roachboy

il:

aquinas started with an axiom, the "ontological proof"--it runs

that god is is a tautology.

a statement that only makes sense in the context of a "realist" conception of god (god contains all categories, being is a category, therefore the statement "god is" is literally tautological because the subject (god) actually contains the verb/predicate (being)).

you might think about this as characteristic of propositions that are rooted one way or another in faith.

there are two ways to go with this:
either you try, as you have been, to argue that the circular nature of such propositions is characteristic of all propositions, so that faith in a god is no different from something like perceptual faith (that the chair i am sitting on now will still exist now will still exist now will still exist now kinda thing)--but that can be shot down in a hurry and from any number of angles. but for that game to be interesting at all, there has to be agreement about the rules of argument. agreement about rules would prevent term-switching. as there is no such agreement, and as term-switches are everywhere in this thread, it is not a game worth playing, so far as i am concerned.


or you can argue that as a matter of faith, your committments (or those of any believer) are arbitrary.
but there's no problem with arbitrariness. (think any nominalist...say kierkegaard or pascal..or william of ockham if you want).
but if that's understood as being the case, then there is no point in bothering with attempts to demonstrate your position.
i dont see why this would be problematic.
you believe as you believe.
if there is a god, and this god is eternal, human understanding (which is finite) cannot understand the first thing about this god and so ANY relation--even that of naming god "god"--is arbitrary.
for kierkegaard (for example) faith only STARTS with this concession concerning the limits of human understanding.
it is a leap into the void.

so seems to me that there is perfectly legit reasons within christianity itself for sucking it up and saying "this is arbitrary and that changes nothing about my relations, about my faith, etc...."

that would end the game.
same question could be directed at pan, but from within another logic.
questions about basis are only even relevant if you concede their relevance.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite