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Dr. Lito Cruz used this as his profile photo
and fooled me. Kurt Godel.
"I do not believe in empirical science,
I only believe in a priori truth." |
Extra Nos:
"Why I am sceptical of science and scientists
You might think this strange because if you know me I work in academia most of the time and since I dabble in mathematics you would think that I should not be negative towards science, for after all isn't mathematics a part of science?
In large science faculties, it is true that mathematics is part of the science faculty but I do not think mathematics is part of science. Science deals with observations of phenomena in our world. From, particulars it abstracts to the general. Science deals then with induction.
Mathematics does not deal with induction, it does not look at particulars and then infer to the general. No, mathematics deal with deduction, from the general we go down to particulars. In this regard, I think really that mathematics should be part of philosophy.
We do not sample every triangle we could find, measure their internal angles to be a total of 180 degrees and assert that all triangles have an internal angle of 180 degrees. We use logical proofs starting from axioms.
Today science enjoys a celebrity status. If you want to gain the trust of people just tack on the word "science" into what you are doing. So we have library science, meat science, dairy science and game science and what not. The field I work in my consulting is "Data Science". Funny but I went to a conference last month and a leading practitioner in the field, a professor himself, complained that there is no "science" in data science.
The world has evolved to the point that science is operating like a religion. What is awful is that it is operating like a cult as well. In the age of the Internet, things have evolved and it is easy to be arrogant and know it all. Because the Internet gives one a capacity to be semi-anonymous, people are happy to be rude and insulting to those who disagree with them. It is easy now to express without hesitation one's disdain for a fellow who might be slow in catching one's level of knowledge.
Here are my reasons ordered by importance
1. It does not always work. The reason is that when scientists observe, they are only observing a sample of a phenomenon and when one produces generalisations from these, it by default left out some parts of the phenomenon. Today the approach taken by computer scientist in doing Artificial Intelligence (AI) is to abandon the idea of deterministic certainty, but embrace and live with uncertainty and work on probabilities. Ask yourself, does the science you believe in behave in an arrogant certainty? AI computer scientists have chucked the idea that something can be determined with certainty from the world. So the models they create for a phenomenon using AI are probabilistic.
2. Most scientists today have no training in philosophy. I worked for a while in computer science and the computer scientists I have encountered have no appreciation of the role philosophy plays in their craft.If they are not scared of it, they either consider it as useless or indifferent towards it. The same is true in physical science. Steven Hawking said philosophy is dead. No offence but I think Hawking and I will be long gone and philosophy will be around. This is bad science and bad scholarship. The reason why we have this situation of science acting like religion is that philosophers have allowed them to roam, be arrogant and unchecked.
For example, the issue of causality vs correlation. When I went back to statistics, my colleagues and textbooks reminded me that correlation does not imply causation.
This is illustrated in a Chinese saying:
Do the flowers blooming bring about spring? Or does spring bring about the blooming of the flowers? You might think it is the latter for sure - but think and pause for a moment. It is an epistemological question - meaning - how to we know something is true or real..
Also this - is there only one way of explaining a physical phenomenon? Should we entrust our lives and our view of the world into the what scientists say?
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| Dr. Lito Cruz and his wife Lynn. |
Here is one quote from a philosopher of science about science...
Even though some scientists and many pseudo-scientists voice their allegiance to that (scientific) method, no modern philosopher of science would be unaware of at least some of its shortcomings. Modern developments in the philosophy of science have pinpointed and stressed deep-seated difficulties associated with the idea that science rests on a sure foundation acquired through observation and experiment and with the idea that there is some kind of inference procedure that enables us to derive scientific theories from such base in a reliable way. There is just no method that enables scientific theories to be proven true or even probably true.
---- A. F Chalmers (What is This Thing Called Science)
Maybe I am influenced too much by the mathematician I admire and respect who said...
I do not believe in empirical science, I only believe in
a priori truth.
- Kurt Godel
Later I will add more, like my thesis that scientists are not altruistic people who are also influenced by personal agenda using science to advance their goal.
Please remind me."
'via Blog this'
***
GJ - These are important issues. I am glad that Dr. Cruz, who is also a Lutheran minister, raised them. I will write more about this myself.
Thank you. I needed the laugh!
Alec
Reposted today at Humor | Hitler loses the Universal Objective Justification (UOJ) War
Hope many more people enjoy it and learn. Thanks Greg (and Lilo).
