Daily Archives: January 9, 2020

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Title: Judaism Reclaimed: Philosophy and Theology in the TorahAuthor: Rabbi Shmuel PhillipsPublisher: Mosaica Press

Almost immediately upon publication, Rambams Moreh Nevuchim yielded contradictory interpretations. Some readers, including the books Hebrew translator R. Shmuel Ibn Tibbon, see in Moreh Nevuchim a subversive text, a book of radical philosophy hidden underneath a Torah mask. Others, including the translators son R. Moshe Ibn Tibbon, take Rambam at his word that he is evaluating philosophy from a Torah perspective and rejecting what runs contrary to revelation.

This Ibn Tibbon dispute represents broader trends toward Moreh Nevuchim and philosophy in general. To some degree, as a result of this long interpretative debate, many faithful Jews stayed away from the subjects altogether. To them, the spiritual danger was too great to allow any engagement with philosophy or any other course of knowledge that could challenge religion.

These three approaches still characterize the Jewish community. Some Jews reject Torah traditions when they see evidence they believe contradicts those traditions. Others stay away from all such debates to avoid religious challenges. And still others take the middle path of engagement within the parameters of faith, accepting truth from wherever it comes but recognizing that Torah is the ultimate truth. This last approach was adopted by some (certainly not all) great Torah scholars throughout history. The great Lithuanian-style Torah scholars read widely, even from heretics and Maskilim, accepting insights while rejecting heresies, filtering everything through the lens of Torah faith.

To a large degree, that changed when the Eastern European Haskalah turned vicious in the second half of the 19th century. This second wave of Maskilim utilized mockery and insult to undermine tradition and secularize Jews. In response to these aggressions, the traditional community rightly went to war in defense of Jewish continuity. The intellectual openness of Lithuania was forced to close on a broad scale. However, individuals always remained who represented the old, broad-minded Lithuanian tradition.

Well over a century has passed since the Haskalah battles, and the world has changed many times over. Today, mysticism abounds, whether from the traditions of Chasidism, the Arizal, the Maharal, or some new combination. And yet, these approaches do not satisfy everyone. I believe that the old Lithuanian openness needs a resurgence, if not for everyone then at least for some. At the very least, we need to revive the internal Jewish rationalism, the tradition of Moreh Nevuchim and those who followed in its path, the spirit of the Lithuanian-style search for truth within faith.

In his recent book, Judaism Reclaimed, Rabbi Shmuel Phillips exemplifies this thoughtful, rationalist approach one which examines fundamental issues of belief while remaining not just faithful to but confident in our faith. Despite being a relatively young kollel student in Jerusalem with a law degree from the University of London, Rabbi Phillips writes like a seasoned theologian. He directly confronts the biblical critics who deny the Torahs unique divine origin, the historians who claim Medieval Torah scholars denied certain fundamental beliefs, the professors who claim that the Oral Torah contradicts the Bible, and virtually every other contemporary challenge to traditional Jewish beliefs. Building primarily on Rambam and Rav Hirsch, Rabbi Phillips explains in a sophisticated but accessible way the basis for belief and the mistakes of the critics.

Among his many topics are gender roles, the divine origin of the Oral Torah and the limits to its flexibility, the authenticity of Sefer Devarim, the challenge of ancient Near Eastern texts that resemble the Torah in certain ways, and the differing realms of Torah and science. This book fearlessly, eloquently, and thoughtfully addresses nearly all the major intellectual challenges people today face when thinking about Torah Judaism. And it does so without compromising on belief and without intimidating the reader. Rather, Rabbi Phillips invokes the great intellectual heritage with which we have been endowed by our ancestors. He resurrects a rational Jewish tradition that is rich in faith and uses reason to understand Judaisms faith claims.

Rabbi Phillips freely quotes the latest challenges to tradition, summarizing each view before responding to it. In this way, he lets readers know that he comes from an informed perspective, unafraid of professors, historians, and liberal rabbis who think they can disprove traditional Judaism. Rabbi Phillips argues very straightforwardly and without bombast. He does not talk around challenges, trying to distract readers from the problem. Rather, he calmly and directly explains the traditional Jewish view and how it can reasonably fit the available data, adding the necessary context to appreciate the traditional approach.

The book follows the weekly Torah reading. As such, not every passage contains a faith challenge. On such occasions, Rabbi Phillips pivots to building a worldview by examining philosophical questions that emerge from the text. What is providence, hashgachah pratis? What do G-ds different names mean? Do dark mystical powers exist?

An underlying theme throughout the book is G-ds uniqueness, unlike anything we see in this world and ultimately beyond our comprehension. Paradoxically, this theme, which likewise underlies Rambams Moreh Nevuchim, allows us to answer many theological questions. There are limits to human knowledge that must affect not only how we relate to G-d but also how we view historical finds, ancient texts, and scientific data. As much as we want to be certain about the ancient world, all we have are small pieces of a very large and complex puzzle.

Reclaiming Judaism ably responds to attacks on Orthodox Judaism in an open way, showing that traditional Judaism is consistent with our knowledge of the ancient and contemporary world. Rabbi Phillips also presents a reasonable worldview, emerging from traditional texts and built on the works of great Torah scholars of the past. The book represents the best of the old way: open to all knowledge, deep in its understanding of Torah, and firm in its commitment to faith. Those looking for a faithful, thoughtful, and non-mystical approach to Judaism will find in this book a satisfying guide to how to think about life, G-d, and our place in this world.

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Title: Judaism Reclaimed: Philosophy and Theology in the Torah - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

Published: January 3, 2020 8:14:10 pm

Savitribai Phule, the social reformer who is considered to be one of Indias first modern feminists, was born on January 3, 1831. Among her accomplishments, she is especially remembered for being Indias first female teacher who worked for the upliftment of women and untouchables in the field of education and literacy.

Phule was born in Naigaon, Maharashtra in 1831 and married activist and social-reformer Jyotirao Phule when she was nine years old. After marriage, with her husbands support, Phule learned to read and write and both of them eventually went on to found Indias first school for girls called Bhide Wada in Pune in 1948. Before this, she started a school with Jyotiraos cousin Saganbai in Maharwada in 1847. Since at that time the idea of teaching girls was considered to be a radical one, people would often throw dung and stones at her as she made her way to the school.

Significantly, it was not easy for the Phules to advocate for the education of women and the untouchables since in Maharashtra a nationalist discourse was playing out between 1881-1920 led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. These nationalists including Tilak opposed the setting up of schools for girls and non-Brahmins citing loss of nationality.

Essentially, both Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule recognised that education was one of the central planks through which women and the depressed classes could become empowered and hope to stand on an equal footing with the rest of the society.

In his essay written for the Savitribai Phule First Memorial Lecture Hari Narke has written, In the social and educational history of India, Mahatma Jotirao Phule and his wife Savitribai Phule stand out as an extraordinary couple. They were engaged in a passionate struggle to build a movement for equality between men and women and for social justice. The Phules also started the Literacy Mission in India between 1854-55. According to Narake, the Phules started the Satyashodhak Samaj (Society for Truth-Seeking), through which they wanted to initiate the practice of Satyashodhak marriage, in which no dowry was taken.

Because of the role Phule played in the field of womens education, she is also considered to be one of the crusaders of gender justice, as one paper published in the International Journal of Innovative Social Science & Humanities Research has said. The paper also credits Phule as being one of the first published women in modern India, who was able to develop a voice and agency of her own, at a time when women were suppressed and lived a sub-human existence.

Even though her poems, which were written in Marathi, she advocated values such as humanism, liberty, equality, brotherhood, rationalism and the importance of education among others. In her poem titled, Go, Get Education she wrote:

Be self-reliant, be industrious

Work, gather wisdom and riches,

All gets lost without knowledge

We become animal without wisdom,

Sit idle no more, go, get education

End misery of the oppressed and forsaken,

Youve got a golden chance to learn

So learn and break the chains of caste.

Throw away the Brahmans scriptures fast.

Her books of poems Kavya Phule and Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar were published in 1934 and 1982.

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Explained: Savitribai Phules impact on womens education in India - The Indian Express

Will Tehran and Washington let slip the dogs of war following last weeks aerial takedown of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corpss IRGC) Quds Force? You could be forgiven for thinking so considering the hot takes that greeted the news of the drone strike outside Baghdad. For example, one prominent commentator, the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass, opined that the Middle East region (and possibly the world) will be the battlefield.

Color me skeptical. The apocalypse is not at hand.

Haass is right in the limited sense that irregular military operations now span the globe. Terrorists thirst to strike at far as well as near enemies in hopes of degrading their will to fight. They respect no national boundaries and never have. Frontiers are likewise murky in the cyber realm, to name another battleground with no defined battlefronts. The United States and Iran have waged cyber combat for a decade or more, dating to the Stuxnet worm attack on the Iranian nuclear complex in 2010.

