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I think this is on point, but does point to the limits/faults in his work. I recall being very energized by Tillich in my youth and at the very beginnings of my

by scop 3y ago

I think this is on point, but does point to the limits/faults in his work. I recall being very energized by Tillich in my youth and at the very beginnings of my religious exploration, but was very surprised that the sort of "ambiguity" he was trying to parse was much more well laid out in classical theologians (Aquinas, etc), i.e. "to define God, the limitless being, is to inherently apply limit" which is why theologians have traditionally pursued God via "what He is Not" as we can certainly say that God is not limited, time bound, etc. Tillich's "ambiguity" was very approachable in my youth, but today I find it extremely dangerous from a moral and philosophical perspective. There is truth in what is said, but unless you have the context in which it is said you can quickly spin it to your heart's delight. My primary takeaway as a youth was "this is great and very theological/intellectually stimulating while not morally demanding of me whatsoever, hooray!" which is why, as a stubborn young adult, certainly found it attractive. FWIW, if anybody wants a great challenge that seeks to bridge classical theology with modern/personalist/subjective thought, you should read Man and Woman He Created Them by John Paul II. It is as rewarding as it is dense and gave me the bridge between "old" and "new" philosophy/theology that I find lacking in many moderns.

smeej 3y ago
Strong second for Man and Woman He Created Them. If you can get through it without coming to a deeper understanding of yourself (whether in agreement with its ideas or in opposition to them), you'll be the first person I've met who has.
rhelz 3y ago
> you can quickly spin it… It’s really hard for me to see how any theology—or any text—could be any less ambiguous than any other. E.g. quantum mechanics is arguably the least ambiguous theory ever devised, because it gives results of the most specific agreement with experiment. But nevertheless has an ever-increasing number of interpretations, none of which can be ruled out—to all appearances hopelessly ambiguous to what it actually means. When it comes decisions you have to make, either individually or as a society, even the most verbose and specific moral codes suddenly seem to be ambiguous. Some examples: 1. Are we morally obliged to either support or oppose Obamacare? 2. Is a 50% tax rate moral or immoral? What is the exact tax rate which is “most moral”? 3. Is it Moral to support a president who boinked an intern? Or a president who payed hush money to hookers? 4. Should it be illegal to smoke? Or sell fruit-flavored vapes? 5. How old should somebody be before they are allowed to (fill in the blank here…vote, have sex, drive a car, drink, drop out of school?) We certainly look to our cultural polestars—-religion, tradition, precident—to help us out with these sorts of questions, but by no means does any of them give us any definitive answers.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  > It’s really hard for me to see how any theology—or any text—could be any less ambiguous than any other. "Virtual base classes are instantiated in the order specified by the depth-first, left-to-right traversal of the directed acyclic graph of all base classes." That is a very precise, unambiguous statement if you know what virtual base classes are. (The sentence went on to define what "left to right" meant in this context.) You don't even need to know what a directed acyclic graph is in a formal way to be able to clearly, unambiguously understand what that sentence is saying. Compare that to, I don't know, the worst sentence from your CEO's quarterly yay-us message to the company. Or the worst sentence from a politician's campaign speech, or from a political debate where they're trying to dodge the other side's point. Yes, statements can be less ambiguous than other statements. (Even in politics - compare George Bush's "Read my lips: No new taxes" with the statements many politicians make.)
  - rhelz 3y ago
    Well…Suppose I wrote an optimizer which could—-perhaps as some kind of return-value optimization, determine that we didn’t even need to construct such an object, but we instead could just pass along the values to the caller? If I never had to create the virtual table, would it be a violation of the spec if I didn’t do it? We are so good at handling ambiguity that we don’t even notice its existence most of the time. But specs, especially specs which specify the semantics of an expression—are infinitely ambiguous as to how to that expression is actually calculated. Ideally, the spec, for c++ or another language is deliberately made ambiguous, just because it leaves room for creative interpretations—-also known as “optimizations”.
    - jiggawatts 3y ago
      > If I never had to create the virtual table, would it be a violation of the spec if I didn’t do it? Generally: no. Most such specs have a phrase along the lines of “externally observable effect”. In other words, the compiler can do anything as long as the programmer or external systems can’t tell that anything is different. Processors do this all the time, reordering instruction execution but then arranging things so that it’s impossible to tell that this occurred.
chambers 3y ago
You raise a good point on how people like us enjoy leveraging ambiguous philosophy for our own amorality. If the philosopher fails to take a stand — something is good, something is bad, something is wrong, something is right — their ideas are easily repurposed for rationalizing, even absolving, immoral acts. People like me want nice-sounding, undemanding ideas that makes them look good and feel good. We desire ideas that shift with words, ideas that lack solid form and the logical consistency that would ward off our own desires. Like you said, it's dangerous because people think ambiguous philosophy as a vitamin, when really it's an intellectual candy. Tasty and sweet, but no nutrition for the soul, and certainly it gives no energy for its exercise.
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
> much more well laid out in classical theologians (Aquinas, etc) And what's more, while God as Ipsum Esse Subsistens is a conclusion we can arrive at philosophically (and thus unaided reason with no appeals made to revealed knowledge), we also find Scriptural antecedents, such as Exodus 3:14 (where God gives his "name" to Moses as "I Am"; God is not this god, or that god, but is). > It is as rewarding as it is dense and gave me the bridge between "old" and "new" philosophy/theology that I find lacking in many moderns. You might find Betz's recent book[0] interesting. [0] https://stpaulcenter.com/product/christ-the-logos-of-creation-an-essay-in-analogical-metaphysics/ https://stpaulcenter.com/product/christ-the-logos-of-creatio...
- knightoffaith 3y ago
  Is there good reason to believe that this is what is really meant by "I am who I am" and isn't just Christians reading philosophical ideas back into the OT? (I ask this actually because I remember Ratzinger raising this possible objection in Introduction to Christianity (some of which I read long ago, though I don't have the text with me anymore), presumably to rebut it, though I don't remember his rebuttal.)

