Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Matthew

[Silo]

I can see why one might be apprehensive to rely on the trustworthiness of reasoning. I'd say if one wants to keep their sanity, the easiest way would be to continue to rely on reasoning. After all, if one throws out all reasoning then one's thoughts would seem to be rather meaningless since there would be no reason for them.

You may say that under my worldview all thoughts are meaningless anyway since they're merely based on physical responses and/or signals within a brain. To that I'd respond that mankind assigns its own meanings to these mere physical responses or signals.

I will assume that you haven't abandoned all reasoning since you're responses are an attempted form of reasoning.

I don't think that humans can be sure that their reasoning isn't completely or partially flawed. This would apply even if there wasn't a solely physical form of thoughts. Under your world view, you "believe that reasoning and consciousness supersede mere chemical and material explanations". Does this point to reasoning through these processes being more reliable or true? I would say no it does not.

Without proof that there is other thought processes beyond the physical realm, I'd say one can't say decisively the reliability of such forms of thoughts. We can't examine them at all.

You might think that reasoning is a gift from God. How did you arrive at this conclusion if not through the (possibly flawed) act of reasoning? It could be Satan influencing you into incorrect thoughts about reasoning.

To sum up, I'd say no matter the worldview, one can't 100% say that reasoning is reliable. It's probably in our advantage to assume that it's at least some what reliable as the other option is throwing out all reasoning/rationality.

[jimwalton]

In a theistic world view, we have a conscious, personal, intelligent God who has made us a conscious, personal, and intelligent beings. A personal, intelligent cause yielding a personal and intelligent effect.

According to scientific naturalism, out of impersonal and unconscious matter and impersonal and unconscious energy, by way of accidents, mutations, and chance has risen personality, informational data, consciousness and reason.

To me the first scenario makes a whole lot more sense. The chain of logic gives more credence to the former than the latter. And while many argue that one cannot prove the existence of God, the existence of reason, personality, consciousness and purpose speaks more logically to an intelligent, personal, conscious source than to blind mechanisms, impersonal forces, and chance.

> It could be Satan influencing you into incorrect thoughts about reasoning

While Satan can now influence correct thoughts, we're discussion how reason, personality, purpose and informational data got into us in the first place.

> one can't 100% say that reasoning is reliable

I'm not claiming that all reason is reliable, but only that it makes more sense that we have reliable reasoning via theism rather than through scientific naturalism or the blind evolutionary processes.