On the Corner of Faith and Logic Avenues

[Torence]

Last weekend, I complained to Brother Freyburger that our 2nd
Degree Lectures always make me angry. Because, my opinion is that our
little club should be founded upon Logic, rather than Geometry. Way
too many among us seem to think that we are founded upon Arithmetic,
as they spend much so much time counting our number. I suppose that I
spend too much time in Astronomy as my thoughts and ability to reason
is often lost amongst the stars.
Too many in and out of our club view Faith and Logic in opposition.
In other words, from their standpoint one can either be Faithful or
Logical. They suffer from the tyranny of the “OR.” Douglas Adams pokes
fun of this perspective in his books with the explanation of the Babel
Fish. That God can only exist by faith. But the creation of such a
useful creature as the Babel Fish, which when inserted in the ear will
translate every form of language in the universe) is so useful that it
must be by design. Therefore, then, He must evaporate instantly in a
puff of Logic once the Babel Fish proves His existence.
The introduction of our modern discourses on the Seven Liberal Arts
was introduced to compete with what was then a new popular
entertainment in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century i.e. the
admission of the general public to scientific and natural lectures.
Itinerant Lecturers of these subjects gave a choice for an evening out
for many men, then, whose alternatives for entertainments were either
the saloon or religious revival. Every couple of years or so,
political discussions could take up some of his free time; but those
events came around to the community in the same way as the circus.
Can Masonry in our century reunite Faith and Logic and free us from
the tyranny of the “OR?” Would the promotion of this ppoposition be a
good purpose for our club?

Fraternally,
Torence Evans Ake
Secretary – Auburn Park Lodge No. 789 – Crete, Illinois
PM – Arcadia Lodge No. 1138 – Lansing, Illinois

[Chris H]

Post by Torence
Can Masonry in our century reunite Faith and Logic and free us from
the tyranny of the “OR?” Would the promotion of this ppoposition be a
good purpose for our club?

Yes... Though it may depend on your faith.

I thought the second degree asked us to look at the liberal arts and
sciences

The term liberal arts denotes a curriculum that imparts general
knowledge and develops the student’s rational thought and intellectual
capabilities. The seven medieval arts are:-

The Trivium : grammar, rhetoric, logic

the Quadrivium: geometry, arithmetic, music , astronomy


BTW this is well worth watching
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=39&EventId=589

[Doug Freyburger]

Post by Torence
Last weekend, I complained to Brother Freyburger that our 2nd
Degree Lectures always make me angry. Because, my opinion is that our
little club should be founded upon Logic, rather than Geometry. Way
too many among us seem to think that we are founded upon Arithmetic,
as they spend much so much time counting our number. I suppose that I
spend too much time in Astronomy as my thoughts and ability to reason
is often lost amongst the stars.

At a recent Table Lodge I presented a discourse that I called "The
intersection of faith and logic". I sent Bro Torence a copy of its
written form. I will present it in a couple of weeks at Arlington
Heights Lodge for Masonic education. At that time I will submit it as
an article for the local Temple Topics newsletter and post it here.
Wait a time with patience Bro T. ;^)

Post by Torence
Too many in and out of our club view Faith and Logic in opposition.

We don't discuss sectarian religion in lodge. Reading the history I
think that it is specific sectarian religions that have clashed with
specific conclusions of science. That's more specific than faith and
logic. Once I started considering it those terms I came to understand
that faith and logic have worked hand in hand across history and
prehistory.

Post by Torence
The introduction of our modern discourses on the Seven Liberal Arts
was introduced to compete with what was then a new popular
entertainment in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century i.e. the
admission of the general public to scientific and natural lectures.

And now we have not just The Discovery Channel but a whole list of
educational channels on cable all at the same time.

I think brothers should be able to build a discourse on any of the seven
liberal arts and sciences justifying it as the base of Masonry.

Post by Torence
Can Masonry in our century reunite Faith and Logic and free us from
the tyranny of the “OR?” Would the promotion of this ppoposition be a
good purpose for our club?
Fraternally,
Torence Evans Ake
Secretary – Auburn Park Lodge No. 789 – Crete, Illinois
PM – Arcadia Lodge No. 1138 – Lansing, Illinois

[Doug Freyburger]

Post by Doug Freyburger
At a recent Table Lodge I presented a discourse that I called "The
intersection of faith and logic". I sent Bro Torence a copy of its
written form. I will present it in a couple of weeks at Arlington
Heights Lodge for Masonic education. At that time I will submit it as
an article for the local Temple Topics newsletter and post it here.
Wait a time with patience Bro T. ;^)

I just got told that one of the brothers at lodge has prepared a Masonic
education presentation for the next Stated meeting so mine is not
required. Woo who! I already submitted it to the Temple Topics
newspaper. So as promised I'll copy it here as well. I presented it
while standing in front of a fireplace so the part that starts with
"Consider fire ..." worked a lot better when I was able to make a
gesture to the fire behind me.

