Evolve is the wrong word, evolution is contrary to traditional metaphysics because it seeks to explain life by horizontal or naturalistic causality alone and violates numerous precepts of that traditional metaphysics and philosophy(not to say that YEC creationism or nominalist creationism is...
One can informally use the term evil, evil is a privation of Good though, which itself is an attribute of God. So in this sense Satan is evil, but of course this simply means he is as far away from God, to put it in a limited but acceptable way, as it is possible to be. His exact being, whether...
As I said in the other thread you clearly have a very poor idea of Christian theology or metaphysics. God is everything, there is nothing that is not God in an ultimate sense, this is not contrary to traditional Christian theology. So in other words, if we can make such a paradoxical statement...
thedope is correct, there is nothing wrong with esoteric knowledge. It is the truest form of knowledge.
David, the problem with the systems like Valentinus is they are dualist, which is metaphysical nonsense. There can be no second absolute. They also view the manifested universe as evil as...
Necessity and contingency is causality. What is contingent is caused by what is necessary, which is uncaused or absolute. The idea of God you are trying to debunk says God is necessary but then you go straight to arguing he is contingent. It is nonsense. Your argument shows nothing because it is...
Who said you should abandon reason? I basically said that reason is correct in its own sphere. Indeed I belief it can offer proof of God, at its own level at least and can partially define him and his purpose for human purposes. I support reason, indeed by realising its limits and proper place I...
Willamena is in essence correct. One doesn't have to go into Pyrrhonism to realise that. Our Intellect is essentially dogmatist, if doubt conformed to its very nature it would be useless.
I believe that discussion on castes was in this essay which I found two parts to online . I'm not sure if this is where he mentions the lack of opportunities for outsiders to join most paths in Hinduism in this particular essay though, which I couldn't find the end to anyway...
I should have been more clear. He didn't say it was necessary to be a Hindu. He said it is necessary for most paths within Hinduism. There are a few paths, whose names escape me, that an outsider could join but they do seem to be rather ascetic and hard for your average, modern Westerner to cope...
Well I haven't looked into it in detail, but the Hindu philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy, who I very much admire, did argue that to be a Hindu one generally has to be born within the caste system unless one joins a very few paths that are outside this system. He was obviously quite...
It depends what you mean by gnosticism. Gnosis is knowledge. A Gnostic is one in this sense who has knowledge, particularly esoteric and mystical knowledge. There is actually nothing anti-Christian in this sort of Gnosticism, Christianity started as an esotericism, but Christianity quickly...
It is my understanding, and I may be wrong, but it is quite hard to convert to Hinduism or at least a traditional Hinduism is it not? As a religious tradition, rather than a pure metaphysical school of thought, I believe it is bound up both with Indian culture and with the caste system. For one...
If that is true, you can thank Frithjof Schuon(and God of course!), amongst others. I happen to know though many of the thinkers that have influenced me have drawn much from Indian wisdom, particularly Adi Shankara
Who knows about the RCC post-Vatican II but before that if you implicitly...
Stephenw is essentially correct. On one level God and the universe are discontinuous because the universe is relative and God, or the divine essence at least, is absolute. But from another perspective the universe is part of God because there is nothing except God and for it to exist it must be...
The problem, as others have pointed out, is your artificially separating what you call identity from the rest of the attributes of the One(I'm talking here hypothetically and not out to prove it exists.) or the divine essence. The law of identity is only a neat, separable law from a human...
To be fair I don't think that it is the general Christian mindset that those who are "unsaved" do not matter. Indeed the parable of the lost sheep would tend to suggest otherwise.
One problem with this argument is it uses a very limited, popular and crude theistic conception of God. It also assumes a separability between different parts of the Godhead which are only separated from a relative, human perspective.
Really what you are doing is based on a mistaken reliance...
I'm not sure there is such a thing unless you mean Pyrrhonism, but its pronouncements are simply meant to be self-refuting and purging to show the flack of an absolute foundation for dialectic. But that isn't what you mean clearly and is not relevant to the contemporary discussion. I don't think...