What can be proven with absolute certainty?

[Thike Salvmu]

I question, therefore I think. I think, therefore I am. Everything beyond this is based on assumption. This is all we can know for an absolute certainty if we are to be strictly scientific. Fascinating indeed.

[Qapla]

It is impossible for God to lie 

[rocket]

"I think" is a problem with the trinity doctrine for with the trinity doctrine there are 3 persons thus 3 "I thinks" in one God.

 

The problem with viewing the TRES PERSONAE TRINITATIS as three separate centers of consciousness.

 

"In contemporary parlance, person is spontaneously identified as centre of consciousness and freedom. However, if we bring these pre-reflective categories to theology, we are immediately confronted with a problem. For if we say that God is one being in three persons, and if we understand by person centres of consciousness and freedom, then God becomes three centres of consciousness and there are three I think's in God. But such an understanding is the same as tritheism" _ John J. O'Donnell's The Mystery of the Triune God. (pp.103).

[Stormswift]

Sometimes if we just think instead of connecting it to our heart as well, we don't get the 'ring of truth' ... remember Jehovah has hidden precious truths from the wise and intellectual ones of this system, and thinking sometimes generates pride, which leaves no room for teachability or humility. So should we think? Most certainly, but with Jehovah's viewpoint - not mans.

[Sheep]

11 hours ago, Thike Salvmu said:

I question, therefore I think. I think, therefore I am. Everything beyond this is based on assumption. This is all we can know for an absolute certainty if we are to be strictly scientific. Fascinating indeed.

 

Jesus said: "You will know  the truth." He didn't say: 'you will assume to have the truth.' I believe he knew what he was talking about. Also, Paul affirms that God's will is that "all sorts of people should ... come to an accurate knowledge of truth." How could God "will" something that is impossible for humans to do?

 

However, neither Jesus nor Paul was speaking from a scientific, fleshly standpoint. Truth can only be understood and known by spiritual persons. It will continually elude fleshly individuals, because they really don't want to look at it any other way. They insist on "proof" from a scientific point of view, which would be against Jehovah's purpose. If Jehovah "proved" everything from a fleshly standpoint, beyond any possibility of a doubt, then every skeptic on earth would be forced to believe, even against his own will. (He can make the stones cry out, which would be very convincing.) That would remove any sense of free choice on his part, including his choice not to believe, but that is not Jehovah's will. He will never force anyone to believe; each one will believe based on what is in his own heart.

[carlos]

I think the problem with pure logic is that it leads nowhere. If your senses cannot be trusted, nothing can be proved with absolute certainty so in the end you are only left with a huge doubt about everything. Pure logic (I mean, deductive logic as opposed to inductive) is not the way the world works.

 

Of course I am not arguing against logic. Rather the opposite. But look at philosophers, three thousand years trying to untangle the truth based on the power of their reason and pure logic, and they are not one step nearer than the early Greek philosophers. A waste of time.

 

Maybe that's precisely the problem, relying in human reason. As that idiot, Parmenides, who assured that everything in the world is the same thing and nothing can ever change. That was what his reason told him. Therefore, even though his senses told him that things changed and events happened, he preferred to believe his reason and consider his senses as false and deceiving. What a moron! And he's considered the father of logic!

 

I say logic needs to be complemented with some reasonable assumptions. For example, I am absolutely certain that if I drop my phone it will fall to the ground. Why? Because I have observed the effects of gravity all of my life. But in pure logic, the fact that something has happened a number of times doesn't mean it will happen again the next time. And the fact that the universe is governed by some laws now doesn't guarantee that those laws cannot change the next minute. And yet I dropped my phone and it fell.

 

Or as in Mary was the only person seen to enter and leave the crime scene, had a motive, her fingerprints were on the knife, was recorded on video stabbing the victim and confessed. Call it inductive reasoning if you will, but Mary was the murderer without doubt.

 

[Pjdriver]

I agree with Carlos. If we as a whole, cannot trust our basic senses, we have nothing. If it's all an illusion then we can't do anything about it.... I say, go with it. Of course I don't believe that....but, just saying. 

[Qapla]

Even Spok came to realize that pure logic was not the answer

[Tortuga]

1 hour ago, Qapla said:

Even Spok came to realize that pure logic was not the answer

Is that the Klingon spelling?

[Thike Salvmu]

On 4/19/2016 at 0:23 AM, carlos said:

I think the problem with pure logic is that it leads nowhere. If your senses cannot be trusted, nothing can be proved with absolute certainty so in the end you are only left with a huge doubt about everything. Pure logic (I mean, deductive logic as opposed to inductive) is not the way the world works.

Exactly, but that is the price you pay if you are to be truly scientific.

Of course I am not arguing against logic. Rather the opposite. But look at philosophers, three thousand years trying to untangle the truth based on the power of their reason and pure logic, and they are not one step nearer than the early Greek philosophers. A waste of time.

Yes. Quite amusing to me. 

Maybe that's precisely the problem, relying in human reason. As that idiot, Parmenides, who assured that everything in the world is the same thing and nothing can ever change. That was what his reason told him. Therefore, even though his senses told him that things changed and events happened, he preferred to believe his reason and consider his senses as false and deceiving. What a moron! And he's considered the father of logic!

I suppose ultimately in a sense there is some truth in this. Jehovah is the source of all things. Nothing exists that didn't originate with Him. We know that he cannot lie and will always be the same. He Himself never changes and is always the same Jehovah. He  Himself  is the root and in a sense the only truth there is or can be.

I say logic needs to be complemented with some reasonable assumptions. For example, I am absolutely certain that if I drop my phone it will fall to the ground. Why? Because I have observed the effects of gravity all of my life. But in pure logic, the fact that something has happened a number of times doesn't mean it will happen again the next time. And the fact that the universe is governed by some laws now doesn't guarantee that those laws cannot change the next minute. And yet I dropped my phone and it fell.

Or as in Mary was the only person seen to enter and leave the crime scene, had a motive, her fingerprints were on the knife, was recorded on video stabbing the victim and confessed. Call it inductive reasoning if you will, but Mary was the murderer without doubt.

Indeed. 

Glad I'm not making the decision to prosecute though as I know that I couldn't be absolutely certain that it is not an extremely clever frame up.

I suppose the senses do produce a form of illusion in a sense. Think about it.

One example that quickly comes to mind is the fact that when we zoom in far enough on material things, they mainly consist of empty space, yet to our senses they are so solid. Our perceptions are only truthful in a very relative sense it would seem. To be human is to be extremely limited. To be human is to be biased, with our relative perspectives of the absolute truth.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Thike Salvmu