Kantian Naturalist
Posts: 72
Joined: Mar. 2013
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When StephenB says things like "Reason is simply the tool use to access God’s natural revelation, just as faith is the tool that we use to access God’s Divine revelation," he is not saying anything terribly astonishing. That's a basically correct, though crude, formulation of what Thomists hold.
StephenB's philosophical incompetence isn't that he's a Thomist, but that he's unable to engage in reasonable discussion with anyone who is not. His attempts to persuade others to accept his Thomistic starting-points are laughable, and he's not nearly as good at philosophy as he thinks he is.
Though I did appreciate this moment of honesty from him:
| Quote | | You know it by its proper fit with human nature. If it promotes what is good for our nature, then it is objectively good; if it promotes what is bad for our nature, then it is objectively bad. If there is no such thing as human nature, then there can be no such thing as objective morality. |
That gives the whole game away quite nicely -- for here is the whole argument that StephenB has been running:
(1) if Darwinism is true, then there is no such thing as a fixed essence to human nature;
(2) But there is objective morality only if there is a fixed essence to human nature.
(3) So if Darwinism is true, there is no objective morality;
(4) The only alternative to objective morality is 'might makes right';
(5) Hence, if Darwinism is true, there is no alternative to 'might makes right'.
and it is in order to avoid that conclusion that StephenB must reject Darwinism -- he must find it to be false. He cannot reject (2) or (4) because those options are so central to Thomistic philosophy that he cannot imagine an alternative to them. Which is quite striking, since we've had a wide range of decent philosophical options to Thomism for the past 400 years. Perhaps StephenB has simply not been paying attention.
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