by scop 3y ago

smeej 3y ago

Strong second for Man and Woman He Created Them. If you can get through it without coming to a deeper understanding of yourself (whether in agreement with its ideas or in opposition to them), you'll be the first person I've met who has.

rhelz 3y ago

> you can quickly spin it… It’s really hard for me to see how any theology—or any text—could be any less ambiguous than any other. E.g. quantum mechanics is arguably the least ambiguous theory ever devised, because it gives results of the most specific agreement with experiment. But nevertheless has an ever-increasing number of interpretations, none of which can be ruled out—to all appearances hopelessly ambiguous to what it actually means. When it comes decisions you have to make, either individually or as a society, even the most verbose and specific moral codes suddenly seem to be ambiguous. Some examples: 1. Are we morally obliged to either support or oppose Obamacare? 2. Is a 50% tax rate moral or immoral? What is the exact tax rate which is “most moral”? 3. Is it Moral to support a president who boinked an intern? Or a president who payed hush money to hookers? 4. Should it be illegal to smoke? Or sell fruit-flavored vapes? 5. How old should somebody be before they are allowed to (fill in the blank here…vote, have sex, drive a car, drink, drop out of school?) We certainly look to our cultural polestars—-religion, tradition, precident—to help us out with these sorts of questions, but by no means does any of them give us any definitive answers.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
> It’s really hard for me to see how any theology—or any text—could be any less ambiguous than any other. "Virtual base classes are instantiated in the order specified by the depth-first, left-to-right traversal of the directed acyclic graph of all base classes." That is a very precise, unambiguous statement if you know what virtual base classes are. (The sentence went on to define what "left to right" meant in this context.) You don't even need to know what a directed acyclic graph is in a formal way to be able to clearly, unambiguously understand what that sentence is saying. Compare that to, I don't know, the worst sentence from your CEO's quarterly yay-us message to the company. Or the worst sentence from a politician's campaign speech, or from a political debate where they're trying to dodge the other side's point. Yes, statements can be less ambiguous than other statements. (Even in politics - compare George Bush's "Read my lips: No new taxes" with the statements many politicians make.)
- rhelz 3y ago
  Well…Suppose I wrote an optimizer which could—-perhaps as some kind of return-value optimization, determine that we didn’t even need to construct such an object, but we instead could just pass along the values to the caller? If I never had to create the virtual table, would it be a violation of the spec if I didn’t do it? We are so good at handling ambiguity that we don’t even notice its existence most of the time. But specs, especially specs which specify the semantics of an expression—are infinitely ambiguous as to how to that expression is actually calculated. Ideally, the spec, for c++ or another language is deliberately made ambiguous, just because it leaves room for creative interpretations—-also known as “optimizations”.
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    > If I never had to create the virtual table, would it be a violation of the spec if I didn’t do it? Generally: no. Most such specs have a phrase along the lines of “externally observable effect”. In other words, the compiler can do anything as long as the programmer or external systems can’t tell that anything is different. Processors do this all the time, reordering instruction execution but then arranging things so that it’s impossible to tell that this occurred.

chambers 3y ago

You raise a good point on how people like us enjoy leveraging ambiguous philosophy for our own amorality. If the philosopher fails to take a stand — something is good, something is bad, something is wrong, something is right — their ideas are easily repurposed for rationalizing, even absolving, immoral acts. People like me want nice-sounding, undemanding ideas that makes them look good and feel good. We desire ideas that shift with words, ideas that lack solid form and the logical consistency that would ward off our own desires. Like you said, it's dangerous because people think ambiguous philosophy as a vitamin, when really it's an intellectual candy. Tasty and sweet, but no nutrition for the soul, and certainly it gives no energy for its exercise.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

> much more well laid out in classical theologians (Aquinas, etc) And what's more, while God as Ipsum Esse Subsistens is a conclusion we can arrive at philosophically (and thus unaided reason with no appeals made to revealed knowledge), we also find Scriptural antecedents, such as Exodus 3:14 (where God gives his "name" to Moses as "I Am"; God is not this god, or that god, but is). > It is as rewarding as it is dense and gave me the bridge between "old" and "new" philosophy/theology that I find lacking in many moderns. You might find Betz's recent book[0] interesting. [0] https://stpaulcenter.com/product/christ-the-logos-of-creation-an-essay-in-analogical-metaphysics/ https://stpaulcenter.com/product/christ-the-logos-of-creatio...

knightoffaith 3y ago
Is there good reason to believe that this is what is really meant by "I am who I am" and isn't just Christians reading philosophical ideas back into the OT? (I ask this actually because I remember Ratzinger raising this possible objection in Introduction to Christianity (some of which I read long ago, though I don't have the text with me anymore), presumably to rebut it, though I don't remember his rebuttal.)