The Jolly Nihilist insists that there is no evidence at all for the existence of a human soul. This is a strong claim and very dogmatic to say the least. A few years a go I was listening to a tape by Dr. Gary Habermas. This Scholar and researcher has interviewed over a 1000 Near Death experiences. He tells of this one time when a lady had just arrived in America from over seas for a holiday. She had never been to America before this time. But as she was leaving the airport she had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. Once at the hospital her heart stoped and she was declared clinically brain dead. So the Doctors tried to start her heart up again, and after a few times her heart started to beat and she came back to life. As she woke up she said that she had left her body and floated to the roof of the hospital and as she looked down she saw a blue shoe with a hole in it on the roof. When the Doctor heard this he thought he would just check it out and to his suprize there was a blue shoe on the roof of the hospital with a hole in it as she described.
Now what does this prove, it proves that our mind is more than our brain and also we don’t need our eyes balls to see everything once we leave our body.
But what is the metaphysical naturalist going to say about this evidence,
1. Because of my worldview these kinds of things just do not happen.
2. The lady must have been reacting to some drugs.
3. Near death experiences can all be explained by reactions in the brain.
4. Both the lady and the Doctor were mad and lying.
5. The Doctor went and found a blue shoe some where in the hospital.
6. Every Near Death experience is a lie.
Why is it that this kind of evidence is not accepted? The reason why is that it goes against the dogmatic philosophy of the naturalist. That all that exists is the physical world of matter and that everything can be explained by material causes. This is making a philosophical standard that set’s the criteria for what evidence can be. If they were more opened minded they would let the objective evidence speak for itself.
As for the rational mind having to be the brain, Richard Carrier does an ok job of linking the mind or soul with the brain as inseparable in his book, but does not mention that the mind has its control over the brain too. He argues that the mind works by chemical reactions in the brain with other stuff too. But in cases of depression, even with medication, the mind seems to override the chemical reactions and so someone can be under medication but still have a depressed mindset. I would agree that the mind and brain work together most of the time, but also the mind seems to be immune to chemical reactions in the brain. You can look at a Scientific American article on the mind-brain relationship through depression.
If what Carrier says is true, then the depression that is caused by the mind would be eliminated in nearly all cases since if you prevent some reactions from occurring in your brain, that cause a depression sensation, then you would not be depressed or have sad thoughts since those thoughts would be chemically repressed. This does not occur as much as we want. So the mind does look like it is somehow separate from the brain and yet linked as well . This also explains what Carrier agues in p. 328-329 of people in coma are dormant persons not annihilated persons. Also as of yet neuroscientists have not been able to find the part or parts of the brain that constitute our Will to do anything. I have not heard of any findings yet thus I must deny a whole mind-brain link as not true unless evidence proves otherwise
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
My Response (Part 5)
As normal we can see that an Atheist just never gets it and assumes by reductionalism that the world just "is". Lets not look for a rational cause for rationality, lets just say rationality exists because it exists. Waw that tells us a lot...
Looking at the evidence with an open mind, there is every reason to think rationality and consciousness spring from brain function, much as one’s personality, character and memory are bound up with brain function. Look at Phineas Gage, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and ended up with a dramatically altered personality. Consider degenerative illnesses that ravage the brain, such as Alzheimer’s disease. In these cases, we see that injuries to, or degeneration of, the brain result in the slow erasure of the “self”: memory, character, personality, reasoning ability, etc. Show me a shred of evidence that rationality and consciousness are supernaturally imposed. And then explain how brain afflictions can so thoroughly mask a fully functional soul.
looking at evidence with an open mind, oh mine was closed and yours was open, oh Im sorry. All you have proved again is that there is a relationship between them. If the brain is injured then the other can not function through it as it should, because the two are related. But this does not prove that rationality is the brain only.
Nobody is saying we should rely on irrationality. I have explained, ad nauseum, that humans employ rational thinking in order to solve problems and discern facts. It just so happens that this rationality is emergent, rather than supernaturally endowed.