Thanks for reposting, Pr. Greg is one heck of a witty writer.
Blessing to you brother.
LPC
It is in the Preus' book 'Justification and Rome'. Preus sites old Lutherans and the quotation from them are denials of UOJ.
It is denial by default - that is by quoting the statements of orthodox Lutherans involved in the BoC. One has to have a wild perverted imagination to read UOJ in to the statements of Calov or Quenstedt etc.
LPC
What do you think of this statement?
"Then God, in His infinite grace, took action. He sent His Son, who was the radiance of His glory and the express image of His person (Hebrews 1:3), to become man (John 1:14) and to redeem the world (Galatians 4:4) and restore it to glory and communion with Him (John 3:17). For Christ’s sake God, who was angry with the sinful world, was reconciled, propitiated, and at peace with the world (1 John 2:2; Luke 2:14)."
You were asking "Have you read the book" and also "Have him read the book?"
So I answered using your grammar. You simply want to post some unthinking accusations. You should get some rest, eat some prunes, and grow up a bit.
Yes , I have read it and my copy is filled with notes. If Preus intended to promote UOJ then he should have not used quotes from orthodox Lutherans that question or put the teaching in to doubt.
Dr, Jackson made pictures of these quotes and let me give you an example...
In p. 131 #74 quoting Calov - "Although Christ has acquired for us the remission of sins, justification and sonship, God just the same does not justify us prior to faith..."
This runs roughshod against the LC-MS Brief Statement 1932 Article 17 which says that God has declared the whole world ALREADY righteous in Christ.
LPC
On your blog you have posted a quote by Rev. Jack Cascione in a graphic many times. I see no difference in what the graphic says and the quote I gave you. The quote appears on page 32 in the Preus book, Justification and Rome. Why would Preus say that if he denied objective justification?
Mr. LPC: Your line of reasoning is absurd. Of course the quotes are appropriate in the book. Preus wholeheartedly believed in Justification by Faith. All true orthodox Lutheran Christians believe this. Faith justifies us when we believe all the things the atonement and redemption accomplish. This is ever so evident in the Smalcald Articles Part II Article 1:
"1] That Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification, Rom. 4:25.
2] And He alone is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world, John 1:29; and God has laid upon Him the iniquities of us all, Is. 53:6.
3] Likewise: All have sinned and are justified without merit [freely, and without their own works or merits] by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood, Rom. 3:23f
4] Now, since it is necessary to believe this, and it cannot be otherwise acquired or apprehended by any work, law, or merit, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us as St. Paul says, Rom. 3:28: For we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the Law. Likewise 3:26: That He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Christ."
Do you believe that people who reject UOJ are your brothers in Christ?
I ask this because as someone new to Lutheranism, the carte blanche rejection of Timothy 5 in the discussion of this issue is startling.
Of course, if UOJ people do not believe Justification by Faith alone Lutherans are brothers, then the behavior makes sense.
Hope you will answer me.
Alec
It would depend on your definition of 'brother'. I could not be in fellowship with one who denies objective justification. I would not be able to commune with him. Since I can not commune with him, I would not consider him a brother. That is not to say that there are not true believers who will be in Heaven from across all denominations.
I do not understand how 1 Tim. 5 bears credence to the discussion.
Gregory Jackson should on the other hand recant his false accusations regarding Robt. Preus as I have shown here that he is in error.
The problems with him and Mr. Lito are this: They view that people are saved because of their faith and not through faith by grace for the sake of Christ. There is a difference and I hope you are able to see it.
I do not think you understand what UOJ teaches. Do you believe the whole world including those who are to be born and the atheist etc are justified in Christ now, this very moment. Do you believe that the Muslim in your are is also already justified, meaning declared righteous? That is these people have been declared righteous already before faith and before they could repent and believe?
I do not think you have read the Brief Statement 1932 article 17. This statement has been discussed many times in this blog. But I will repeat it for you a problematic and erroneous sentence there...
"in the article of justification. Scripture teaches that God HAS ALREADY declared the whole world to be righteous in Christ, "
How could the whole world be righteous in Christ when in fact the whole world is not IN CHRIST.
My reasoning is not absurd for if you supper impose the Calov quote, Calov denies that statement.
LPC
Ah I see now your problem for sure and I claim it is you who is absurd. On the one hand you stated...
"Faith justifies us when we believe all the things the atonement and redemption accomplish".
