the gospel view.  Yes, it seems to have started very early. Yes, sure, you get you get writers. I'm  not going to remember all the names right now, that's what happens when you  get old. 

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - Yeah, but the Platonists yeah, the Alexandria  school, I think, was one that sure kind of enjoyed Plato.  

Dr, Clouser - Yeah, there were, there were Platonists, and then, of course, but  nothing talks what Augustine did when he says that the Platonist had it right,  yeah, and the all the perfections, they just didn't realize they were all perfections of one being, which, which Plato calls the highest form, the God and Father of  all things.  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - But they were, they were kind of operating out of  this whole Greek idea that,  

Dr, Clouser - yes, exactly, it was infecting their thought. They're bringing it and  reading it in, yeah, you know, interpolating in the New Testament, which isn't  dealing with that stuff at all, yeah, yeah. So they, but they put it in that setting,  and it's very faithful. And, of course, this is the, this is the thing that the the  Greek church resisted so strongly. It's ironic that the Greek speaking theologians of the Greek branch of the Eastern branch of the Christian church recognized  that the big divide was not between the purely rational and what's not rational,  which is Plato and Aristotle and the Western Church, the big divide is between  the creator and the creature, and the rational truths are all created too. That's  something that Western theology insists on denying. God did not create the laws of logic and mathematics. Yes, he did. And the big divide is creator, creature,  and whatever isn't creator, whatever is creature? And so the necessary truths  are necessary for creatures, not for God. Now the response to that that the  Western Church has made is, you say God created the law of non contradiction, then he can break it. So what you're telling me is that it's possible for God to be  perfectly good and it perfectly wicked. It's possible for God to be omniscient and  stupid. It's possible for right? It's possible for God to break his promise to us and and say that he that, that he kept it. Because both are true. That's not what it  means at all. Okay, so what look the the Western Church wants to say that God  can't break the laws of logic because they're part of his own nature. He didn't  create them, but they are eternal and uncreated, and they make him. They're  part of what make him what he is, so he can't violate himself. Eastern Church  says God did create the laws of math, of logic and math and all the rest of the  necessary truths. God can't break them because they don't apply to him. 

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - Okay? Yes, the very obvious bill, oh, that God  

Dr, Clouser - can break them. No, he can't break it. Nothing can break a law that the law doesn't apply to in the first place.  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - So what you're saying, if I'm hearing you, right,  yeah, got your solid circle here of the Deity, yes, and come out over here. It's the perfections are over here. But this would be all dotted lines if I did your kind of  thing, because they're  

Dr, Clouser - part of this. That's right. And they okay. That's the Eastern Church  view. That's. The orthodox view, and it was the view of Luther and Calvin. Calvin says God is not subject to any law. That's the Creator created the laws. That  doesn't now God as as he comes into creation and comes in the form of in  Jesus, Christ subjects himself to the laws. And that's Yeah, but that's different.  Laws we can note. But originally, God created them his. He exists independently of them. And what the Western Church is saying is that the perfections are over  there, and the necessary truths all make up what God is. There are parts of his  very being. God is the unity of them all.  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - Okay, yeah, there then, since  Dr, Clouser - there's only one god that really there's only one perfection  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - in in in systematics that our students will be  taking too when we talk about the attributes of God. That's right, how do we how does that work  

Dr, Clouser - in here? And see, well, that's just another name for these  perfections. Okay, so the attributes are whatever characteristics are ascribed to  God in Scripture. So I already quoted Calvin about that every perfection  ascribed to God in Scripture is found in creation, and hence is not God per se,  but how God relates to us. His relations to us really have these characteristics,  but they depend on him, on him having brought them into sustaining them in  existence. He may have brought these perfections into existence from all  eternity. There never was a time he didn't have them. We're not saying they're  created. In that sense, they began in time. Proverbs 8 says this directly about  God's wisdom. Wisdom is speaking in a personification. And I was the first of  your creation. I was the first thing created by God, before the heavens, the earth was brought forth. I was with him and and then it ends, and then I was with the  children of men. So it's the wisdom that we have that God had, right? It's  shared. It's shared. Okay, okay, that doesn't and so the the Thomas Western 

theologian, is going to say, Well, was there ever a time God didn't have wisdom? No, didn't say that he can create from all eternity. He what he means is it has  depended on him from all eternity. Yeah, so the perfections depend on God.  God. It is not that they constitute God, and he can't help what they are and that  they are. That's what the Western tradition says they are. They have self  existence. They are uncreated and eternal. But and God is the unity of them.  Since there's only one God, then there's really only one perfection. So in God,  no, what they say, I'm not making it up. In God, wisdom, power, justice, love,  mercy are all the same thing. Well, that makes, that makes it absolutely  meaningless. You have no idea what you're talking about. You don't have,  nobody has any idea of wisdom and power and might and justice and mercy all  being the same thing. What would what would that be? Why are the different  words the same as making a meaningless Well, their answer there is that in  God, they're all one, and we can't get our heads around that that's the sense in  which God is unknowable, but like a single being that goes through a prism,  then on this side of things, it breaks up, and we see them all distinct, distinct as  distinct from one another. Look either, either the real attribute is one, or it's  distinct. One of the other of those is not the  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - Okay, let's just leave that  

Dr, Clouser - okay, but this is an important distinction, yeah, and, and it's sad to  say it, this was revived by Luther and Calvin. I find in Luther recognizing this and Calvin explicitly saying it, and Protestantism as a whole never followed Luther  and Calvin on their doctrine of God. they risked their lives for that. They follow  them. And let's get rid of one, one bishop over the whole church. We're not  going to recognize the Pope. Let's, let's not follow them on there. There's a  there's a common liturgy, or anything else. We'll take all the rest of the  Reformation, but not the doctrine of God. That's amazing. And there are still  plenty of Lutherans and Calvinists that will sit and deny what I'm saying. No,  they didn't hold that view. They held Thomas's view.  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - Okay, now, one of the things that you were it's  not up there anymore, but you talk about prima facie, yeah, okay, those are Latin words. Is that correct?  

Dr, Clouser - Yes, we still use them, though, in business and contracts,  insurance and so on. It means the the. The immediate meaning of something as  just as it appears to you. Okay, okay, so without parsing it and pulling it all apart  or looking for hidden meanings underneath it's right on top, what's it say? If you  just go there and you read it off, well, I'd say the prima facie meaning of that is,  and that's what they're saying, that the truth Calvin says scripture bears on the 

face of it. That's what prima facie literally means on the face of it, such evidence  of its truth as do white and black of their color, sweet and bitter of their taste.  That's exactly the point of view, and that's and it's in that sense, I'm saying that  this is a kind of self evidency,  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - okay? And I just wanted to be sure our students  kind of without understanding, because those are important work, yes, sure. In  philosophy, yes, yes, yes. Also, then one of the last things I wanted to to ask you about, when you're talking about, we have a belief forming capacity. Now,  there's been a lot of times you've used that word, belief, yes. Now belief is a  conviction, yes in my heart,  

Dr, Clouser - yes in today's philosophy, it's called a propositional attitude.  There's a proposition that I have a certain attitude toward, and they sometimes  call belief a pro attitude in favor of not clear enough. In my view, what they ought to be saying is that that pro attitude is trust. I trust that okay, correspond to  reality. If I don't that it's simply a concept, if I believe though, this concept of  something as it is, even though it may not cover all of the thing, you know, but  in, as far as it goes, it's true. That means it's true in corresponding to the way.  The thing is, that's my pro attitude, is trust, and that's why trust and faith is a part of every belief, yeah, and every it's not just in religion. It's not just belief in God.  And there's all sorts if it's raining today, or, yeah, whatever.  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - And so the the, the point is that it's, it's my, my  impression that creates a sense of trust that this corresponds to reality. Yeah,  

Dr, Clouser - well, it may be I'm okay, not sure. Let me maybe, let me say it  another way and see if that fits with that's what you meant. That I come up with  an idea or a concept, those aren't the same things to me, an idea or a concept,  and at the same time, I trust that it corresponds to the way things really are.  Then, then that's a belief. I can form a concept and not be sure for a while, and  later come to the conclusion it doesn't correspond or it does. In either case, I'm  trusting. I'm having that attitude toward this idea or concept I'm having, I'm  trusting that it does not, or trusting that it does. And that makes either of those a  belief. If I come up okay, if I come up with a concept, and I just don't know, and I  don't form any belief about it, because I'm not sure, I really don't know if there  are such things as this, maybe yes and maybe No, and I can't think of any way  to decide then I don't have it's not a belief. It's not a belief that it does  correspond to reality. It's not a belief that it doesn't. So we can withhold belief.  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - So there's a philosopher I've read that he was  talking about, where Jesus says, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. And he 

said, what he likes to look at with that is that there are, like, three steps along  the way where we're willing to try it out that's the way, and we come to the  realization that it is the truth, and then we begin to live out of that realization.  Does that make any sense, or is that for the trash heap, too?  

Dr, Clouser - No, I think that's partly right, but okay, but partly mistaken. I think  when Jesus says I'm the way, he means the way to God. So it's not our way, us  feeling he's the way, okay, he's the way to God. He's the truth about God, and  he's the life that comes from God. He embodies all of them,  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - yeah. So what I was saying kind of looking at the human point of view, and it really should be from the other side, yeah, yeah. If  we understand what Jesus, that's right, he's from the others. What he's talking  about is his embodiment of all the fullness of the Godhead. You wouldn't know  what God is like you look in here. Yeah, that's, that's, that's the truth about God.  Anyone who has seen the way the father, that's it. Okay. Have  

Dr, Clouser - I been this long with you? Show us the Father. I've been with you  all this time. You don't know me. Yeah. And that's as far as you're ever going to  get see. Think that that's true for all eternity. Again, part of Thomistic theology is  that when we die, one of the treats is the beatific vision, which is to see God as  He is. I think the beatific Jesus vision will be Jesus Christ. That's God as He is,  

and it always will be, and that's what we'll that's what we'll see and know and  love, and  

Reverand Bob Zomermaand - that's what we long for. Yes, well, thank you,  Professor. I appreciate my pleasure. It's fun chatting. Yes, all right, thank you  students and and I hope that our discussion does help you along, just a little bit  too happy studying