The coming weeks and months may see irregular warfare prosecuted with newfound vigor through such familiar unconventional warmaking methods. Its doubtful Tehran would launch into conventional operations, stepping onto ground it knows America dominates. To launch full-scale military reprisals would justify full-scale U.S. military reprisals that, in all likelihood, would outstrip Irans in firepower and ferocity. The ayatollahs who oversee the Islamic Republic fret about coming up on the losing end of such a clash. As well they might, considering hard experience.

So the outlook is for more of the same. Thats a far cry from the more fevered prophecies of World War III aired since Soleimani went to his reward. To fathom Tehrans dilemma, lets ask a fellow who knew a thing or two about Persian ambitions. (The pre-Islamic Persian Empire, which bestrode the Middle East and menaced Europe, remains the lodestone of geopolitical successeven for Islamic Iran.)

The Athenian historian Thucydides chronicled the Peloponnesian War, a fifth-century-B.C. maelstrom that engulfed the Greek world. Persia was a major player in that contest. In fact, it helped decide the endgame when the Great King supplied Athens antagonist, Sparta, with the resources to build itself into a naval power capable of defeating the vaunted Athenian navy at sea. But Thucydides also meditates on human nature at many junctures in his history, deriving observations of universal scope. At one stage, for instance, he has Athenian ambassadors posit that three of the prime movers impelling human actions are fear, honor, and interest. The emissaries appear to speak for the father of history.

Fear, honor, interest. There are few better places to start puzzling out why individuals and societies do what they do and glimpse what we ought to do. How does Thucydides hypothesis apply to post-Soleimani antagonism between the United States and Iran? Well, the slaying of the Quds Force chieftain puts the ball squarely in the Islamic Republics court. The mullahs must reply to the strike in some fashion. To remain idle would be to make themselves look weak and ineffectual in the eyes of the region and of ordinary Iranians.

In fecklessness lies danger. Doubly so now, after protests convulsed parts of Iran last November. The ensuing crackdown cost hundreds of Iranians their livesand revealed how deeply resentments against the religious regime run. No autocrat relishes weakness, least of all an autocrat whose rule has come under duress from within. A show of power and steadfastness is necessary to cow domestic opponents.

But fear is an omnidirectional, multiple-domain thing for Iranian potentates. External threats abound. Iranians are keenly attuned to geographic encirclement, for instance. They view their country as the Middle Easts rightful heavyweight. Yet U.S. forces or their allies surround and constrain the Islamic Republic from all points of the compass with the partial exception of the northeastern quadrant, which encompasses the stans of Central Asia, and beyond them Russia.

Look at your map. The U.S. Navy commands the westerly maritime flank, backed up by the U.S. Air Force. Americas Gulf Arab allies ring the western shores of the Persian Gulf. U.S. forces remain in Iraq to the northwest, where Suleimani fell, and in Afghanistan to the east. Even Pakistan, to the southeast, is an American treaty ally, albeit an uneasy one. These are forbidding surroundings. Tendrils of U.S. influence curl all around the Islamic Republics borders. Breaking out seems like a natural impulse for Iranian diplomacy and military strategy.

And yet. However fervent about its geopolitical ambitions, the Iranian leadership will be loath to undertake measures beyond the intermittent bombings, support to militants elsewhere in the region, and ritual denunciations of the Great Satan that have been mainstays of Iranian foreign policy for forty years now. Iranian leaders comprehend the forces arrayed against them. A serious effort at a breakout will remain premature unless and until they consummate their bid for atomic weaponry. The ability to threaten nuclear devastation may embolden them to trybut that remains for the future.

Next, honor. Irregular warfare is indecisive in itself, but it can provide splashy returns on a modest investment of resources and effort. Having staked their political legitimacy on sticking it to the Great Satan and his Middle Eastern toadies, the ayatollahs must deliver regular incremental results. Direct attacks on U.S. forces make good clickbait; so do pictures showing IRGC light surface combatants tailing U.S. Navy task forces; so do attacks on vital economic infrastructure in U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia. And headlines convey the image of a virile power on the move.

The honor motive, then, merges with fear. Iranians fear being denied the honor they consider their due as the natural hegemon of the Gulf region and the Islamic world.

