I dunno P-Marlowe. Maybe it's really just a cry for help? In disguise?
It seems to me dear kosta has gotten himself into a severe pickle. His position seems to be "anything that I cannot know for a certainty is something not worth knowing." He needs "proof" of God, because that is what constitutes "certainty" for him. If he can't get "proof" of God, then he doesn't have to take Him seriously.
It seems that kosta is in a sort of egophanic revolt — a term Eric Voegelin uses to denote "the epiphany of ego leading to the death of God." I gather he lands in this position by virtue of his insistence on certainty in a world that is thoroughgoingly uncertain in every way imaginable, save one.
The life of man is really burdened with the well-known miseries enumerated by Hesoid. We remember his list of hunger, hard work, disease, early death, and the fear of the injustices to be suffered by the weaker man at the hands of the more powerful — not to mention the problem of Pandora. Still, as long as our existence is undeformed by phantasies, these miseries are not experienced as senseless. We understand them as the lot of man, mysterious it is true, but as the lot he has to cope with in the organization and conduct of his life, in the fight for survival, the protection of his dependents, and the resistance to injustice, and in his spiritual and intellectual response to the mystery of existence. The burden of existence loses its sense, and becomes absurd, only when a dreamer believes himself to possess the power of transfiguring imperfect existence into a lasting state of perfection. — Eric Voegelin, "Wisdom and the Magic of the Extreme""Dreamer" in the above context is best understood in the sense of Heraclitus, as idiotes, a person who rejects the Logos "one and common" and thereby "turns aside" into his own "private world."
One could say this is a form of existential alienation, one which involves a "refusal to apperceive" Reality as it is, and a Ciceronian "contempt for reason" as evidenced by the refusal to apperceive....
It seems to me the more sectors of reality that kosta must exclude because of his insistence on "proof" and "certainty," the more alienated and isolated from the world of Reality — personal, social, natural — he becomes.
Let me wrap this up: Because the world of human existence is thoroughgoingly uncertain from first to last, and all our knowledge of Reality is partial and contingent, all the more reason to trust in the eternal Revelations of God — Holy Scripture, the Incarnation of Christ (Logos, Alpha and Omega), the world of Creation (the natural world), and the Holy Spirit with us. They are God's Word, told "truthfully, but not exhaustively," a light unto the human mind and spirit.
Thank you so very much for writing P-Marlowe!
It seems to me dear kosta has gotten himself into a severe pickle. His position seems to be “anything that I cannot know for a certainty is something not worth knowing.” He needs “proof” of God, because that is what constitutes “certainty” for him. If he can’t get “proof” of God, then he doesn’t have to take Him seriously.
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INDEED.
WELL PUT.
I can see how a person could vow to be a follower of truth whenever and wherever he finds it.
I can not see how a person could live with the vow that he’ll not proceed unless he has certain truth about every step, every situation, every question...
It really sounds like one who is refusing (or afraid) to engage life.
Pickle indeed, how can a life be lead with that level of certainity? How can one be certian of ANYTHING. What level of 'proof' does one use when eating food that it is not contaminated. What level of 'proof' does one use for any other day-to-day action.
Thank you oh so very much for your outstanding insights and that wonderful excerpt, dearest sister in Christ!
Please stop analyzing me and making this about me and see if you can just answer my questions instead.
He needs "proof" of God, because that is what constitutes "certainty" for him. If he can't get "proof" of God, then he doesn't have to take Him seriously.
More mind reading. RM, please put and end to this charade, or else I will respond in kind.