Yet on the other you claim against us --- "They view that people are saved because of their faith and not through faith by grace for the sake of Christ"
First this is a straw man, I believe that a person is saved by faith in the finished work of Christ. Not faith per se but man is saved by the object of his faith in Christ and only and upon when faith in Christ happens. Faith has an object and if that object is Christ, then man is saved, declared righteous or justified.
The problem we have with UOJ is that they have an absurd view as to when Justification of Man happens. Do you believe man is justified before faith, before he was born or anytime before faith? Mr. Don Vega, we obviously have a problem because if you DO BELIEVE this. Kindly answer this so we can have an intelligent discussion.
I hope you do not believe that man is already justified when Jesus died on the cross or was raised from the dead, for that would mean that everyone since the Cross has already been justified - which makes that position Universalist.
LPC
Don't run away scared - you are deflecting the discussion.
I asked you questions which if you answer will prove whether or not Preus believed in UOJ in his Justification and Rome book.
I take it you have not yet read the book - so why don't you run away in a corner read it and comeback when you have done that.
We can hit these right off the park - define for me what you believe is the doctrine of Universal Objective Justification.
Then we can now debate whether or not in Preus' last days he believed in your doctrine on the basis of his book Justification and Rome.
Let me warn you - your type of running away from my questions is typical of other UOJers I dealt with. Show me you are someone I can take seriously, for if you simply evade, you will be another nail in the coffin why I reject UOJ.
LPC
It is you who is evading. A gentleman should answer questions hurled at him and yet you do not answer my questions. I have been answering your questions now be polite and answer mine. I have page 59 in front of me. Why don't you provide an actual quote from the text itself? Give me an actual text.
P. 59 talks about the righteousness of Christ, none of them in categorical terms imply UOJ in the sense that God has already imputed righteousness to the whole world, prior to faith or before faith or before they were born, none.
Of course the atonement of Christ is the basis for the salvation of man, the question is WHEN does this benefit get to man. Lutheran exegetes who do not even believe in UOJ have affirmed and so do I that the basis for man's justification is Christ's atonement. The question is WHEN does this justification of man happen?
Here is what Preus says:
"It is precisely this righteousness which is imputed to the SINNER WHO BELIEVES and thereby becomes his righteousness . It is the purpose of the Formula of Concord to affirm just this fact"
Am I any better than Preus' family members? Are you familiar with scholarly procedures? In law as well as in scholarly circles, what you verbally say does not count, what counts is what you have written down. Even Augustine himself had to write his Retractions.
Preus prior to this book I could say he believed in UOJ. This book was written at the end or even posthumously. When I was reading his book the minimum I could conclude if ever Preus believed in UOJ was that he was confusing because the quotes he used in his book were quotes from orthodox Lutherans who can not be believed to have taught UOJ.
The fact that you can not even articulate with me what you believe about UOJ shows to me you yourself have a shaky understanding of it. Your evasion does not promote your cause.
LPC
"Then God, in His infinite grace, took action. He sent His Son, who was the radiance of His glory and the express image of His person (Hebrews 1:3), to become man (John 1:14) and to redeem the world (Galatians 4:4) and restore it to glory and communion with Him (John 3:17). For Christ’s sake God, who was angry with the sinful world, was reconciled, propitiated, and at peace with the world (1 John 2:2; Luke 2:14)." Pg 32 Justification and Rome
"This righteousness of Christ, this vicarious obedience under the Law and vicarious obedience unto death, results in the redemption of the world and the reconciliation of the world to God. This righteousness which constitutes the vicarious atonement is the basis of the sinner’s justification before God. " Pg 59 Justification and Rome
I believe these thing the same as Robt. Preus.
"This article concerning justification by faith (as the Apology says) is the chief article in the entire Christian doctrine, without which no poor conscience can have any firm consolation, or can truly know the riches of the grace of Christ, as Dr. Luther also has written: If this only article remains pure on the battlefield, the Christian Church also remains pure, and in goodly harmony and without any sects; but if it does not remain pure, it is not possible that any error or fanatical spirit can be resisted. (Tom. 5, Jena, p. 159.) 7] And concerning this article especially Paul says that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Therefore, in this article he urges with so much zeal and earnestness the particulas exclusivas, that is, the words whereby the works of men are excluded (namely, without Law, without works, by grace [freely],Rom. 3:28; 4:5; Eph. 2:8-9), in order to indicate how highly necessary it is that in this article, aside from [the presentation of] the pure doctrine, the antithesis, that is, all contrary dogmas, be stated separately, exposed, and rejected by this means." Formula of Concord, SD
As I said, at a minimum my conclusion is that Preus was being confusing but the mass of his quotations of orthodox old Lutherans negate the UOJ doctrine that God has already declared the whole world righteous in Christ.
Your quote has lots of past tenses.
So you and Preus believe that God is now reconciled (a finished event) with the whole world. He is no longer angry with the unbeliever, he is at peace with them. The unbeliever has no more need to fear God? Do people still go to hell today based on your doctrine?
LPC
You are very mixed up, which is why you are so angry.
It is you who needs to stop and calm down you are very excitable. You do not appreciate the points being made to you.
The reason Pr. Greg quoted to you John 3:36 is because you claim that God is at peace with the world, he is not angry with the whole world anymore.
Can you see why he quoted that to you? I should have not asked -- you don't see it do you.
You do not even realise why I said most of your quote about God being reconciled to the world and no longer at war is IN THE PAST TENSE, which I intend to imply as unbiblical.
In Luke 2:14 God is declaring peace, but with God if you do not want his peace, you will receive his war. That does not mean God is at peace with the whole world, he is announcing Isaiah 1:18. Also God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself 2 Cor 5:19, this reconciling started in the past but it is still going on today, it is not in the past tense, a completed event, no way. Only believers are reconciled with God, for they are the only ones in Christ and that is where God's peace is located.
So your answer to me is that God who is at peace with the world wants the unbeliever to fear him even though God is not mad anymore with him, and yet, when this unbeliever fails to fear a God who no longer is mad at him, this God (so you suppose) sends that unbeliever to hell.
Hehehehe, Mr. Vega, hell is the ultimate expression of God's wrath. You make God inconsistent in himself. Which is which, Mr. Vega? Is God no longer mad, and yet he sends people to Hell (the expression of his ultimate wrath) for those who do not fear his anger which does not exists anymore?
You are confused about God. You have swallowed UOJ sophistry (you probably do not know what that means since you reason that way).
I recommend you eat a lot of peanuts, it is know to cure morons of their stupidity.
Sincerely yours,
LPC
You were running well in taking the discussion to the Scriptures away from Preus for after all what we do think about him are opinions and thus is irrelevant. You can get everything in the world right, you can even be right about Preus, but if you get Justification wrong you are still in deep pooh.
I can not conclude he remained a solid UOJer if I look at the last few chapters of his book.
For one reason, he discusses faith in not only in 1 chapter of the book but the vital last 4 chapters of the book.
In UOJ the object of faith is the (imagined) justification that has presumed to have already happened to the world either when Christ died on the cross or was raised from the dead. According to Pr. Jay Webber in this blog(I am too busy to cite it for you but you can find his comments in this blog), that is the object of faith in UOJ. UOJ confuses and conflates the Atonement with Justification, much like the Calvinists do. They conclude that since Christ died for the world, that automatically means God has also justified or forgiven the whole world.
In p.86 Preus quotes Quenstedt.
"When the terms grace or mercy of God are set forth as the object of our trust, this does not exclude Christ our Mediator and His ATONEMENT for our sins from being object of our faith, but includes it".
The emphasis is mine. This is nothing more but the exposition of Rom 3:21-26 which JBFA people have always asserted.
So in so quoting Quenstedt, I can hardly say Preus is being a UOJist here.
LPC
UOJ is not universalism. I believe (as do others) faith is required for salvation; or to put it another way; a lack of rejection (unbelief) saves since all are declared innocent on the account of Christ's blood. A lack of rejection = faith since one is either quick or dead.
Let me ask you something. Since you confess repeatedly that the sins of the world are not forgiven in the atonement; what assures you that your sins are indeed forgiven, Mr. LPC?
UOJ is indeed the universalism of Huber. For you like UOJ I have encountered believe that all are now saved and have been forgiven by God (with out the means of grace) after the cross but then he un-forgives people who do not believe in UOJ. So you got God acting against his character who only forgives people who are in Christ. So you got forgiven people who wind up in hell.
UOJ is the word of faith heresy, believe that you are already forgiven and so are, believe you are not forgiven and so you are not - you are what you believe, a demonic teaching akin to Christian Science.
The Word and the Sacraments assure me that my sins are paid for. In Cor 15:3 Scripture says that Jesus died for my sins. This is what I confess and believe as per testimony of God - according to Scripture Rom 3:21-26 such faith in the blood of Christ tells me that I am justified.
The Augsburg Confession Article IV, complies with Romans 3/4 as I stated above.
God regards the person's faith in the atonement of Christ as righteousness because it apprehends Christ's person and work. Why would God do this? Because the person has never seen Christ died on the Cross and yet he believes the testimony of Scripture. Thus it is faith in the promise of God - that Christ died for his sins.
UOJ people and JBFA people clearly do not have the same object of faith.
LPC
Does atonement pay a debt?
UOJ depicts as if God was in FaceBook, he begins to friend everybody and then when these people reject God's message, only then does God un-friend them.
Your UOJ masters teach you that it is a paradox, you are being fooled, no - it is an absurdity which Christianity does not accept. It is not like the doctrine of the Trinity which says there is one essence of God in three persons. It is not like the God and Human nature of Christ for in UOJ, we have an assertion A and at the same time the assertion NOT A, in the same sense.
There are two things wrong about UOJ, a.) Justification is not objective it is always subjective in the Bible, b.) Justification is not universal for justification is exclusive only to those who believe in Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
In both counts UOJ contradicts the Bible twice. UOJ makes Atonement and Justification to be equal and the same, similar to the way Calvinists look at these two subjects. It is also similar to how the medieval Roman Church treat one and the same, Justification and Sanctification.
UOJ is confused universalism.
You should notice why you simply ignored Pr. Greg's John 3:36 scripture to you. It shows you are not able to rebut or explain it under your UOJ salvation scheme.
Listen, every person born in this world is under sin, under God's curse, even if Jesus died for that person's sins. The job of the HS is to use the means of grace so that person might be IN Christ, so that person might be brought under the covering (another meaning of the Atonement) of Christ. The HS uses the Law and the Gospel to bring that person to repentance and faith. If that person denies the truth that Jesus died for his sins, the person is calling God a liar 1 John 5:10, that person REMAINS in His sin - John 8:24. John 3:36. When the person agrees with the testimony of Scripture that Jesus died for his sins, i.e. believes as per Romans 3:21-26, that person is justified. That faith itself as Luther says, IS justification.
UOJ has a two tier justification that the Bible never talks about, it is a rational pietistic concoction of those who are afraid and allergic to the mention of faith. UOJ has sola gratia but no sola fide just like the Calvinists. UOJ does not realise the means of grace that it is connected to the atonement and the message of the Gospel is part and parcel of the Atonement of Christ. God delivers the message/offer of peace to sinners. They reject this offer of peace, they get what they want, war from God. They remain un-reconciled with God.
It is God who sends them to Hell - Lk 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
So it is God who un-friends them.
You do not possibly know what you are agreeing with. If something is subjective it can not be objective and vice versa. So you are a sophists accepting something is A and NOT A at the same time.
Because of this, you can prove anything - ex falso quodlibet. So there is no sense in conducting a dialog with someone who does not recognise sophistry in his belief system.
LPC
Am I the one who believes that the Atonement and Justification are one and the same thing? What do you think?
You are way out of the mark. I can assert that Atonement is the one that is universal and objective it is Justification that is neither universal nor objective. That is why I am not a universalist unlike you.
Your argument shows your UOJ paradigm is just like the Calvinist.
The Calvinist equates the Atonement and Justification to be one and the same thing. The Calvinist seeing that Justification is particular and since to them Atonement and Justification are the same, conclude that the Atonement must be Limited.
You the UOJ also equates the Atonement and Justification to be one and the same thing. The UOJer seeing that the Atonement is universal and since to them Atonement and Justification are the same, conclude that the Justification must be Universal too - making themselves Universalists.
They try to solve their embarrassing predicament that there is objective and subjective Justification. It does not work and is only a form of sophistry.
UOJ is cut from the same cloth as the Calvinist same premise, different conclusion but nevertheless same (wrong) presupposition or assumption.
Do not mistake me for your paradigm of equating the Atonement with Justification. I deny that Atonement and Justification are one and the same thing categorically. That is why I am not a Calvinist neither a UOJer.
In quoting 1 Tim 1:15 which says "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners", you mean to imply that Jesus has saved the world - meaning, ALL ARE NOW SAVED. Thus you are a Universalist and a Huberian.
Even your question did Jesus succeed in His mission or not, is a typical Calvinistic question.
LPC