And lastly, interest. Mischief-making must suffice for Iran until it can amass the material wherewithal to make itself a hegemon. Its fascinating that Thucydides lists material gain last among forces that animate human beings. After all, foreign-policy specialists list it first. Interest is quantifiable, and it seems to feed straight into calculations of cost, benefit, and risk. It makes statecraft seem rational!

Theres no way to know for sure after two millennia, but it seems likely the sage old Greek meant to deflate such excesses of rationalism. Namely, he regarded human nature as being about more than things we can count, like economic output or a large field army. For Thucydides cost/benefit arithmetic takes a back seat to not-strictly-rational passionssome of them dark, such as rage and spite, and others brightthat drive us all.

And indeed, for Iranians material interest constitutes the way to rejuvenate national honor while holding fear at bay. Breaking the economic blockade manifest in, say, the Trump administrations maximum pressure strategy would permit Tehran to revitalize the countrys moribund oil and gas sector. Renewed export trade would furnish wealth. Some could go into accoutrements of great power such as a high-tech navy and air force.

In turn Iranian leaders could back a more ambitious diplomacy with steel. They would enjoy the option of departing from their purely irregular, troublemaking ways and competing through more conventional methods. Or, more likely, they would harness irregular means as an adjunct to traditional strategic competition. Material gain, in short, not just satisfies economic needs and wants but amplifies martial might. In so doing it satisfies non-material cravings for renown and geopolitical say-so.

And the American side? Repeat this process. Refract U.S. policy and strategy through Thucydides prism of fear, honor, and interest, consider how Iranian and American motives may intersect and interact, and see what light that appraisal shines into the future. My take: perhaps World War III will come one daybut today is not that day.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and the author of A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy, out last month. The views voiced here are his alone.

Originally posted here:

Why A U.S.-Iran War Isn't Going To Happen - The National Interest Online

It was August 1900 in Paris. David Hilbert (18621943), one of the best-known mathematicians of his time (right), posed a list of twenty-three open problems.

The impact was huge; much of the mathematical research of the dawning century was consumed by Hilberts problems. Nobel Prize winners, Fields medalists, and winners of other prestigious awards were among those who worked to solve them. Some of them (the Riemann hypothesis, for instance) remain unsolved. Large sums of money are offered for a successful solution.

Nineteen hundred was felt to be a significant year. The Dark Ages were past; the Enlightenment had come. The Scientific Revolution had brought progress. God was dead, now the Superman (Friedrich Nietzsches bermensch) lived. The universe, with its infinite history, did not require a God. Darwin had proposed a mechanism through which all biological species have merely emerged.

The twentieth century was shaping up to be promising, the beginning of a new age in which man would take his destined position, far from the noise of all those meaningless myths. Reason should be able to explain all things. Each event should have a natural explanation for its occurrence. Every proposition should be subject to a logical explanation to verify its truth value. If every new year brought the happiness and hope of a new beginning, how much more must a new century bring! And how much more must the twentieth century, the first truly Modern century, promise! No wonder prominent mathematicians tackled the problems with such fervor.

In a way, their optimism was understandable, if not justified by events. Not even Hilbert could escape the enthusiasm of the times. Two of his twenty-three problems, the second and the sixth, reflected the modern aspiration to subject everything to human reason. The second problem aimed to prove that the axioms of arithmetic were consistent that is, the axioms of the natural numbers do not lead to any contradictions. The sixth problem aimed to axiomatize physics, particularly probability and mechanics.

The sixth problem conveys Hilberts modern heart: physics should be subjected to cold reason; even chance must submit to reason! Mathematics, the most rigorous way of knowing, should extend itself beyond abstraction to dominate chance and physical reality.

He put the matter this way when he posed the second problem:

When we are engaged in investigating the foundations of a science, we must set up a system of axioms which contains an exact and complete description of the relations subsisting between the elementary ideas of that science. The axioms so set up are at the same time the definitions of those elementary ideas; and no statement within the realm of the science whose foundation we are testing is held to be correct unless it can be derived from those axioms by means of a finite number of logical steps

But above all I wish to designate the following as the most important among the numerous questions which can be asked with regard to the axioms: To prove that they are not contradictory, that is, that a finite number of logical steps based upon them can never lead to contradictory results.