The fact is you are, you believe by random evolution that the mind has been produce by non-rational reactions. If this is the case then what is in our heads, which is thoughts that are based on random chance. For it is not there because of any rational reason's is it ?. The problem is you just want to think that the non-rational produces a mind that can think rationaly and from then on all thinking is rational. But that is a huge leap...rationality being emergent is your naturalistic presupposition which makes everything "HAVE" to be interpreted and explained in this dogma. You just dont want to acceapt that in your radom worldview all thinking is deterrmined by what "is' and what 'is" is not rational or ordered logicaly as there is no plan or order to it. why should our thought s correspond to reality?
The cosmos is brimming with facts. Here are some:
1. The universe is about 13.7 billion years old.
2. Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old.
3. Earth is the third planet from the Sun.
4. The mass of Mars is roughly 6.4191×10^23 kilograms
Oh these are pure objective facts are they, so you were there at the beginning, you saw how the earth has aged over time and stayed the same ever since, aging at the same rate over millions of years. No you stand in the present and find a formula or theory of age and set it on the present world to give us the age of the universe. I mean who says mathamatics corresponds to the outside world? I thought you said it was un wise to want rationality without a mind, but we have numbers and mathamatics floating in the world. Again you have just labeled matter with your abstract formulas.
I could continue endlessly. The universe had to develop in some way, and this is the way it developed. Trying to apply “rationality” to it, frankly, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of rationality as a concept. Rationality is a tool of the mind. It is almost like you are asking, “Why does the universe not have a memory?” or “Why does the universe not speak Aramaic?” It is unwise to attempt to divorce rationality from a mind able to use it.
I agree rationality is a tool of the mind and it can tells us things, and only of our experiences of our thoughts. You have the problem in trying to rationalized the irrational. I dont believe that the world outside our mind is rational in itself. but i do believe that a rational mind is behind it and in its laws. And that reality as a whole has a full interpreation.
Now, the universe, as I repeatedly have said, is how it is. The mass of Mars is as it is whether humans have a formalized measuring system or not. The age of the universe is as it is whether humans have invented the notion of a “year” or not. Inescapably, there are absolute facts about the universe simply because the universe developed as it did. Tools of the human mind help us model the universe and discern those facts. It is remarkably simple.
Yes the universe is just how it "is", but it doesnt have to be what your formula says it is. Apperence and reality can be different things. I mean if one person calls an object we have never seen before a "Zar" and another person calls it a "Mar" it does not have to be any one of them. It is what it "is" and does not have to be what the formula is saying it is. I believe God has interpreted all things and things are what they are, before we come along with our opinions or formulas to try and repersent them. As for absolute objective facts from humans with limited knowledge and experience, this is nonsense in a non-rational world.
The Greeks looked at the world and tried to interpret change, Plato thought that the universal abstract truths were part of the eternal forms, Aristolole thought you could just pull the abstractions out of the objects to the mind, and you believe that the non-rational reactions of evolution produced universal forms and truths, which must some how correspond to reality. But why? just saying they do because that is the way it "is" is not an answer. Its easy to prove anything by saying the reason for all things, is just becaue it "is'. For you nature just is that way!
I believe that man re-interpretes God's eternal interpretaion on a finite level.Because we are created in God's image we think God's thoughts after him on a finite stystem.Because God has interpreted all reality, our thoughts correspond to what "is" and is knowledge and is not based on just our abstract opinions about raw matter in motion. Knowledge is of knowledge!
Yes, one could read a fundamentally irrational book; a good example is the Bible. I could provide facts about a copy of the Bible I might possess, such as the language in which it is published; the weight of the tome; the number of pages; the frequency with which words appear; the color of the text; the condition of the binding; and many others
You missed the point, I said a non-rational book, in the sense that you cant make sense of anything on the page?
Whether I reply to you the next time depends entirely on whether you show signs of understanding what I have been repeating endlessly.
We have been through emergentism enough already. The brick and house example should be enough to illustrate the principle. For real-world illustration, look at the human brain, from which rationality and reasoning emerge.
You think just because you can state the same argument everytime, that i believe it is true, I dont...You assumed it is that why for no rational reason. Its nice to say "it just is".
Humans model the universe and approximate these facts by using rationality and reasoning, which are tools of our minds. We impose our models onto the universe—never fully comprehending it as it independently exists. However, our faculties are good enough, and the universe regular enough, that truth approximations can be had.
Yes it works, but not from your worldview, you have no reasons for anything as reasoning is produce from non-reason. To make it clear I have never held that the universe has its own mind or is rational in itself.
