Whatever. I've studied theology since i was twelve. Get lost

It implies that the merits can be exchanged between conscious beings even though to be free in a moment is to be in total control of which way to turn, so even God couldn't know what you would do except by vision of the future. So if you are in complete control of sin and repentence it would seem you are in full responsibility for it, so that would rule out atonment. Free will entails "individualism". This is what i've said in this entire thread. Look, if this kind of theology makes Christians feel better about themselves then may they feel their best. I think Christianity was founded by "Paul", whoever that was, and it's insistence on spread the word to the corners of the earth is one of its flaws. Why can't Christians just hope and trust that God will have mercy on them without this convoluted theology about substitution? That's what other religions do. Why do Christians feel they are so bad, that they are unforgivable on their own? Why to they have to put that self-blame on others? Now that is a true Christian mystery

Propitiation to my mind is a denial of free will. To be free is to be the only one making the decision. Ratzinger and Aquinas seem very confused. Do others sin when i sin? No but the merits can be exchanged? Someone cannot act as personhood unless his acts fall on him. Aren't they trying to "have their cake and eat too" by saying mercy and justice were balanced in the cruxifiction? Aren't they denying personhood in humans in line with savage beliefs of old? If we are all "one body" then how can they hold some will be damned? Forever a body divided? How unfitting is that

Thoughts:

With regard to why believe in spirituality, it's important to know that the universe is not necessarily fair. It is just, but that' different. Err, i take that back because I have no idea if the universe also is merciful, and to what extent. It might be in an unfair way. I have a twin brother Matthew and I don't care what he does i would never damn him, and i have a pretty strong commitment to morals. He would be standing there, the murderer of himself, and if i could i would still take him to heaven becausr it is that consciousness that i love. It's not just or fair, but love is the meaning of spirituality

I wonder to what extent we should care about the second truth or the reality beyond our own. There may well be a Paramarthika Satya or ultimate realm beyond the empirical, but what of it? Can a good case be made that we should care about this and to what end — Tom Storm

Only if it brings joy. Those thoughts are pointless if they don't make you happy

Nor Spinozism. My point was that you pick and choose rather randomly what is woowoo and what is not when it comes to the philosophy of physics

You seemed to be objecting to a post because of materialism but Spinoza wasn't a materialist. He thought you and the world were God's mind. Do you have cotempt for Daoism or is that ok as well?

"There is a thing confusedly formed
Born before heaven and earth
Silent and void
It stands alone and does not change
Goes round and does not weary
It is capable of being the mother of the world
I know not its name
So I style it 'the way'"
Lao Tzu as quoted in Primal Myths by Barbara Sproul

When applying philosophy to physics the lines can become blurred

Time can be a very hard thing for people because we only have so much of it. If we want everything to be perfect, we have to accept that for every mistake there can be an equal or greater victory.

shit-"philosophy — 180 Proof

Haven't you espoused Spinoza's philosophy in the past? Just saying

I am under the impression that Kant believed thing in itself or noumena was required for phenomena to appear. Remember, it was Gottlob Schulze who wrote that Kant contradicted himself in saying noumena causes the appearances in us even though causality is a law of phenomena. Schulze's argument is that of a rationalist and i certainly don't buy it

Thanks for the paper. In modern quantum theory they make as fine distinctions as scolastics of old. How many angels can fit in a quark, so to speak. The thing about Many Worlds is that people wonder, regret, and dream of what "could have been" a lot. Humans want it all, however it is that they get it i guess

I get it now: when scientists say the world is not locally real they mean superposition and maybe something like "many worlds" (?), and so non-local would be classical. I hope that's right because it feels right. It's weird how someone can read something and not get the key words but still get something out of it lol.

Anyway- the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2022 was awarded to three scientists for proving the world is not locally real. But is this like saying that noumena is not locally real? We know from experience what the classical is and isn't.. It's pretty interesting how this raises ancient questions but dresses them in modern garb (stylish). Between observer-centric theories and, say, pilot wave theory or objective collapse theory, there is John Wheeler's "participatory universe" theory, which states that the substrate of the quantum combined with the nucleus of the consciousness is what creates the world. It's an interaction between "I" and "not I". It's more of a duality becoming a whole rather than a duality of separation, and this is what guarantees we can have knowledge of the world

Henry P Stapp, an American mathematical physicist, known for his work in quantum mechanics, particularly the development of axiomatic S-matrix theory, the proofs of strong nonlocality properties, and the place of free will in the "orthodox" quantum mechanics of John von Neumann. — Kizzy

I am familar somewhat with Roger Penrose's ideas on the subject. I've never been clear about the distinction between local and non-local however. Are they both referring to aspects of quantum space or, then, what?

Thanks for the support and kind words. I enjoy the discussions on this forum very much and although I don't always know where they are leading, there seems to be a pattern working behind the whole project, and I hope everyone gets a lot of enlightenment from it

Yes a comparison between Kant and Descartes provokes many thoughts. What comes to mind for me is that the argument of the Third Meditation could, or may HAVE been, used by Kant in defense of noumena's existence. The thing-in-itself lives in twilight but it has to be there or else the world is made of plastic. I've never read Critique of Pure Reason in it's entirety. I think I've read 3 fourths of it, having skipped certain parts. The Meditations I've read many times but Hegel is the philosopher I've spent the most time with (maybe I can find where in the Greater Logic he comments on Kant's noumena!)

he never quite let it be known how it does what it does, which, obviously, relates precisely to what it is, or at the very least, to what it is conceived as being. — Mww

Well he did have his Passions of the Mind which tries to work out how the mind works. But that it is a substance, well yes i've read the Meditations and Replies. I would agree with you and Kant that someone can't prove the soul is a substance, but I don't believe it is a substance either apart from biology. Descartes in the Third Meditation argues that a Supreme God exists by insisting that his thoughts were akin to Platonic realities and reality must mirror their substance. Since the thoughts point to a totality of Being, God must exist. The archetypes would be empty and incapable of being thought if they did not indicate what the thoughts were of. What do you think of that argument?

We can research and compare the mental states that arise when I listen to the two styles of music, e.g. notice if my toes tap to the rhythms, check my dopamine levels, brain activity etc. and correlate the results with my reports. That's — jkop

Will they ever be able to say "the firing of this specific number of these neurons in this part of the brain will produce this specific intensity of this emotion"? Sure, some feelings are great and others bad, but a lot of this is subjective. Sometimes i'll feel two different feelings while making a choice and they feel equally strong yet I definitely want one over the other for which reason i have no explanation. Sometimes a bad feeling can feel kind of good, and vice versa. Again, i think it's too subjective to pin down exactly, despite the dream of certain brain scientists.

Since I'm not afraid to put ideas out there as my own, I would say that Absoluteness is nothing and there is nothing more final than nothing. So philosophy is about concepts relating to no thing at all, although it orients the brain to think in interesting and hopefully fruitful ways. Speaking with words such as "God" can have a lot of baggage, nor does the word "soul fair any better (although i am partial to both, especially the latter). The fact that the body is an organic unity is proved by sexual attraction. We notice the parts of the person as aspects of a whole. And the will moves the whole body through space. It's not as if I leave a part of me in another room when I roam the house, right?? There is the physical and the spiritual. Putting them together in non-duality is very difficult. Maybe i can do it someday

Some ideas:

Emergent consciousness is certainly a fact psychologically. We develope in stages thru life. The philosophical aspect is different for me. The self is certainly a substance in that the human body is a substance. The world is real beyond peripheral vision, the body is an organic whole: these are facts. Philosophy is in the Other-realm. Think of something existing in the multiverse. Then think of something existing in no universe, in a different dimension of possibility. That is the moving space of pure philosophy. It is not unknown but it is unknowable. Calling it nothing is the best because it is that, although the word nothing even says to much. In that "place" there is no substance, but just act. It parallels this world of bodies and brains. Where did the universe come from? Try the No Boundary Proposal. Where did the spiritual come from? Nowhere, emerging to be parallel with the bodies of the universe, which started whenever motion started, when matter or energy started to have activity. What causes this? Maybe gravity. So what am I? A body. Who am I? Anatman. Does the brain generate consciousness? Yes. Does the brain generate consciousness? No. Both

Are you saying the self is a substance or not?



You seem to be taking the self in a more than pragmatic self but the the world in simply a pragmatic sense. Could it be that both have more than "meets the eye"?

Very interesting. One can accept the Gospels to an extent while rejecting Paul. Neitszche thought of Jesus as a pacifist, full of love but not willing to defend himself, and therefore an "idiot" and a "decadent" as he said. He was sacrificed though because the love he showed made people uncomfortable with themselves. It wasn't about legal substitution as in "it is finished". He was a man full of divine light. When he said "I am the way, the truth, and the life", the I in that sentence is his union with father divinità. Union with God is the way, truth, and life he meant. "No one comes to the Father except through me" is, i understand, him saying "me" as the illuminened self. Except as you accept the light, so to speak. To be Christian means to feel guilty for something. That's the first requirement.. Someone must suffer and they believe God gives scapegoats out of mercy. It is not about justice, but mercy. Like Jesus with the woman of adultery

Yes because the "act/fact" for Fichte is freedom. Descartes and Kant had a priori structures and innate ideas as the source of consciousness while Fichte had yourself as the source of consciousness. This is how freedom comes about. Freedom is the being responsible for the ones' being(s) and acts. As pointed out, Buddhism seems to imply this same position as well. Schopenhauer kept the Platonic realm as after the will (to act/exist) and it seems this realm is where Descartes and Kant got stuck. I don't think they went as deep as he did

Trying to put Kant, Fitche, Spinoza, Einstein and Schopenhauer together, i recently made this progression of how human consciousness emerges:

1) nothingness > 2) emptiness > 3) imagination > 4) will > 5) personhood > 6) collective unconsciouss > 7) consciousness as intellect

I don't know if i'd swear by it but it feels accurate to me. However, if you think Kant coukd have refuted Fichte, it would be interesting to see how. It's also interesting to ask why Kant didn't do this while alive; maybe he was just getting old

Here is my commentary on the Stanford Encyclopedia's article on Fichte.

First to note, Fichte famously did away with the thing-in-itself early in his career. He wanted to establish a very fact upon which all philosophy could be based. Was this just the cogito?

*The published presentation of the first principles of the Jena Wissenschaftslehre commences with the proposition, “the I posits itself”; more specifically, “the I posits itself as an I.” Since this activity of “self-positing” is taken to be the fundamental feature of I-hood in general, the first principle asserts that “the I posits itself as self-positing.”*

So the I is in some sense prior to itself, hence the strange loop.

*Unfortunately, this starting point is somewhat obscured in Part I of the Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre by a difficult and somewhat forced attempt on Fichte’s part to connect this starting point to the logical law of identity, as well as by the introduction of two additional “first principles,” corresponding to the logical laws of non-contradiction and sufficient reason...*

I think this is more important that it seems. The I is necessary AS intelligent. The law of identity, non contradiction, and sufficient reason are part of the fabric of the "I posit" as if the I flows logically from it's own nature. The I can only posit an intelligent self that thinks

*"To posit” (setzen) means simply “to be aware of,” “to reflect upon,” or “to be conscious of”; this term does not imply that the I must simply “create” its objects of consciousness.*

Not "simply create" but create in a sense that there is no thing in itself. But the empirical I does not do this. The I of the body is IN the world as born and living

"The principle in question simply states that the essence of I-hood lies in the assertion of ones own self-identity, i.e., that consciousness presupposes self-consciousness (the Kantian “I think,” which must, at least in principle, be able to accompany all our representations). Such immediate self-identify, however, cannot be understood as a psychological “fact,” no matter how privileged, nor as an “action” or “accident” of some previously existing substance or being. To be sure, it is an “action” of the I, but one that is identical with the very existence of the same.*

Fichte was in a pickle. He didn't want to "say" we create the world or ourselves, but he puts himself in between saying we do and we don't in such a carefully balanced act that his philosophy must fall to one side. Everyone seems to agree he was an idealist. The encyclopedia is pointing out his hesitation on this

*In Fichte’s technical terminology, the original unity of self-consciousness is to be understood as both an action and as the product of the same: as a Tathandlung or “fact/act,” a unity that is presupposed by and contained within every fact and every act of empirical consciousness, though it never appears as such therein.

This same “identity in difference” of original self-consciousness might also be described as an “intellectual intuition,” inasmuch as it involves the immediate presence of the I to itself, prior to and independently of any sensory content.*

The difference between the empirical I and the transcendental I!

*To be sure, such an “intellectual intuition” never occurs, as such, within empirical consciousness; instead, it must simply be presupposed (that is, “posited”) in order to explain the possibility of actual consciousness, within which subject and object are always already distinguished. The occurrence of such an original intellectual intuition is itself inferred, not intuited...*

As bodies we are not aware of our source of consciousness directly

*A fundamental corollary of Fichte’s understanding of I-hood (Ichheit) as a kind of fact/act is his denial that the I is originally any sort of “thing” or “substance.” Instead, the I is simply what it posits itself to be, and thus its “being” is, so to speak, a consequence of its self-positing, or rather, is co-terminus with the same*

If it was a substance it could not create itself in any sense whatsoever. It would just "be". As an act which establishes itself, it can "be" prior to itself. Being prior to itself, it can be self conscious by reflecting on the I it is prior to

the idea of “constructing” intelligibility, that intelligibility is something constructed. I find nothing to suggest Kant’s philosophy, or, indeed anyone else’s, is about that, and in particular following from it, this notion of constructing the intelligibility of things. — Mww

This is how Fichte interpreted Kant. Kant's book on the metaphysical foundations of science has him constructing nature from intelligence in link with the noumena. There has to be something "out there" that wasn't phenomenal or spiritual from which intelligence can bounce its intuitions off of. Fichte has us creating ourselves (and probably even the noumena, although he went back and forth on this and probably on purpose) the same way Schopenhauer has it. The "I" posits itself. Why? For the reason that it can. It's a strange loop. (A strange loop has its place outside the world but makes less sense within the world, as does creation from nothing) A human would be responsible even for his birth for Fichte and Schopenhauer, as Buddhism had for so many years before proposed

But it doesn't usually involve the idea of an external force (like a higher power or subconscious mind) making someone do something with "infallible force" while preserving their freedom. Dennett was a strict materialist, i.e. the causal factors he saw were those known to natural science. Nothing at all about "higher powers" in his reckoning, all such ideas being remnants of "folk psychology".

A core idea in compatibilism is that freedom is about acting in accordance with one's desires and rational decisions, even if those desires are in reality determined by prior causes. Dennett and other compatibilists argue that free will is compatible with determinism because what matters is that individuals act according to their own motivations and reasoning, rather than being coerced or forced by external agents. The concept of being "forced" with "infallible force" typically falls outside compatibilist definitions of freedom because it would imply a kind of coercion that most compatibilists would reject. — Wayfarer

I beg to differ. "[T]he causal factors he saw were those known to natural science. Nothing at all about 'higher powers' in his reckoning": I guess you object to the use of the term "higher power" but in relation to Dennett it is just "those known to natural science". I see no different between your description of compatibilism and mine.

For instance, according to Dennett, as long as a person is acting in accordance with their desires and motivations, without coercion or external interference, they are acting freely—even if those desires are themselves determined by prior causes. — Wayfarer

If Dennett is a true compatibilist, he has to believe that the will is actually, genuinely free. That it can act on it's own and is the sole responsibility for it's actions. Spinoza didn't believe in free will, but he thought we act out of desires and motivations. By "without coercion", are you saying what I'm saying?

I think you're missing the background against which the whole idea of atonement makes sense. In ancient Judaism, atonement was achieved through sacrificial rituals, where offerings were made to reconcile the people with God after they had sinned. The idea of the 'scapegoat' comes from these practices—symbolically placing the sins of the community onto a goat and sending it away, taking their guilt with it (Leviticus 16). — Wayfarer

Ah yes, the whole idea of the priesthood is central to this. Jesus as High Priests, himself as sacrifice. But my objection to it is that it seems to be magic. If we are responsible for our own actions, how can something else external to our will affect what level or merit we are at or how we stand before justice? Furthermore, justice is not served to Jesus in this scenario because he has to be killed in order for it to work. And he was innocent they say. So those who did wrong do less than they would have had to and an innocent man gets killed. It doesn't seem rational

The two ideas belong to very different domains of thought—compatibilism in philosophy of mind and determinism, and atonement in religious and moral theology—so it's not clear how they relate to one another. — Wayfarer

Compatibilism is studied in Calvinism and Thomist and is very important in their systems. I think my description of compatibilism was more in line with how they speak of it than what, say, SEP would say.I Also, I related compatibilism to free will in the OP: if Jesus is fully human then he can sin. But he also can't, because he is God. Hence it seems compatibilism is needed in order to save the Incarnation.

Kant said he had to leave reason behind in order to have faith; Kierkegaard said we must crucify reason in order to have faith. Yet when Bergson held up intuition above reason, philosophers quickly retorted that he had to use rationality in order to attack rationality and therefore his position was circular. This is a very difficult subject. I am not a rationalist but the propositions of Christianity appear irrational to me. Many philosophy lovers are in this same position: objecting to to the "unreason" of Christianity while admitting reason only goes so far. Hence the thread

The subject of predication is the object of awareness, so subject and object are the same in that context. The conscious synthetic subject will analyze the object and account for predicates by synthesizing them into a mental picture. Substance and accidents don't refer to anything different anymore than matter and form for the reason that the object is particular (has "thisness"). You said on page 3 that angling was subjective but i think it is objective. You are using a dualism of substance and accidents (or a "quadism?" by using the prior prime matter/form distinction) to say that object of perception is beyond our comprehension. At the right time an object can be known for what it is. Right focus, right concentration are needed for this. Not bare "understanding", but intuitive knowing. Angles are part of the very shape of a thing. Without shape it's not physical anymore

Today I finished The Theory of Mind as Pure Act by Giovanni Gentile ("design and setting by Alpha Editions" 2020). It's an incredible book. The spiritual side of me says i created my consciousness but I also know my brain and spine cause conscious throughout my body. I wonder what materialist explanations there are for consciousness being material and for consciousness seeing reality objectively. I see they are talking about this on my other thread. Anyway, i recommend the book

If what you say is true then I would have to conclude that matter is not pure extension (Cartesian) and so adopt some other philosophical stance

The paradox of perception in the context of this discussion is perplexing. Mathematics obviously would seem to apply to matter. Take your childhood bicycle: you can take off a handle, then divide that into two with a buzzsaw. So you have the bicycle and two parts. How many parts total? 3. Can't you divide one of the halves too? Now you have 4 pieces. As long as there is something there that is spatial the process, to the logical mind, would descend to infinity, and putting the bicycle back would fill up WITH infinity, into... a finite bike. I know mathematics has a lot to say about this, but as a description of something spatial it is very curious. The principle of infinity seems suspended within the concept of "the finite". It's like they are two sides of each other. The number 1 can be divided to infinity, but it's much more odd when doing this with spatial objects (because space has size). So we say "real spatial objects have much more to them then mathematical relationships to themselves. These other aspects make the mathematical sides appear distorted". This sounds to me like we're on acid and are seeing a round triangle. That can actually happen! But in the real world, when the mind and intuition is clear, we can see with perfect clarity, when observing a car or bicycle, what it is. We can "know it". Yet when the mind is elsewhere, we don't seem to feel we grasp the whole thing. There seems to be more to it that we can't get to, and this increases the sense of mystery, which in turn is the foundation of a latter focus of the intuition which, then, sees the object as it is

Just a barrage of thoughts...

I don't see the relevance, we were talking about identity, which refers to things, not geometrical conceptions. — Metaphysician Undercover

You talk in completely different language than I do. Example:

But in logic the object is represented as a subject, and we predicate. The predication is made of the subject, not the object, and there remains a separation between the subject with its predications, and any possible object which is represented in this way. This separation, makes the object completely separate from anything we say about it, even spatial-temporal location, it's reality is a possibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

Huh? A subject in the philosophy I read is a conscious observer. You are saying that the subject is the object observed, and then use those words in the same way. I can't make sense of this. Are you saying the predication is made "of" the subject or "by" the subject?

Therefore at sometime your car may not have any tires, then afterwards it might have tires which are different from the tires before. The swap in parts makes no difference to the identity of the car. — Metaphysician Undercover

Whether it's an ancient ship or a modern car, the argument still holds that we don't know when exactly minimally a the object ceases to be an object.

The point though is that there is nothing necessary and sufficient, because identity is the thing itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

Huh? He was saying necessary and sufficient refers to what makes a thing a thing in itself.

I think the important point of the law of identity is that it makes identity distinct from anything we say about a thing, making it the thing itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

So the object can never be completely known? It IS very strange that I can look at a pair a shoes and know the relation there and exactly what they are and yet there on other states of consciousness I could see them in which would be a wholly different experience of their ontology

You have just taken different time frames, saying that the thing does not have the same properties at one time as it does at another, so you want to designate them as two distinct things. — Metaphysician Undercover

Where has anyone on this thread said time itself causes things to change?

That is the temporal continuity which we assume the reality of, because we've observed it. This allows us to say that a thing has an identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

So now time is what gives identity?

I think your association of the law of identity with "essentialism", and "the notion that there is some "core of you" that endures throughout your existence" is mistaken. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's just the language he was using. He uses "essential" to mean "identity". How is any of this an answer to the ship of Theseus?

I'll be honest: I have never understood a single post of yours on this forum. I never know what the heck you are even talking about :(

Your quote on Graham Harmon’s is very interesting. It sounds like a philosophical answer to Zeno's paradoxes instead of the mathematical one. In fact, it might question the mathematical explanation since the object is no longer pure geometry. Hegel thought, because of the paradoxes, objects were instanstiated contradictions and this was a huge part of his philosophy in that everything resolved into other things as if forming a complete puzzle. This is a bit much, as if objects were finite and infinite in the same respect. They may seem to be by logic, but intuition sees them was they are

George Berkeley, author of The Analyst, was one philosopher who thought Zeno's paradoxes proved idealism, as Zeno intended. Likewise William of Ockham contended against the argument for mere [potential infinity] that the parts either exist or they don't. Matter can't exist as something completely potential. Divide the object and ask "what's there"; repeat process. Together or separate, the same quanity is there. Finally, Bertrand Russell said that calculus could be done without infinitesimals. However, it is still assumed in mathematics that infinitesimals make logical sense, which is why they are used in calculus courses and in nonstandard analysis

You need to distinguish between parts as understood philosophically and parts of an object seen as geometry. In the latter an object has infinite parts. In the former, well it is debatable. That is why Aristotle failed to refute Zeno. Zeno made a mathematical point with philosophical implications,and Aristotle responded simply with his philosophy

I was raised traditional Catholic. I don't believe in Christianity anymore. Anyway, as a materialist what do you think of Einstein's religious beliefs? He said he believed in Spinoza's God and admired Buddhism (annihilation vs anatman?).

Maybe when you think of spiritual you aren't really having spiritual content in your mind. When it is experienced one recognizes that it's different from matter's psychology. Spiritual vs psychological. I assume the spiritual is where I will go when I die, since annihilation doesn't make sense from experience and doesn't really refer to anything, unless to hell. I hope to stay out of hell and loss of consciousness into eternity, so I have great interest in spiritual things. Sorry but i dont think i can demonstrate these things to you

What about matter creating the spiritual? There is an esoteric word for that but I've forgotten it. Hegel has the world coming from Spirit but even more importantly matter sublates into Spirit through the history

Well Einstein himself thought everything was eternal (block universe, B time). Entropy is like the physical equivalent of Will. Maybe philosophy is completely a chemical process and it in no way reaches to some beyond space-time. Perhaps philosophy is purely normative, how evolved creaures should think for their sake. Becoming is the constant process

"With regard to what 'truthfulness' is, perhaps nobody has ever been sufficiently truthful." (Beyond Good and Evil, ch. IV, para. 177)

"A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the animalization of God." (para. 101)

I am very interested in Husserl

Jumping in, Parmenides pointed out that nothingness cannot be talked about or indicated. He's right in a way, in an ancient Greek way. Being is the unity of what subsists and for him thoughts are being. The world is becoming, but our thoughts are eternal. Heraclitus was like Nietzsche and Parmenides like the Socrates of Nietzsche's critique. The becoming, the fleeting, had great value for Heraclitus, as we burn like Fire amid the winds of life.

"Such seems to me, for instance, the after-effect of Schopenhauer on the most modern Germany: by his unintelligent rage against Hegel, he has succeeded in severing the whole of the last generation of Germans from its connection with German culture, which culture, all things considered, has been an elevation and a divining refinement of the historical sense; but precisely at this point Schopenhauer himself was poor irreceptive, and un-German to the extent of ingeniousness" Beyond Good and Evil ch VI para. 204

It seems the Eastern Catholics and Orthodox may be more explicit in this than the West, with their insistance on seeing God's energies. If i remember correctly, John Paul II accepted Orthodox saints as part of the Catholic community of saints and Gregory of Palamas was already considered a saint by many Eastern Catholics. Malebranche can be seen as Catholic Spinozism in allowing all human thought to directly utilize, and be, the Divine Ideas (ontologism) and Rosmini's appurtenance of God is the same. Even Protestant Leibniz has his Godly fulgurations, but there have always been those in Christianity who believe philosophy is corrupt. Martin Luther knew scholastcism but latter hated philosophy and considered it a hindrance to salvation. Instead of theology AND philosophy, these thinkers believe only in history and theology. I could never be one of those. Without philosophy, theology offers nothing interesting to my mind