Hilbert was a modern man, no doubt about it. He wanted all of scientific knowledge to be obtained from basic axioms by means of a finite number of logical steps. His goal was an extension of his particular dream for mathematics, the eponymous Hilberts programto establish a consistent and complete finite number of axioms as a foundation of all mathematical theories. The goal was of cardinal importance to him. On his gravestone at Gttingen, you will find inscribed the words:

We must know. We will know. (Wir mssen wissen Wir werden wissen)

That epitaph on the gravestone (image by Kassandro, CC-BY-SA-3.0) was his response to the Latin maxim ignoramus et ignorabimus (we do not know, we shall not know), a dictum of the German physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond from a speech given at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in which du Bois-Reymond argued that there were questions that neither science nor philosophy could aspire to answer.

Seen from the perspective of the age (what C. S. Lewis has called the climate of opinion), Hilberts aspiration was understandable. The two World Wars had not happened yet; science had not been used to create biological weapons; no one knew that the twentieth century would become the bloodiest in history; progress and industrialization had not caused widely noticed environmental issues; the Left had not founded its Gulag and the Right had not built its Auschwitz.

These events (and some others) overthrew modern aspirations in the way the rolling stone in the vision of Daniel broke the statue with feet of clay into pieces. (Dan 2:34) And in all of these events, the problem was easily singled out the human being. It is impossible to make a superman out of a man. Enlightened modernity, blinded by pride, failed to see what all religions, even the oldest and the false ones, have seen so clearlythat man is wicked and the intention of his thoughts is only evil continuously, that from the sole of his foot even to the head there is nothing sound in him, that mans heart is deceitful more than any other thing. (See Jer. 17:9) In brief, the problem of man is nothing other than himself.

Thus, the practical problem of modernity turned out to be man himselfand it was devastating. But the conceptual problem was still to come and it was equally devastating to modern aspirations.

On Monday, September 8, 1930, Hilbert opened the annual meeting of the Society of German Scientists and Physicians in Knigsberg with a famous discourse called Logic and the knowledge of nature. He ended with these words:

For the mathematician there is no Ignorabimus, and, in my opinion, not at all for natural science either

The true reason why [no-one] has succeeded in finding an unsolvable problem is, in my opinion, that there is no unsolvable problem. In contrast to the foolish Ignorabimus, our credo avers: We must know, We shall know.

In one of those ironies of history, during the three days prior to the conference opened by Hilberts speech, a joint conference called Epistemology of the Exact Sciences also took place in Knigsberg. On Saturday, September 6, in a twenty-minute talk, Kurt Gdel (19061978) presented his incompleteness theorems. On Sunday 7, at the roundtable closing the event, Gdel announced that it was possible to give examples of mathematical propositions that could not be proven in a formal mathematical axiomatic system even though they were true.

The result was shattering. Gdel showed the limitations of any formal axiomatic system in modeling basic arithmetic. He showed that no axiomatic system could be complete and consistent at the same time.

What does it mean for an axiomatic system to be complete? It means that, using the axioms given, it is possible to prove all of the propositions concerning the system. What does it mean for the axiomatic system to be consistent? It means that its propositions do not contradict themselves. In other words, the system is complete if (using the axioms) all proposition in the system can be proven either true or false. The system is consistent if (using the axioms) no proposition in the system can be proved simultaneously true and false.

In simple terms, Gdels first incompleteness theorem says that no consistent formal axiomatic system is complete. That is, if the system does not have propositions that are true and false simultaneously, there are other propositions that cannot be proven either true or false. Moreover, such propositions are known to be true but they cannot be proven using the system axioms. There are true propositions of the system that cannot be proven as such, using the axioms of the system.

Gdels second incompleteness theorem is more stringent. It says that no consistent axiomatic system can prove its own consistency. In the end, his theorem entails that we cannot know whether a system is consistent or not; we can only assume that it is.

Lets recall a portion of Hilberts statement of his second problem: [N]o statement within the realm of the science whose foundation we are testing is held to be correct unless it can be derived from those axioms by means of a finite number of logical steps.

Hilbert knew the difference between science and mathematics, of course. So this introduction to his second problem actually fits well to his sixth problemto axiomatize science. In this regard, his sixth problem is more ambitious than the second one because it purports to translate to sciencebeyond mathematicswhat mathematics should be doing at least in Hilberts mind. But inasmuch as Hilbert was broadening his concepts to take in science as well as mathematics, it was of particular importance that his statement be true of mathematics. The word science should be replaceable by the word mathematics: [N]o statement within the realm of the mathematics whose foundation we are testing is held to be correct unless it can be derived from those axioms by means of a finite number of logical steps.