Brethren,

The topic for my discourse this month is the intersection of Faith
and Logic. Doesn't that sound like a street address? It would be
wonderful to build a Masonic hall in the intersection of Faith Street
and Logic Boulevard.

A topic I've pondered over the years is the interaction of faith and
logic. I can be a Mason because I believe in the existence of Deity. I
can be an engineer because I use logic on a regular basis. I have long
known of the historical conflict between faith and logic and I have
long struggled to find a better answer to both than the cliche' of "I
contain multitudes" as a part of my human nature. Is it logical to
step out and put my faith in God? I struggle to think that it is.
This talk is my philosophical thesis on the topic.

One of the excellent tenants of Masonry is Faith. One of the Seven
Liberal Arts and Sciences is Logic. Across history there has been a
tension between faith and logic that I would like to address this
evening. While I will discuss deity I will do my best to do so without
mention of any particular religion. The historical record shows that
it is not faith in general that has battled logic, but certain
religions that have battled some of the conclusions of science. So I
will address faith more generally than any one religion and logic more
generally than science.

For background I will offer what objective and subjective evidence is.
Objective evidence is actions that can be described in a way that
anyone can repeat the actions and get the same results. All of science
is built on the objective. In logic the deductive branch is built on
the objective. Subjective evidence is actions that happen to one
person and when they describe it there is no guarantee that anyone else
will be able to repeat the experience. All experience of deity in
living memory is subjective. Logic can still be applied to the
subjective, though, through the inductive branch of logic.

The theory that claims that deity does not exist is based on the
subjective nature of experiences of deity - In living memory there has
not been any objective proof that deity exists and people have been
trying for millennia. The tension between faith and logic appears to
stem from this theory. Faith deals with the subjective while science
deals with the objective. But there is more to logic than science.

Is it really true that trying to prove the existence of deity for so
long and failing means deity does not exist? The problem with this
theory has to do with the nature of human progress, the history of
genius, and the historical transition of many subjective phenomena to
objective phenomena as progress has happened. At the moment all
personal evidence for the existence of deity is subjective. That is to
say anyone who has an experience is the only one having it. Humanity
has a very long history of converting items of faith into items of
logic, of converting the subjective into the objective. I think
Masonry's philosophy of including both faith and logic takes that long
history into account.

One view of advancing knowledge is the subjective gets converted to
the objective when someone figures out how to explain it in a way
that others can understand and repeat. There's a saying that "Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". The
funny part of the saying is it actually runs the other direction. Some
task is considered magic when it is first discovered. Then over time
people learn to understand it and it becomes technology. Thing of a
caveman wearing furs who first sees woven cloth and thinks it a product
of magic. What matters is not how advanced the technology is but how
advanced the person is. To me this is the key to intersect faith and
logic.

Consider fire. Fire exists, so the history might not seem to apply at
first but please bear with me. Ever since humans learned to make fire
on demand humans have puzzled over the nature of fire. It's been in use
roughly two million years so the use of fire predates our species. Our
ancestors who first harnessed fire might or might not have been
recognizable as human but they were obviously different from modern
humans. For our entire existence as humans, pick anywhere from
2,000,000 to 50,000 years, people have strived to understand fire.
It's only with the discovery of the atomic theory of chemistry that
humans have been able to understand the nature of fire. Fire went from
objective but mysterious to objective and explained.

Consider mathematics. Mathematics doesn't exist as any physical
entity, so the history might not seem to apply at first but please
bear with me. Over time more and more mathematical theorems are
devised. While the general advance of mathematics is certain because
of the work of many mathematicians, is the introduction of any one
future advance in mathematics assured? Mathematical problems have been
worked ever since language developed numbers yet many problems remain
obdurate. We can know in general that unknown mathematics will exist
in the future but we can't know its details yet. Mathematics is a
wonderful example of converting the subjective to the objective. If an
activity works by a type of mathematics not yet understood then its
results seem random or magical or subjective. Invent the mathematics
to understand the activity and its results and suddenly the results
transition from subjective to objective.

Consider astronomy. The word "planet" originally meant "wanderer".
Stargazers knew that the planets moved across the sky relative to the
fixed stars but millennia ago no one had organized their movements into
a predictable pattern. Predicting the position of a planet next year
was subjective. Then ancient mathematicians recorded the positions of
the planets and applied mathematics to their motions. Euclidean
astronomy was born and the motions of the planets were complex but
objective. Over the millennia astronomy improved with the advances of
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Einstein. Less than 50 years ago
these advances culminated in sending probes to the planets and humans
to the Moon. That's quite a leap from faith to logic going from a
wanderer to an exactly scheduled mapping visit.

Consider consciousness. There's debate what human
consciousness actually is, as to this day there isn't a good definition
of it. Yet human consciousness most definitely exists in a subjective
form in spite of the lack of an objective definition. We may have no
idea what a soul is but we are certain we each have one. Psychologists
struggle working on this issue and at times it looks like they might
never reach a conclusion. Consider how many theories there have been
in psychology and how they have not matched the functionality of the
advances in astronomy. Consider that it took humans two million years
to understand fire. Why should anyone think the problem of
consciousness will be understood soon.

Now let's consider the problem that all experiences of deity up until
this point have been subjective not objective. It's the keystone of the
agnostic approach - Get back to me on the topic when you have objective
proof. Humans used fire for two million years before we understood it.
Humans have been building on mathematics for tens of thousands of
years and we use mathematics even though it doesn't have a physical
really. Humans have understood that consciousness exists even though
lacking a good definition it remains subjective. Just because evidence
is subjective doesn't mean it's false and yet even though science has
answered other problems there's no expectation when, if ever, it will
answer this one. Maybe in a century science will invent the "Star Trek
life signs detector" device and when we point it at a prayer group it
will detect the humans and also the presence of deity. Or maybe two
million years will pass and we'll still be struggling with the
questions of deity and consciousness. Being certain consciousness
exists suggests that thinking deity exists is not irrational by analogy
and induction.

So what about the subjective nature of evidence for the existence of
deity? Doesn't Occam's Razor say the simplest explanation is the one
most likely to be true and the nonexistence of deity is the simplest
explanation?

For millennia mystics have reported contact with deity. For millennia
mystics have worked with mathematics and fire as well. For millennia
mystics have worked with magic that eventually got replaced by science
and technology. Which parallel is the simplest one? I ask which one
also handles the existence of the soul.

It's easy to say that so many mystics can't be wrong, but they were
definitely wrong about all sorts of magic that eventually got replaced
by science and technology. What if science eventually discovers life
signs that aren't the way mystics have been reporting them for so long?
That will end up being proof of the existence of deity *and* proof
that all of the mystics were wrong. Shrug. Based on the subjective
evidence I'm not prepared to state that so many mystics across so many
centuries were all wrong. Even if their details were all wrong it
won't matter. Based on millennia of mystics I take the believer's
choice of faith as logical. There are too many examples of other
advances of knowledge that converted the subjective to the objective.

When I ponder why I believe in the existence of a supreme being
sometimes I try to apply logic to the question and sometimes I don't.
This is the sort of reasoning I am lead to when I apply logic to the
question.

We all here believe in the existence of a supreme being. How often do
you ponder why you hold that belief? How do you apply logic to the
topic? What other tools of reasoning are to be discussed on the topic?
I leave it to you to explain why prayer can be applied as I have
applied logic and history. I leave it to you to explain why meditation
leads to devotion, physical health and happiness all at the same time.

Thank you for listening to my ramblings this evening. I look forward
to seeing you all at the intersection of Faith and Logic. I'll see you
at lodge!

Fraternal regards,
Doug Freyburger
PM 2007-8 Arlington Heights 1162 Illinois AF&AM
PM 1999 Pasadena 272 California F&AM

[Torence]

In the words of Dennis Miller...far be it for me to go on a rant,
but...
Doug gave me a couple of weeks to consider his questions. Part of the
fun of a Table Lodge is to try the timer to see if he will gavel you
down. With the notion of a captive audience and ownership in a certain
amount of their time, I prepared this discourse in reply:

Uptown from Faith and Logic Avenues
At this moment, at this time, this place, this juncture bloated with
opportunity, men who call one another Brother will choose to go
forward, not alone, but together. We will not falter or allow
ourselves to be distracted by the temporal considerations of another
sex, another alien culture, the malaise of a difficult bureaucracy,
the rusted chains of curious anachronisms, and ailing conceptions of
the importance of process, fear or the degradation of our safety and
the welfare of our families because others, not of our club, neglected
the preservation of a gifted infrastructure. We have our network, the
fruits of which we as Freemasons value particularly, lilliwork and
pomegranate. United we agree on the greatness inherent in the whole,
singular, American, free man; and will shamelessly take advantage of
anticipated victories when so many of the same come together. This
chosen course for each of us individual men is the natural product of
our Freemasonic Faith and of our FreeMasonic Logic.
Doug Freyberger in his recent Table Lodge discourse eloquently
discusses the personal choice that many accomplished American men must
make when faced with the tyranny of the “Or.” A man of science, such
as Joseph Lister, Alexander Fleming, John L. Macadam, Simon Lake,
William Clark, Merriweather Lewis, and thousands of others chose to
leave their sciences long enough to enjoy the personal benefits of our
fraternity. But after spending some of their valuable time here, they
learned that they did not have to choose one or the other, Faith or
Logic, Progress or Good Order, Permanence or Progression, their
experience here helped them to shake off the tyranny of the “Or.” The
Craft of Freemasonry proves itself to be a multidisciplinary Art that
brings objective tools and techniques together with subjective inner
knowing to allow us creatures of Deity, us “Human Beings” to study the
full range of a mutual and manly experience.
No man can fathom the details of Infinite Greatness, however, I
believe that T.G.A.O.T.U. raised this fraternity up to be a repository
for brave men, fully vested to take advantage of the Freedom that can
be had by stooping low enough from time to time to pick up a handful
of the earth upon which He gave us American men to do our work. But
knowing us to be weak minded particularly when we reject one another
and elect to remain alone; He challenges us from time to time by
permitting the tides to run against Freedom. He wants to see what we
will do to reverse them. We have at our disposal our proven ways but
should not, can not, and must not do them because they are our
tradition. We must restore them from time to time because they are
proven to be true to our purposes, Brotherly Adoration, Liberation and
Reality.
The society that exists outside our Tyled Doors suffers much. There
we will find anxious elders and troubled youths, violent streets and
corrupt officials, virtual despair and imaginary illnesses, and also
stupid hate. But an American Freemason is incapable of enjoying the
benefit of being relieved from such devilish devices here; and then
not take that Freedom out with him to his family, his neighbor, his
business, his country, lastly to keep them dear to himself. Were we
to do so, we would not be Logical. We would not be Faithful.
American FreeMasons consent to be governed, we do not elect to be
ruled no where in our chosen life. We can tell the whole world that
those who would take from you your Liberty by tempting you with relief
from your responsibilities, is perverting His Great Gifts, the ones
that are to be derived from Faith and Logic. They scheme to make
earthly power subservient to Divine Will. He is the author of Freedom
just as He is the inventor of Charity and Love. In our Household, a
profane person will be unsuccessful coming in here thinking that they
can impose their vision of Heaven onto our Earth supplanting us in our
laudable purpose to share with everyone their inalienable right to be
Free.
Logic dictates that Absolute Power corrupts. We FreeMasons know
that those persons who seek it must be suspected and must be opposed.
Faith educates us to emulate Him who does all things well because in
Him is that creature who cannot be so despoiled. If only we as
individuals could maintain just a little piece of that energy. Taken
together, what can be achieved when we marry those portions that each
of us have tasted in the short space allotted to us here? Only strong
men can remain Free, Faithful and Logical and I thank God that so many
of them can be found in our Local Masonic Lodges.
Such men cannot be found among the two billion souls on this earth
who remain cast out in the hell of Communism or the false worship
found in the institutions formed merely by persons. Seven billion are
on our planet and that number is expected to grow to nine billion in
our lifetime, unless a catastrophe such as war, famine, or pestilence
causes the sort of death that our Fore Brothers knew at our formation
and called it, Black. In the arrogance of our old thinking, three
decades ago, we thought that the number of persons who ever lived
never totaled the amount alive today. But that self centered-ness
proved wrong. Across time it is estimated that one hundred and six
billion persons have lived. From those numbers we can justly state our
pride that we are indeed elite. To those who have not figured us out,
but have within them the interest and gumption to act upon it, we ask
that you bring us nearly nothing but your own free will in accord,
mutual with our own. Discard any mercenary motivations; we will take
your residence upon this soil in hopes to find within you a likeminded
opinion to be serviceable to your fellow creatures.
And when at last your weary soul gets laid upon or within those
clods of the earth, and the long and winding highway we travel takes
its last and final turn, your Brothers will ask of you to prepare the
way for us so that all of our Reason and Loyalty in which we place so
much Trust has not been in vein.


Fraternally,
Torence Evans Ake
Secretary- Auburn Park Lodge No. 789 – Crete, Illinois
PM – Arcadia Lodge No. 1138 – Lansing, Illinois