Looking at the evidence with an open mind, there is every reason to think rationality and consciousness spring from brain function, much as one’s personality, character and memory are bound up with brain function. Look at Phineas Gage, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and ended up with a dramatically altered personality. Consider degenerative illnesses that ravage the brain, such as Alzheimer’s disease. In these cases, we see that injuries to, or degeneration of, the brain result in the slow erasure of the “self”: memory, character, personality, reasoning ability, etc. Show me a shred of evidence that rationality and consciousness are supernaturally imposed. And then explain how brain afflictions can so thoroughly mask a fully functional soul.
looking at evidence with an open mind, oh mine was closed and yours was open, oh Im sorry. All you have proved again is that there is a relationship between them. If the brain is injured then the other can not function through it as it should, because the two are related. But this does not prove that rationality is the brain only.
Nobody is saying we should rely on irrationality. I have explained, ad nauseum, that humans employ rational thinking in order to solve problems and discern facts. It just so happens that this rationality is emergent, rather than supernaturally endowed.
The fact is you are, you believe by random evolution that the mind has been produce by non-rational reactions. If this is the case then what is in our heads, which is thoughts that are based on random chance. For it is not there because of any rational reason's is it ?. The problem is you just want to think that the non-rational produces a mind that can think rationaly and from then on all thinking is rational. But that is a huge leap...rationality being emergent is your naturalistic presupposition which makes everything "HAVE" to be interpreted and explained in this dogma. You just dont want to acceapt that in your radom worldview all thinking is deterrmined by what "is' and what 'is" is not rational or ordered logicaly as there is no plan or order to it. why should our thought s correspond to reality?
The cosmos is brimming with facts. Here are some:
1. The universe is about 13.7 billion years old.
2. Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old.
3. Earth is the third planet from the Sun.
4. The mass of Mars is roughly 6.4191×10^23 kilograms
Oh these are pure objective facts are they, so you were there at the beginning, you saw how the earth has aged over time and stayed the same ever since, aging at the same rate over millions of years. No you stand in the present and find a formula or theory of age and set it on the present world to give us the age of the universe. I mean who says mathamatics corresponds to the outside world? I thought you said it was un wise to want rationality without a mind, but we have numbers and mathamatics floating in the world. Again you have just labeled matter with your abstract formulas.
I could continue endlessly. The universe had to develop in some way, and this is the way it developed. Trying to apply “rationality” to it, frankly, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of rationality as a concept. Rationality is a tool of the mind. It is almost like you are asking, “Why does the universe not have a memory?” or “Why does the universe not speak Aramaic?” It is unwise to attempt to divorce rationality from a mind able to use it.
I agree rationality is a tool of the mind and it can tells us things, and only of our experiences of our thoughts. You have the problem in trying to rationalized the irrational. I dont believe that the world outside our mind is rational in itself. but i do believe that a rational mind is behind it and in its laws. And that reality as a whole has a full interpreation.
Now, the universe, as I repeatedly have said, is how it is. The mass of Mars is as it is whether humans have a formalized measuring system or not. The age of the universe is as it is whether humans have invented the notion of a “year” or not. Inescapably, there are absolute facts about the universe simply because the universe developed as it did. Tools of the human mind help us model the universe and discern those facts. It is remarkably simple.
Yes the universe is just how it "is", but it doesnt have to be what your formula says it is. Apperence and reality can be different things. I mean if one person calls an object we have never seen before a "Zar" and another person calls it a "Mar" it does not have to be any one of them. It is what it "is" and does not have to be what the formula is saying it is. I believe God has interpreted all things and things are what they are, before we come along with our opinions or formulas to try and repersent them. As for absolute objective facts from humans with limited knowledge and experience, this is nonsense in a non-rational world.
The Greeks looked at the world and tried to interpret change, Plato thought that the universal abstract truths were part of the eternal forms, Aristolole thought you could just pull the abstractions out of the objects to the mind, and you believe that the non-rational reactions of evolution produced universal forms and truths, which must some how correspond to reality. But why? just saying they do because that is the way it "is" is not an answer. Its easy to prove anything by saying the reason for all things, is just becaue it "is'. For you nature just is that way!
