Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Publisher Founding: March 1, 2014

Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com 

Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Journal: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Journal Founding: August 2, 2012

Frequency: Three (3) Times Per Year

Review Status: Non-Peer-Reviewed

Access: Electronic/Digital & Open Access

Fees: None (Free)

Volume Numbering: 11

Issue Numbering: 3

Section: A

Theme Type: Idea

Theme Premise: “Outliers and Outsiders”

Theme Part: 28

Formal Sub-Theme: None.

Individual Publication Date: August 15, 2023

Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2023

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Word Count: 6,674

Image Credit: Petros Gkionis

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN): 2369-6885

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citations, after the publication.*

Abstract

Petros studied Philosophy at KU Leuven and plans to become a Professor. He wants to contribute academically in Philosophy, Theology and Biblical Studies. Beyond that, in the spirit of homo universalis, he wants to produce a large set of works of art across different domains, such as compositions, paintings, poems and short stories. He enjoys abstract thinking and creativity, and thinks using both is key to excelling in philosophy, science and art. He has also scored extremely high on some serious IQ tests. Most importantly, he is a Christian and wants to live according to God’s will and spread the good news of the Gospel. He is currently a full member of some High IQ Societies such as: Mensa Greece, Elite member (>=160 IQ sd 15) of the Grand IQ Society, Myriad High IQ Society, ISI-Society, Catholiq High IQ Society, Nebula High IQ Society, Prudentia High IQ Society, Atlantiq High IQ Society. He is also the President and Founder of Quasar Quorum, a new High IQ society for >=150 IQ sd 15. (https://sites.google.com/view/quasarquorum) Gkionis discusses: Philosophy at KU Leuven; Biblical Studies, Philosophy, and Theology; creative productions; high-range test scores; God’s Will and the Good News of the Gospel; high-I.Q society membership; Quasar Quorum; poverty; “regime of the colonels”; philosophy and Christianity; philosophical temperament; isolation; M.A. program; goal for 2 Ph.D.s; thoughts compared to individuals with more ordinary intelligence; the great thinkers; Jesus Christ; Latin Trinitarianism; the Trinity; the value of science; the limits of science; scientism; consequentialism; Modified Divine Command Theory; Virtue Ethics and the New Testament; adjustments to God’s essence and God’s commandments; postmodernism and premodernism for a social philosophy; the polymath ideal of the Enlightenment; Christian theology and politics; rank ordering the likelihood of correctness for Dualism, Subjective Idealism, and Neutral Monism; A.I.; the extreme nihilist phase; God as the locus of meaning; small meanings; Systematic Philosophical Theology; his ideas as non-heretical; and the New Heaven and the New Earth. 

Keywords: Christianity, consequentialism, God’s Will, Jesus Christ, Modified Divine Command Theory, Petros Gkionis, Quasar Quorum, Systematic Philosophical Theology, Theology, Virtue Ethics, William Lane Craig.

Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2)

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We’re back! I have more questions (always). Why study Philosophy at KU Leuven?

Petros Gkionis: Thanks for the questions Scott, and for the opportunity you give me to publish my answers, it means a lot to me. I wanted to study Philosophy and become a Professor in it since my teenage years, I didn’t care too much about the history of philosophy but I did and still want to contribute in Analytic Philosophy. I chose Leuven because it is highly ranked (at the time it was around top 30 in the world for Philosophy and top 70–80 in general according to QS rankings.), affordable (at least for EU citizens), and offered classes in both continental and analytic philosophy (although maybe they have a bit more in continental, although finding a program that has more analytic stuff and is not super expensive and is highly ranked is not that easy) in their BA program and provide a large degree of freedom of choosing classes in their MA program.

Jacobsen: What in Biblical Studies, Philosophy, and Theology most interests you?

Gkionis: In Philosophy I wanna specialise in Analytic Philosophy of Religion, and have maybe Philosophy of Science as a field of interest, also I wanna contribute in more general Metaphysics or Epistemology. In Theology, mainly Analytic and Systematic Theology which goes with Analytic Philosophy, and in Biblical Studies mainly exegesis of all kinds different stuff. My interest in all of them changes depending on the time period, things like the Trinity, the Nature of Christ or certain properties of God may interest me at some points, I may look more into the afterlife or hermeneutics for Ezekiel for example at other moments.

Jacobsen: Out of compositions, paintings, poems, and short stories, what ones most interest you?

Gkionis: Compositions and paintings maybe. I like the process of creating them, it includes a lot of philosophical thinking but also intuition and imagination. Creating is a pretty interesting process and sometimes I create just for this process in itself. A lot of the stuff I’ve made I haven’t published online, it needs to be digitized or some of it is from my pre Christian era, so it has edgy stuff that may better stay unpublished haha.

Jacobsen: What are the serious high-range tests that scores were the highest for you? Any comments on both the tests and the test creators?

Gkionis: I haven’t done too many, I will do more when I find time. I got 163 IQ sd 15 on Vision, 160 IQ sd 15 on Fiqure, and 150 IQ sd 15 on Mathema. I prefer fast visual multiple choice, that’s where I got the highest possible score on Mensa’s FRT and my 160 on Figure. Untimed tests can be nice but they don’t really measure intelligence that well because one can literally spend months on them, and people have done that according to their own sayings. I’m way too lazy or bored to spend too much time on a test, I prefer doing philosophy/theology/art stuff. I have made the mistake of not spending enough time on the tests I’ve done, because I could have gotten higher scores. On verbal tests or items I can easily find multiple different answers and then the whole thing is debating which one to chose, while in the numerical ones sometimes its pretty hard to find just one in some items, I was better at numerical items back in high school, I forgot some of the math one needs to solve them since, which brings me to another point I have: That culture fair tests are better at measuring intelligence, because if they actually do what they supposed to do then they measure actual intelligence, rather than intelligence + knowledge. It’s fluid intelligence that is closer to what actual intelligence is rather than crystallised intelligence. I doubt I became dumber (of course there are other explanations but I will try to keep it short) than what I was in high school, I’m too young for that, my brain supposedly developed even more since, so how come it takes me longer to solve these numerical items or I solve less, it’s just lack of knowledge (both propositional and know-how) and not doing this sort of thing anymore. But time doesn’t even matter in the untimed ones, so how come this is an IQ test? Hahaha. Ok, I don’t want this to sound like a sour grapes thing, because its not, I have 0 problems when it comes to that with either those who score better than me or the test creators, keep kicking butt and keep producing great stuff, I just mean that if I design my own tests, I may try to make them more culture fair and fluid intelligence based than crystallised intelligence based.

Jacobsen: As a Christian, what is God’s Will and the precise good news of the Gospel?

Gkionis: God’s Will is whatever God wills. From Scripture we know that He wants us to trust Him and live in accordance to His will, which means to love one another, to do morally good things in general, to not sin and to repent when we sin which implies that we should try not to repeat these sins and to ask God for forgiveness, and overall to have a proper relationship with Him. We have to be born again and live for God and not for our own or somebody else’s desires. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 “ Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come”. God is perfect, all good, all loving and gave us our life as a gift and even salvation and eternal life as gifts, we didn’t earn them with our own works, since we are sinners, all of us who are moral agents and not super early in being moral agents have sinned, these sins make us guilty, but through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ the burden of the sins is washed. We just have to accept Him and trust Him. (of course faith without works is dead as in James 2:14–16). Therefore trusting Him is good. Gospel in Greek means good news or good message, the phrase good news of the gospel is based on verses like Mark 1:15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news”, it refers to the fact that the Father resurrected the Son and we can obtain salvation by living in Christ. This is a very important message, its way way more important than the other stuff I’ve said in these interviews, and I pray that all humanity will accept it. Read or listen to the audiobook of the Gospel of Luke if you do not know where to start. Glory to God.

Jacobsen: With full membership in “Mensa Greece, Elite member (>=160 IQ sd 15) of the Grand IQ Society, Myriad High IQ Society, ISI-Society, Catholiq High IQ Society, Nebula High IQ Society, Prudentia High IQ Society, Atlantiq High IQ Society. He is also the President and Founder of Quasar Quorum, a new High IQ society for >=150 IQ sd 15. (https://sites.google.com/view/quasarquorum)”, what one means the most?

Gkionis: Maybe Quasar Quorum because I founded it, by the way I also recently founded the Extreme High IQ Society for >= 160 IQ sd 15. (https://sites.google.com/view/extreme-high-iq-society) “Quasar Quorum” sounds like a cult so I went for a simpler, less freaky and easier to remember name this time, both societies will remain.

Jacobsen: What was the inspiration for founding Quasar Quorum?

Gkionis: A lot of the older High IQ societies are dead, with no functional websites or emails that don’t get answered, there didn’t seem to be much around the 150 sd 15 range either. Mensa’s 130 cut-off seemed too low to me, it’s not genius level, it’s just regular smart, from my experience not much interesting happened in the few meetings I attended so I was looking for something else, something maybe more intellectual. Others have tried this also in the past and it didn’t work, maybe I should create more societies and ask for an IQ score and something else like a philosophy paper, maybe this filtering will get us somewhere, but I don’t expect much, you can find talented people online anyway.

Jacobsen: How were these large families in poverty making their way into the world, eventually?

Gkionis: Lots of the kids didn’t go to middle school because they couldn’t afford buying books or bus tickets, some started working early, others later immigrated, I have some cousins in America and Australia because of that.

The economy got better in the 70s and 80s and some of them became middle class, the “extended family” thing Greeks have where parents help their kids even when they are adults and the other way around or how maybe people help siblings, cousins and nephews maybe helped.

Jacobsen: What was the “regime of the colonels” like?

Gkionis: I wasn’t there to have much to say, but if one was too left wing for them they could easily get in trouble. There was censorship, propaganda and limit of some freedoms also, like more than 3 people hanging out from what I’ve been told.

Jacobsen: When did becoming a philosopher and a Christian start to integrate as major factors in self-identity?

Gkionis: I started thinking of myself as a philosopher around 15, I was doing philosophy before that age too but was I seeing myself as someone with multiple interests, one of which was philosophy, before realizing that philosophy is the real stuff and what I should spend all my time doing. I was not a Christian back then but when I became one again at around 19, I realized that this is the most important thing in all existence or all possible existence and dedicated myself to that. It seemed insane to me at that point that people would think they are Christians but not care much about it, this is where the meaning of the world was, this was the actual real stuff. I never stopped philosophizing though, I just turned my interests from more general metaphysics and philosophy of language or logic and metaethics to Philosophy of Religion.

Jacobsen: What seems like the source of this philosophical temperament in you?

Gkionis: People around me when I was growing up weren’t philosophizing much or at all, it’s something I started doing at some point in childhood, maybe it’s partly genetic, maybe the fact that I was isolated and living in my own head kinda helped. I don’t remember being young and seeing, hearing or reading something philosophical and then starting to do the same thing, I think I kinda started doing it on my own.

Jacobsen: Did you spend a lot of time in the library as a teenager with the increasing isolation?

Gkionis: I spent a lot of time on my phone reading books, watching videos, browsing the internet, listening to music or audiobooks and writing stuff down, I didn’t use it to communicate with others back then, now it’s different. I also spent way more time just in my head thinking also. Most of the books at my school’s library didn’t seem that interesting to me, so I just downloaded whatever I found interesting and browsed it during class or at home. I was too lazy to go to my local non-school library also because I had thousands of sources for free at home thanks to the web. I started going to the library more in university, mainly to write papers, but I also started reading more physical books, rather than from my e-reader or screen. In middle or high school, I didn’t do much homework, because I had other interests, so I didn’t go to the library for stuff like that.

Jacobsen: What is the current M.A. program for you? Is it a thesis track?

Gkionis: Thesis for 24 ECTS credits + 6 6 ECTS credits classes that include final papers, some exams and presentations.

Jacobsen: Why 2 Ph.D.s rather than one, or three?

Gkionis: If I get paid to work on two broad topics for a couple years, that may give me the opportunity to publish in serious journals in more than one field, plus it may make getting an academic job easier. I could have wanted to try for a third one also if there was another field I really cared about, of course some people would freak out and say stuff like “why do you keep doing PhDs, why don’t you get a tenure-track job”, but that makes it funnier. I doubt I can likely get funding for 3 PhDs, but if I could I may do it just because it’s over the top, but it has to be about something serious and it shouldn’t waste my time from doing serious stuff in Philosophy, Theology and Biblical Studies. I guess these are 3 fields, so maybe I can haha.

Jacobsen: How did your thoughts compare to individuals with more ordinary intelligence?

Gkionis: People with very high IQs think faster and more reasonably than those with ordinary intelligence. There is also more quality to their thoughts, they can figure out stuff others can’t, find solutions to problem others don’t see, see more patterns, understand differences or similarities better, etc. That’s how I was. I was also very creative, but I didn’t take that into consideration when I compared intelligence. I was having regular conversations with adults since I was super young and was noticing errors in their thinking, not in terms of factual knowledge, not the cringe thing were the smart kid on tv shows corrects someone because they made some random mistake about the history of Paris or what cars are made of or distance between planets or whatever, I could just see whether the conclusions followed from what they were saying earlier or whether they weren’t making much sense. I remember for example being super super young and being taught what “half” was, so immediately I thought what was the “half of the half” or the “half of the half of the half”, so I kinda discovered 1/4 and 1/8, etc, I remember saying to adults that I wanted half of half of X and they were kinda confused.

Jacobsen: How did it compare to the “great thinkers”?

Gkionis: It was way closer to them than to average, sometimes better, especially on some topics like philosophy.

Jacobsen: How was Jesus Christ (Yeshua Ben Yosef) one of the greatest philosophers?

Gkionis: I didn’t claim that He was one of the greatest philosophers, I claimed that He was one of the greatest geniuses. Based on the information we have from scripture I wouldn’t call Him a philosopher. He wasn’t producing arguments to conclude stuff in metaphysics, epistemology, logic etc. (there were some arguments mentioned to others in dialogues, but these are not enough to imply one is a philosopher). Jesus being omniscient, (regardless of whether He fully accessed that knowledge) He didn’t really need to philosophize to figure stuff out, He was also not sent on earth for that, but to save humanity. Jesus fits the context of a religious figure of the Second Temple era Judaism way more than the context of being a philosopher. Some have tried to argue that He was some kind of a revolutionary stoic/cynic philosopher, but serious scholars don’t take such views seriously, there is no evidence for stuff like that apart from bs apocrypha gospels sometimes written hundreds of years after His death and in fact there is evidence for the contrary from the early sources. People make all kinds of crap about Jesus, like Him being a magician or traveling to India and becoming a buddhist, these are all based on garbage like attacking Christianity or making money/a new sect and no serious scholar agrees with stuff like that. How was He one of the greatest geniuses? I guess being God helps. Why did I mention that he was the greatest genius in the previous interview? To piss off the anti-Christians hahaha. Not really, I said it because it’s true.

Jacobsen: What form of Trinitarianism makes the most sense to you?

Gkionis: Some form of Social Trinitarianism. It is way closer to the God of the Bible, who loves people, hates sins, makes claims, and in general has a relationship with people and interacts with the world, than some abstract mode of the Latin Trinitarianism. In Social Trinitarianism the persons of the Trinity are taken to be actual persons, so they have things like their own beliefs (for example the Son believes that He is not the Father, but the Father doesn’t), center of consciousness, knowledge, etc. Some think it implies polytheism but it doesn’t, there is one Divine nature and one Trinity.

Jacobsen: What makes Latin Trinitarianism incoherent in a way?

Gkionis: Bad metaphysics. It is based on Aristotelian’ metaphysics and physics about stuff like the “prime mover” who has no properties, through the interpretation of Aquinas. This view of God says that God doesn’t really exist, but subsists, and is simple with no properties, people can’t know what He is but only what He is not etc. Bad metaphysics about the persons of the Trinity also, Latin Trinitarianism seems to take person’s to be something like modes (intrinsic properties, relations, states of affairs), rather than what philosophers of mind take “persons” to usually be (something with an intentionality, center of consciousness, knowledge etc). These modes I’m not sure if they are that compatible with their view of Divine Simplicity either. Overall bad metaphysical views based on Aristotle that have bad implications in epistemology too. This view of God I don’t think it’s that compatible with that the Bible implies about Him either, given that He interacts with the world, communicates with humans, loves them etc. Some people may think that the Latin version is more sophisticated and therefore what educated Christians should accept, but it’s not because it’s not possible, while the Social one is. Christians should normally argue against the Aristotelean “prime mover”, since that’s incompatible with our God, rather than turn it into their God by having weird views about the Trinity. Craig says the Latin version was a reaction to Neoplatonism, I haven’t looked this sort of stuff up, but that could be the case.

Jacobsen: Why is the Trinity regard as a “mystery” by some theologians?

Gkionis: Some of them think it’s impossible for humans to understand how there is one God but both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are God. I don’t think it is though. If one uses 2 definitions for the word “is”, so the “is of identity” and the “is of predication“ and 2 definitions of the word “God”, one being something like “person/member of the Trinity” or “has Divine Nature” for statements like “The Father is God” or “Jesus is God” (with the “is” of predication) and the other definition being “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” or “The totality of the Trinity” for statements like “God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (with the “is” of identity), one could easily see how there is no contradiction or mystery between the Trinitarian statements.

Jacobsen: What is the value in science?

Gkionis: It’s conclusions can be used to produce other stuff, like medications or bridges or toasters . It is also a semi sophisticated method for trying to justify some views about the physical world, I just don’t think that these are always justified or that the conclusions always correspond to reality. That has to do with the nature of the world and the limitations of our knowledge and abilities.

Jacobsen: What are the limits of science with Feyerabend?

Gkionis: I meant that I understand the limit of science and that I have a similar scientific anti realism in some ways to Feyerabend, not that we have the same or similar views about science’s limits.

Jacobsen: What are your critiques for Feyerabend?

Gkionis: I gotta find my notes or the power point for a presentation I did because its been more than 2,5 years since I read against method lastly, but there were some parts of it that were I think he was trying to describe how science developed and somewhat argue for something and these were neither good philosophy nor good history in the way serious historians do history to accurately describe the past. I will search for the specifics and maybe re read and re criticize the book when I find time, but in general I have this criticism for other philosophers too. Like Nietsche’s geneology of morality, its neither good history, since it says bs about the origin of Christian morality, ignoring the context of near eastern religions and kinda making shit up or who knows maybe basing it on bad sources that no serious religious studies scholar would accept, nor good philosophy since some of the things he claimed didn’t follow and he missed some stuff like the possibility of this morality and God objectively existing and the implications this would have.

Jacobsen: What is scientism, properly understood?

Gkionis: There are different versions of it, a naive version is that only thorugh science one can obtain knowledge. This is obviously false, one can obtain knowledge through other stuff like philosophy or just using their senses and having a properly functioning mind. Not necessarily knowledge of the same proposition, just knowledge in general. Another dumb version is that science can solve philosophy questions or that philosophy questions should be replaced with scientific ones and we should just solve those with science and abandon philosophy. For example, abandon why X is bad and just do neuroscience about why people believe that X is bad. The problem with stuff like that is that these are different questions, why people believe something to be bad doesn’t have much to do with whether objectively it is bad, so scientism is not really helping anything there, it doesn’t answer the philosophy question. There are other versions of it like not understanding the limits of science and thinking that it produces certain knowledge, that it can’t have mistakes, that its some certain process to “better truth” or whatever. One can look at it more sociologically also and think of some versions of scientism as the worship and misunderstanding of science or the use of it as some kind of a religion, where people think of crap like meaning being based in the size of the universe or some purpose being assigned to humans based on evolution, they just misunderstand science and assign random crap to its conclusions. These neckbeards that think that they are super rational and scientific, and that science disproved God also fall under scientism. Science tries to find stuff about the physical world, God (excluding the human nature of Jesus) is not physical and therefore part of the physical world, they didn’t disprove shit. Anyway, all of its versions are problematic. Society is full of this shit, but I guess as long as they make fun of young earth creationists they are satisfied that they are super rational and smart hahaha. People thinking that them liking random stuff about physical world is “science” is also scientism and I guess cringe quotes like “science is the real poetry” or “equations are the only form of absolute truth” are too.

Jacobsen: Who founded the concept of scientism, as a descriptor?

Gkionis: No idea.

Jacobsen: What are the ways in which consequentialism is humorous or a joke compared to Deontology and Virtue Ethics in the realm of Normative Ethics?

Gkionis: Consequentialism can justify all kinds of immoral (not for consequentialism) crap as long as the outcome is good. Not everything, I’m not naïve about it, but in some versions of it its good to even kill a random guy to save 4. I wouldn’t call it humorous, but I would call it worse than deontology, in which usually killing that one guy is morally wrong.

Jacobsen: Could you explain how the Modified Divine Command Theory, particularly in the style of William Lane Craig, helps to avoid Euthyphro’s Dilemma in metaethics?

Gkionis: I think he said that if the options are not two but more than two then it’s not really a dilemma. And that modified Divine Command Theory implies there is at least a third option and therefore the dilemma is false. So, rather than having something like “ethics being arbitrary because they are true just because God wills them, or ethics being independent from God therefore God being limited” as the two only options there is the option that true moral propositions are dependent on God’s nature and commandments. There are different versions of the DCT, but as long as one of them is possible then that implies that the Euthyphro’s dilemma is false. I think a version that Craig argued for implies that moral goods are based on God’s nature, because His nature is what defines the “good” and moral obligations are based on His commandments.

Jacobsen: What exegesis of the New Testament argues for Virtue Ethics?

Gkionis: Lots of them, “Jesus and Virtue Ethics” by Daniel Harrington and James Keenan has some.

Jacobsen: What is the core argument of Modified Divine Command Theory of Dr. William Lane Craig?

Gkionis: I would have to see his texts to see exactly how he phrases it, but I think its something like God’s nature is what determines good to be based on what God is, as a the greatest conceivable being, which is a better standard than a finite being. And he rejects the idea of “the Good” as an abstract object independent of God, he says that good is property of objects like persons, therefore it can be grounded on God who is personal, but not on the “Good itself” since that is not a person. Not sure if that’s a good argument against the “good in itself” thing, but it can be replaced by something else. For example: If a version of DCT is true then good being grounded on the “Good itself” is false, and one can just argue for the existence of God based on a combination of arguments.

Jacobsen: What might be the “adjustments” on God’s essence and God’s commandments with this framework?

Gkionis: It comes down to what you take “duties” and “obligations” to be, whether they are separate or the same, and what of that is based on God’s commandments and what on God’s nature. Its possible that some obligations or duties are based on God’s nature and others (those being contingent) on the commandments or God’s will. But overall, his view is very good.

Jacobsen: What would be the “combo of postmodernism and premodernism” for a social philosophy?

Gkionis: Premodernism would mainly be about God being in the center of those views or of people’s life’s. That sometimes happened in the premodern era. Before the modern era bullshit with the Deist version of God and secular humanism took over, which eventually lead to the cotemporary nihilism, narcissism, and atheism. Postmodernism because we don’t need one grand narrative to explain everything, we can work through different frameworks. Marxism for example is a form of modernism, it uses this class struggle thing to explain all history, and it ends up getting some stuff wrong because of that. Instead we can do a bit of Marxism here, a bit of empirical sociology there, get some analytic philosophy there as well and that could produce something closer to truth in terms of social philosophy, but not only there, its useful for all kinds of stuff, like other fields of philosophy or science. This is not in contradiction with the thing I said about premodernism btw.

Jacobsen: Why is the “polymath ideal” of Enlightenment modernism a “not bad” idea?

Gkionis: If people have a good grasp of multiple academic disciplines they can more easily combine them to discover or create more stuff. There are reasons why it is good to specialize in something, but if beyond that specializations one can grasp a bunch of other things and make connections between them that can benefit. Somebody who is both an A.I text analysis expert and a biblical scholar can for example use their A.I skills to analyze the biblical text, and maybe can more easily communicate between both other biblical scholars and A.I people, and possibly even be a link between them. If you have one person that knows a lot about A.I and almost nothing about the bible and one that knows a lot of A.I and not much about the bible, they may not work as effectively as if they would if they had this double expert with them. Cognitive science tried to do something similar. Beyond academic stuff, I find the the process of creating art very interesting, so I wanna be involved in stuff like this also, I can easily combine that with my philosophy stuff and produce philosophical art for example. All of those are thanks to being polymathic.

Jacobsen: If another Christian from a different interpretive lens on political philosophy disagreed with the idea of a “classless, stateless, moneyless, Christian society with an emphasis on Christian values”, what might be a reframe or correction of the interpretation of Christian theology within politics for them?

Gkionis: The bible doesn’t include a clear political system for Gentiles or Hebrews to follow here on earth, because that is not the goal of it. There is some stuff in the Old Testament about specific legal laws and how to run society in the Mosaic covenant (it also includes some moral or ceremony stuff, its not just legal but it also has legal), which is between Hebrews and God, even that I would say is not a complete political system in itself. This has led to Christians having different views about how to run society and what political system to have based on different passages and different interpretations of them plus doing a bit of philosophy/sociology etc. I would not say that it has to be necessarily Christian anarchism, in the sense that its probably not an obligation, but I do think that this could be a nice way for Christians to live according to Jesus’ teachings found in the Gospels. Some of these passages are: Acts 5:29: “But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.””, Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Luke 3:11 “And he would answer and say to them, “The one who has two tunics is to share with the one who has none; and the one who has food is to do likewise.””. These are about trusting the God rather than humans, (so possibly no need for human government), about humans being equal with each other in value and one Christ, and about sharing items and food. By the way I said “Hebrews” when I mentioned the Mosaic covenant, because that term includes all the 12 tribes of Israel, which is who the covenant is with, while the translation in Galatians 3:28 of “οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην” mentions the tribe of Judah and Greeks only, that’s why it uses the word “Jew” for “Ἰουδαῖος”, although the passage is about all people being one in Christ.

Jacobsen: If you had to rank order likelihood of correctness for Dualism, Subjective Idealism, and Neutral Monism, what would be the ordering?

Gkionis: Not sure where to base that sort of likelihood, I can argue that materialism is unlikely because personal identity continues in the afterlife even if the brain is destroyed and because the materialist models of the resurrection are bad. Dualism and subjective idealism seem ok to me, unless one buys into Berkley style stuff against the material substance that dualism implies. Maybe Neutral Monism, or thinking that all things are just one substance that is neither mind nor matter may seem the most unlikely, but it kinda depends on what this substance would be, because it could be something that does exactly what mind or matter supposedly does. If I had to rank them I would do Subjective Idealism, Dualism, Neutral Monism, Materialism (added materialism as a bonus), but I don’t see a huge problem with the first 3.

Gkionis: Automation with A.I can kick ass if done correctly because we would not have to waste our time with crap and we can spend our time on more interesting stuff. It can both make the decisions and execute them. A.I could become extremely more sophisticated than humans, we can also program it to be super moral and caring and whatever.

Jacobsen: What is A.I. to you?

Gkionis: It can mean a bunch of stuff, these days it means advanced software trained under the large chunks of data that generates stuff, it can also mean something made by humans and has consciousness, or something more technical about neural networks or whatever. I don’t think Chatgpt is conscious, and the sort of A.I I talked about when I mentioned that it could automate stuff and make decisions for society doesn’t have to be conscious either.

Jacobsen: What happened during the “extreme nihilist” phase for you?

Gkionis: I thought that similar to how “is doesn’t imply ought” that the “ontology of the world doesn’t imply objective meaning”. Based on that I was a nihilist because I thought that meaning wasn’t possible (in any possible world). It didn’t have to do with death or life being short, because I was thinking that I didn’t know what will happen after death and that there are all kinds of possibilities. I also thought there is no objective morality or purpose, so I was living like an asshole, because I didn’t care about others or myself that much, I didn’t value stuff, I was immoral. That in combination with how I was living in my head and was thinking of stuff like because I couldn’t know if determinism is true (I don’t don’t accept determinism, I’m just not crazy about it) or what effect the same circumstances will produce made me somewhat insane, I thought meaning was impossible and I had no idea what kind of stuff would happen I was also not sure if my memory was real or other stuff like this, basically insanity through philosophy, which was also nihilistic and also made me depressed back then. It was through Christianity that I started caring about people and loving them and seeing them made in God’s image, (I also somewhat reduced the super skepticism thing because I thought the inner witness of Holy Spirit justified some of my views), before that whatever happened to them I didn’t care at all. It may seem like random edgy teenage stuff but I think it was extreme.

Jacobsen: What makes God, as such, the locus of meaning for you?

Gkionis: The objective meaning and purpose of life or creation is based on God. So, I base my “personal meaning” stuff on that also. If God exists then absurdism is false, but if He doesn’t then is true. Under atheism a bunch of stuff that the existentialists (not about the personal meaning) and absurdists claimed are true, but luckily Christianity is true and not that kind of stuff.

Watch these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqNTT0E_T70 (short video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWRoJ9myovY (lecture)

Jacobsen: What are those “personal human small tier meanings”?

Gkionis: Stuff like people saying “I find playing ping pong and traveling meaningful”, it may have some importance but it’s extremely smaller than the one of the of the objective meaning grounded on God. The polymath stuff I’m doing are also way less important than God’s meaning.

Jacobsen: How is Dr. Craig framing the Systematic Philosophical Theology? What are the foundational precepts of it? The basic ideas in the prolegomenon.

Gkionis: It’s probably gonna be a summary of all his views and arguments about serious stuff in philosophy and theology and maybe a bit of science if he writes about Adam or fine tuning, in a way that they are connected. This systematic approach has fallen out of fashion when academia became more specialized, but it can have cool stuff if done correctly.

Jacobsen: Where do your ideas seem the least heretical to you?

Gkionis: I’m not theologically heretical, I just made a joke about how maybe some people will think that working out the implications of intelligent aliens that are persons and the afterlife is heretical, it’s not.

Jacobsen: Where do they seem the most heretical to you?

Gkionis: I’m not theologically heretical as I said earlier, maybe I am “scientifically heretical” or socially heretical because I don’t buy into the “make money, get laid, become successful” ideals a big part of society has, or I don’t think being an intellectual means name dropping and quoting crap like some people do on tv when they wanna appear sophisticated. But I wouldn’t use the word heretical for stuff like that, because this kind of heresy doesn’t matter, the theological one does, that’s what’s immoral and leads to hell (I wonder if people will respond with “Uh Ahctxtuallly the Bible doesn’t mention hell in Hebrew or Greek, it mentions Gehenna or hades, hell orginates from…” even though they know exactly what I mean). In general, I don’t give a crap about social norms, I care about God’s. (sometimes they are the same about some things, sometimes not).

Jacobsen: What is the manner of saving and living in New Jerusalem?

Gkionis: Do you mean how people get saved and how is living in New Jerusalem going to be or something more practical about the New Jerusalem?

If one trusts the Lord and lives according to His will rather than other stuff and repents then they get saved, that means that their sins are forgiven and they will be in New Jerusalem. There are mentions of it in Ezekiel and Revelation (both books of the bible), Revelation 21:1–8 says the following: “21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He* said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give water to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life, without cost. 7 The one who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. 8 But for the cowardly, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and sexually immoral persons, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

Bibliography

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Footnotes

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Citations

American Medical Association (AMA 11th Edition): Jacobsen S. Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2). August 2023; 11(3). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/gkionis-2

American Psychological Association (APA 7th Edition): Jacobsen, S. (2023, August 15). Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2). In-Sight Publishing. 11(3). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/gkionis-2.

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, Fort Langley, v. 11, n. 3, 2023.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (17th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2023. “Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 11, no. 3 (Summer). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/gkionis-2.

Chicago/Turabian, Notes & Bibliography (17th Edition): Jacobsen, S “Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 11, no. 3 (August 2023).http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/gkionis-2.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. (2023) ‘Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, 11(3). <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/gkionis-2>.

Harvard (Australian): Jacobsen, S 2023, ‘Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 11, no. 3, <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/gkionis-2&gt;.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 9th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. “Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vo.11, no. 3, 2023, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/gkionis-2.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Scott J. Conversation with Petros Gkionis on Christian Theology, God’s Will, and William Lane Craig: President & Founder, Quasar Quorum (2) [Internet]. 2023 Aug; 11(3). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/gkionis-2.

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