But Gdels first incompleteness theorem voids such a statement. There are indeed true mathematical propositions that cannot be derived from a finite number of axioms through a finite number of logical steps. Mathematics, our best way of knowing, the one we consider the most certain, is, in the most optimistic case, incomplete!

But even this is not the end of the matter. Returning to Hilberts presentation of his second problem, note what he says in his second paragraph:

Above all I wish to designate the following as the most important among the numerous questions which can be asked with regard to the axioms: To prove that they are not contradictory, that is, that a finite number of logical steps based upon them can never lead to contradictory results.

Well, Gdels second incompleteness theorem destroys this statement too. Because it proves the opposite: no consistent formal axiomatic system can prove its own consistency. If Hilberts program is the Titanic, Gdels incompleteness theorems are the iceberg that sunk it.

Moreover, Gdels first incompleteness theorem throws Comtes positivism into the trash and it does the same with todays scientism. There are indeed true statements that are beyond mathematics and science.

Gdels second incompleteness theorem is a source of hopelessness to a rationalist viewpoint. If no consistent formal system can prove its own consistency, the consequences are devastating for whomever has placed his trust in human reason.

Why? Because provided the system is consistent, we cannot know it is; and if it is not, who cares? The highest we can reach is to assume (which is much weaker than to know) that the system is consistent and to work under such assumption. But we cannot prove it; that is impossible!

In the end, the most formal exercise in knowledge is an act of faith. The mathematician is forced to believe, absent all mathematical support, that what he is doing has any meaning whatsoever.

The logician is forced to believe, absent all logical support, that what he is doing has any meaning whatsoever.

Some critics might point out that there are ways to prove the consistency of a system, provided we subsume it into a more comprehensive one. That is true. In such a case, the consistency of the inner system would be proved from the standpoint of the outer system. But a new application of Gdels second incompleteness theorem tells us that this bigger system cannot prove its own consistency. That is, to prove the consistency of the first system requires a new step of faith in the bigger one. Moreover, because the consistency of the first system depends on the consistency of the second onewhich cannot be proved there is more at stake if we accept the consistency of the second one. And suppose there is a third system which comprehends the second one and proving that it is consistent. Faith is all the more necessary if we are to believe that the third system is also consistent. In such a system, faith does not disappear. It only compounds, making itself bigger and more relevant in order to sustain all that it is supporting.

In the end, we do not know whether the edifice we are building will be consistent; we do not have the least idea. We just hope it will be, and we must believe it will be in order to continue doing mathematics. Faith is the most fundamental of the mathematical tools.

The question is not whether we have faith, the question is what is the object of our faith. It is the rationality of mathematics what is at stake here, its meaning. But we cannot appeal to mathematics to prove its meaning. Thus, Platonic reality, given its existence, does depend on a bigger and more comprehensive reality, one beyond what is reasonable, one that is the Reason itself.

The ambition to know all things is nothing more than a statement on a gravestone.

Even though for years I have enjoyed applying analytical philosophy to Christian apologetics, these and other considerations have led me to question that approach. At this point, I dont see that it creates a clear advantage. Instead, I see it as a concession to the unbeliever in order to lead him to question his own faith and place it instead in Christ.

It is sad to see that many a Christian apologist has placed his faith in logic, not in the Logos. At the end of the day, logic does not prove anything because it is grounded in unprovable propositions. It is impossible to use Aristotelian logic to prove Aristotelian logic. It begs the question; to accept it requires faith. Axioms are undemonstrable by definition and, as theory develops, they become less and less intuitive. To accept them requires faith. Similarly, the consistency of any formal axiomatic system cannot be proven, to accept it requires faith. All of our knowledge is sustained by faith. All of it.

Sustaining faith in reason, besides making for a cheap faith, constitutes an unacceptable abdication to rationalism because reason and logic cannot sustain anything. They cannot even support themselves. Moreover, in order for faith and reason to have a foundation, not merely from an epistemological viewpoint but also from an ontological one, there must be something that sustains it a First Sustainer undergirding them all.

There is no logic without a Logos. Faiths only task is to accept that such a Logos does exist. The opposite is despair, meaninglessness. With this in mind, John 1:1-4 14, and Colossians 1:15-17 are illuminated by a wonderful light.

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Faith Is the Most Fundamental of the Mathematical Tools - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence