From: jimruttshow8596
This article explores various perspectives on the nature of existence and reality, drawing from philosophical, theological, and scientific viewpoints discussed on the Jim Rut Show.
Introduction to the Conversation
Jordan Hall, a returning guest on the Jim Rut Show, engages in a philosophical discussion prompted by his assertion that “if you understand the Trinity correctly the Christian God becomes logically necessary” for “any possible world” [00:02:05]. Host Jim Rut, a self-proclaimed “scoffer with respect to religion” [00:03:18], nonetheless finds common ground with Hall on many cultural aspects often associated with religion, such as the destructive “spirit of Mammon” [00:04:35] and the inherent beauty and honor in the “arc of life” [00:05:06].
Jim Rut admits to loving metaphysical speculation but draws a strong line at “people believing it” [00:06:18], comparing it to enjoying Lord of the Rings without believing its factual truth [00:06:28].
The conversation is structured around three main points proposed by Jordan Hall:
- The argument that a triadic, fundamentally relational structure is the ontological primitive [00:07:45].
- The specific triadic structure of the Christian Trinity [00:09:06].
- The nature of belief as an existential commitment rather than merely a mental operation [00:09:55].
The Ontological Primitive: Relationality
Jordan Hall proposes that a triadic structure, inherently relational, serves as the “ontological primitive” or “bootloader” for all conceptual and ontological characteristics [00:07:45]. This concept is explored through the work of James Filler, author of “Heiger, Neoplatonism, and the History of Being Relational as Ontological Ground” [00:06:44].
Conceptual Hierarchy and Fundamental Elements
To understand the deepest concepts, one must work down a hierarchical stack, recognizing that certain thoughts or concepts necessarily imply deeper ones [00:12:12]. For instance, “velocity” implies “position,” “change,” and “time” [00:12:29]. The goal is to find a “necessary bottom concept” that is an “onto-epistemological event,” preceding the split between ontology and epistemology [00:13:02].
Fundamental concepts at this deeper level include:
- Being and Becoming (change sits within this, as the capacity for being to change) [00:13:30].
- Unity and Multiplicity, or Sameness and Difference [00:13:49].
- Continuity and Symmetry [00:13:58].
- Reality, understood as the relationship between subject and object, not just the object itself [00:14:12].
Jordan Hall asserts that concepts like “space” and “time” are hierarchically above these more fundamental concepts [00:15:27]. Jim Rut challenges this, arguing that in our universe, time and space likely come first [00:16:11]. Hall clarifies that concepts like “oneness” or “twoness” are more fundamental than time, as time itself implies change, and change implies distinguishing between “now” and “before” [00:16:51]. This implies that distinction and sameness are deeper concepts [00:18:27].
Substance vs. Relational Ontology
The core of Hall’s first argument, influenced by Filler, is that “relationship” itself is the ontological primitive [00:23:27].
“The argument is that relationship as a concept and now also we are at the level of ontology so as an ontology contains within itself implicitly and necessarily the relata so if I have the concept relationship I also already have the concept of relata or the things that are in relationship.” [00:25:15]
This view contrasts with the conventional understanding, which often posits objects (substances) first, with relationships emerging between them [00:26:23]. Hall argues that materialism arises from an implicit “substance ontology” where an object is imagined “absent relationship” [00:26:46]. Science, in its reductionist approach, attempts to “decontextualize” an object to study it exclusively [00:27:15]. However, Hall contends that even imagining an atom in isolation still involves the imagination’s relationship with that atom [00:31:10].
Instead, true reality, according to Hall (invoking a concept from John Vervaeke’s work), is found in the relationship between the subjective and objective, making “relationship” the “most real” [00:29:00]. Any “object” is a “first order imagination,” a function of “decontextualization” [00:30:07].
“Relationality in its essence includes the relata that are in relationship whereas the reverse is not true and that if I try to do the reverse if I try to imagine pure substance what I noticed is that I keep running into contradictions where relationship just keeps showing up even though it’s not included in the essence of the concept of pure substance.” [00:34:33]
Jim Rut counters that many philosophers, including Russell, Whitehead, and Heidegger, would argue that “substance and relation must coexist” and that neither can be prior to the other [00:34:31]. He suggests that “unity and multiplicity and the relationship between them is sort of a minimum viable set” [00:36:30].
The Christian Trinity as the Ontological Primitive
Moving from philosophy to theology, Jordan Hall asserts that the Christian Trinity maps directly onto this “compact set of ontological primitives” [00:40:29].
“The Trinity has this characteristic at the theological level of having of including unity in the sense of the godhead or the wholeness the Oneness of God multiplicity in the sense of the three persons or the three hypostases and relationality which is that the relationship between and among the persons is their intrinsic characteristic.” [00:37:42]
Jim Rut points out that this description could apply to “any fairy story that included the Trinity” or even a “three-person marriage” or a “stem of grapes with three grapes on it” [00:41:16]. Hall agrees that a marriage, like the Trinity, exhibits unity (one marriage), multiplicity (three people), and complex relationality, where the “body of the marriage is interestingly nothing but the whole set of the total set of relationships” [01:00:00].
Hall contends that all such structures in reality—where relationality forms the unity and binds multiplicity—are “ultimately derivatives of the most basic version of that which is in fact the Trinity” [00:43:48]. The Trinity, for Hall, is the “platonic form” of this characteristic [00:43:55]. Jim Rut concedes the use of platonism for the argument’s sake but argues that a platonic exemplar would be abstract and unspecified, whereas the Christian Trinity has “very specific flavors” [00:45:07].
Dehumanizing the Trinity for Broader Understanding
Hall clarifies that the Triune God is “not a purely abstract form” [00:45:51]. He uses the example of the second person of the Trinity, the Logos (Word), which John famously refers to [00:46:16].
“The second person of the Trinity which John famously refers to as the Logos is that of which all forms of logos so every story in fact every form of incarnation at all any form of relationship between the Transcendent and the created participates in and is an embodiment of the second person of the Trinity.” [00:46:16]
This means that “every story is ultimately a variation on the theme of the logos” [00:46:42]. Similarly, “everything that is of this structure of unity, multiplicity, relationality is from the Triune God” [00:47:10].
Hall emphasizes the distinction between the Greek “hypostasis” (translated as “person” or “instance/instantiation”) and the common misconception of the persons of the Trinity being “literally people” (e.g., God as a “Zeus figure” [00:49:03]). The Logos, in this context, is the universe or creation, which has “plausible propensity” and “laws of causation” [01:01:54].
The Trinity and Scientific Understanding
Jim Rut notes that this “story” of the universe, with its origin, unfolding, and increasing complexity, is “entirely congruent with the physics story” [01:13:16]. The universe evolved for billions of years, building complexity through natural laws, from heavy atoms to biochemistry and life itself [01:00:00]. This process, which can be described as a “story,” involves time, change, novelty, and an arrow towards higher complexity [01:17:02].
Hall suggests that Jim Rut’s description of scientific emergence from physics “made a reasonably nice articulation of the Trinity” [01:21:40]. He argues that physics is part of a larger container—complexity—which itself is a subset of the “logos” [01:21:50]. This view implies that the “isness” of the universe’s predictable yet evolving nature is the second person of the Trinity [01:01:57].
The concept of a “world” (any conceivable reality) would exhibit these “components of this notion of the logos” [01:05:20]. Hall contends that the laws of physics do not explain why they are as they are, and physics “can never under any circumstances explain itself” [01:22:44]. He asserts that a more fundamental domain containing both logic and physics is theology, which is “the discipline of reality” [01:23:25].
Jim Rut views this as “nominalism”—simply assigning Trinitarian names to observed universal attributes—which adds “no information to what the physicists know” [01:15:51]. Hall counters that it does add information by applying across different domains, like the nature of marriage, which operates at a level of reality beyond physics, though not violating it [01:16:07].
Belief as Existential Commitment (Pistis)
The third main point concerns the nature of belief. Hall distinguishes between:
- Nominalist belief: A “fixation on particular set of words” or ideology [01:26:25]. This is akin to Plato’s doxa (opinion) [01:35:55].
- Existential commitment: A “full grappling of life,” an “embodied relationship with the whole of reality” [01:30:04]. This is pistis (faith), translated from Greek [01:27:28].
Hall argues that in the context of the new atheist movement, faith has been misidentified as “maximally delusional belief” [01:28:09]. Instead, pistis or faith, as understood in Plato and Paul, means “livingness” [01:28:20]. It’s about a “deeply intimate relationship with some domain of reality,” like a surfer mastering waves or a musician playing an instrument [01:36:18].
“PES has to do with the fact that like Mastery when you know how to do something deeply and you have a deeply intimate relationship with the domain because of experience engaged experience you worked with it…” [01:37:32]
This is distinct from merely having knowledge (episteme) or opinion (doxa) [01:36:05]. Faith involves cultivating a “well-honed, harmonious, rich, nuanced, subtle, intimate relationship” [01:38:53].
Jim Rut, who has lived a full life without believing in the Trinity, questions if he has been “living deeply with faith” without realizing it [01:34:44]. Hall confirms, stating that Jim rejected the “words” (ideology) and instead “began the process of actually acquiring the music” (cultivating faith) [01:39:34].
Christianity and Reality
Hall views theology as the “discipline of reality” [01:23:25]. The formalization of the Christian Trinity, he argues, articulates a unique and simple understanding of the foundational elements of reality [01:51:16].
“The invitation of the Trinity is no no relationship in fact not just relationship in general but particular quality relationship faith hope love and most of all love right particular quality relationship and then you move right you move actually the Trinity pushes you into this deeper register of how do you begin to cultivate Faith how do you begin to cultivate a deeply embodied intimate relationship with the whole of reality and any world.” [01:51:56]
This is an I-Thou relationship with reality, not an impersonal one [01:45:57]. Hall argues that modern science is built on “the substrate of Christian” thought because Christianity demands engaging directly with reality as it is, not pretending otherwise [01:44:57].
On the topic of biblical literalism, Hall suggests it’s a relatively recent movement that emerged as a reaction to 19th-century European critique, aiming to provide “fundamentals” for ordinary Christians [01:57:52]. However, he states that literalism mistakenly presupposes scripture to be akin to “journalism” or “science” [01:58:56]. Jim Rut agrees that the Bible, like good fiction, doesn’t offer literal truth but conveys “real things about the universe” and “deeper patterns of reality” [01:59:50]. Hall asserts that scripture is “radically deeper than journalism” [01:59:18] or even “history” or “science” [01:59:20], offering a broader and more enduring access to truth and reality across diverse cultures [02:02:40].
Conclusion
Jim Rut remains unconvinced by the primacy of ontological relationality, preferring the co-existence of substance and relation [02:08:36]. He views the mapping of universal attributes to the Trinity as mere nominalism [02:09:07]. While he recognizes Hall’s definition of faith as his own “engaged” way of living, it does not lead him to accept the existence of the Christian God, especially not as described by biblical literalism [02:09:13].
Jordan Hall concludes that his argument has shown the logical necessity of the persons of the Trinity and their relationships as fundamental, coherent, and logically necessary characteristics for anything that could be called a “world” [02:08:07]. He suggests that the “logical necessity” of the Incarnation and Resurrection requires further discussion in another conversation [02:07:45].