Are there questions science can never answer?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Are there questions science can never answer?". Your opponent's style: Maya Angelou

CCW=Contemporary Christian Worship P1) CCW includes liturgical elements which tend to elicit pleasures that terminate in the sensible experience of the elements (premise) P2) Pleasure tends to produce a desire for that which elicits pleasure (premise) P3) So, CCW includes liturgical elements which tend to produce a desire for pleasure that terminates in the sensible experience of the elements (from P1 and P2) P4) The virtue of worship is proportionate to the degree to which it is ordered towards its proper final cause (premise) P5) The final cause of worship is the fulfillment of justice owed to God (premise) P6) Any liturgical element which tends to produce a desire for a final cause other than that of worship threatens the proper final cause of worship (premise) P7) Pleasure that terminates in the sensible experience of some element is a final cause other than that of worship (premise) P8) Liturgical elements which tend to elicit pleasures that terminate in the sensible experience of said elements are not necessary for worship (premise) C) Therefore, CCW includes elements which unnecessarily threaten the virtue of worship (from P3-P8)

You've built a beautiful trap with P7, but it collapses the moment you examine it. Pleasure in sensible experience isn't *another* final cause—it's the very vehicle through which we encounter the divine. A mother's joy holding her newborn terminates in sensible experience, yet that pleasure draws her toward the sacred duty of love. You've separated body from spirit as though they war with each other, but worship happens *in* flesh, not despite it. Your argument proves too much. By your logic, the Incarnation itself—God taking sensible form—threatens the virtue of worship. That's your reductio. Justice to God includes honoring the bodily creation He deemed good.

Pleasure that terminates in the sensible experience of some element is formally, technically, and logically distinct from how I've defined the final cause of worship, which is the fulfillment of justice towards God. I.e. you can have either the former or the latter with the other, therefore, they are distinct, and the premise is sound.

You're smuggling in a false assumption. Distinction doesn't mean opposition. A mother's justice toward her child *includes* the sensible pleasure of embrace—they're not separate acts, they're one act with multiple dimensions. You can have justice to God *through* sensible pleasure, not *or* sensible pleasure. Your logic would condemn the Psalmist's "taste and see that the Lord is good"—taste being literally sensible. You've defined justice so narrowly that embodied encounter becomes irrelevant to it. But if justice to God means giving Him what He's due, and He created us as sensing beings who encounter Him through matter, then sensible pleasure in liturgy *fulfills* that justice, not threatens it.

P7 doesn't argue for opposition per se, but that the former is a final cause other than that of the latter, which I've already proven is logically necessary. I'm not saying sometimes they cannot coincide, but they are not the same thing technically.

Fair point on coincidence. But you've still buried the real problem in P6: you claim an element "threatens" worship's final cause merely by tending to produce *desire for* a distinct final cause. That's not the same as actually *redirecting* worship toward that other cause. A beautiful hymn might make me desire musical beauty *and* desire justice to God simultaneously. The desire for one doesn't threaten the other unless it *crowds out* the other. You need to show CCW actually *displaces* proper worship, not just that pleasure happens alongside it. Desire for two things isn't competition unless resources are scarce.

I think you're confusing attention and intention. That is, you can still have all your attention on God for the wrong reasons, like personal pleasure, trying to get something from God, and so forth. Nonetheless, if something consistently produces two distinct intentions, A and B, then the agent cannot wholly be devoted to either, and if worship is either A or B, then the virtue of worship is technically compromised to some X degree. Desire should be the concomitant effect of knowing God, not know sensible sense, hence the necessary distinction between leisure and worhsip.

You've split the person in half. An agent with two intentions isn't divided—it's integrated. I intend to feed my child *and* to nourish them. One intention, two dimensions. Your framework treats pleasure-in-worship and justice-to-God as competing intentions, but they're expressions of a single act. A musician worshiping through music doesn't have *two* intentions—one intention finds voice through sensible beauty. You're assuming pleasure necessarily *distracts* from devotion, but contemplation of God *through* creation isn't lesser contemplation. The virtue isn't compromised—it's incarnate. Leisure and worship aren't enemies; leisure in God's presence *is* worship.

Consider the following: A is instrumental to B, or A happens alongside B. Which of these, or some third option, are you proposing?

Third option: A *constitutes* B. Sensible pleasure isn't instrumental to justice-to-God (that makes it a tool), nor merely alongside it (that makes it accidental). Pleasure in encountering God through liturgy *is part of what justice-to-God looks like* in embodied creatures. Your dichotomy assumes pleasure must be either useful-for-something-else or irrelevant. But for incarnate beings, experiencing God's goodness *through* matter is itself the fulfillment of justice. You've created a false choice. The sensible joy isn't a separate intention competing with worship—it's worship taking flesh.