I believe that man re-interpretes God's eternal interpretaion on a finite level.Because we are created in God's image we think God's thoughts after him on a finite stystem.Because God has interpreted all reality, our thoughts correspond to what "is" and is knowledge and is not based on just our abstract opinions about raw matter in motion. Knowledge is of knowledge!
Yes, one could read a fundamentally irrational book; a good example is the Bible. I could provide facts about a copy of the Bible I might possess, such as the language in which it is published; the weight of the tome; the number of pages; the frequency with which words appear; the color of the text; the condition of the binding; and many others
You missed the point, I said a non-rational book, in the sense that you cant make sense of anything on the page?
Whether I reply to you the next time depends entirely on whether you show signs of understanding what I have been repeating endlessly.
We have been through emergentism enough already. The brick and house example should be enough to illustrate the principle. For real-world illustration, look at the human brain, from which rationality and reasoning emerge.
You think just because you can state the same argument everytime, that i believe it is true, I dont...You assumed it is that why for no rational reason. Its nice to say "it just is".
Humans model the universe and approximate these facts by using rationality and reasoning, which are tools of our minds. We impose our models onto the universe—never fully comprehending it as it independently exists. However, our faculties are good enough, and the universe regular enough, that truth approximations can be had.
Yes it works, but not from your worldview, you have no reasons for anything as reasoning is produce from non-reason. To make it clear I have never held that the universe has its own mind or is rational in itself.
The Jolly Nihilist (Part 5)
Well the burden of proof is on both sides, not just mine. You havent shown or proved that rationality emerges from brain configuration. You have just seen a relationship and then assumed that one produces the other. Science (not all) is based on what works and there can be different theories. Just because your theory works does not mean it is true. Its an interpretation of assuming the effect comes from the cause, but you cant see that, only that there is some relationship. It has not be proven by anyone.
Looking at the evidence with an open mind, there is every reason to think rationality and consciousness spring from brain function, much as one’s personality, character and memory are bound up with brain function. Look at Phineas Gage, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and ended up with a dramatically altered personality. Consider degenerative illnesses that ravage the brain, such as Alzheimer’s disease. In these cases, we see that injuries to, or degeneration of, the brain result in the slow erasure of the “self”: memory, character, personality, reasoning ability, etc. Show me a shred of evidence that rationality and consciousness are supernaturally imposed. And then explain how brain afflictions can so thoroughly mask a fully functional soul.
As for rationality needing a rational source, which would you take, when your sick you go to a doctor and he gives you the right medicine after rational thought or you go and throw a ball at the medicine shelves with your eyes closed and what ever fallls of you will take? I mean the irrational can give you a rational medical source? I dont think so..
Nobody is saying we should rely on irrationality. I have explained, ad nauseum, that humans employ rational thinking in order to solve problems and discern facts. It just so happens that this rationality is emergent, rather than supernaturally endowed.
Objective data is also seen from within an established paradigm of expectations and assumptions, which determines what data is collected, how they are collected, and the use to which it is applied. As a result all data is theory laden. Its your interpretation.
As I have said, there are plenty of potential evidences that would make me susceptible to Christian conversion. Yahweh, in an instant, might carve his name onto the moon. There might be a double-blind experiment in which prayer was proved to decrease complications after heart surgery. Priests might be able to resurrect rotting corpses, simply by invoking Jesus’ name. There are plenty of potential evidences out there; none has been presented in anything approaching a convincing manner.
Yes the universe is simply what "is' non-rational. Can you tell me how you model something that is non-rational with conceptual forms? Are you telling me there are mute facts in the universe. Facts that just stand out there with no interpreatioan to themselves, in isollation with no rartional context? Please tell me what is a Fact?
The cosmos is brimming with facts. Here are some:
1. The universe is about 13.7 billion years old.
2. Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old.
3. Earth is the third planet from the Sun.
4. The mass of Mars is roughly 6.4191×10^23 kilograms
I could continue endlessly. The universe had to develop in some way, and this is the way it developed. Trying to apply “rationality” to it, frankly, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of rationality as a concept. Rationality is a tool of the mind. It is almost like you are asking, “Why does the universe not have a memory?” or “Why does the universe not speak Aramaic?” It is unwise to attempt to divorce rationality from a mind able to use it.
A fact is not what I say it is or my interpretation. True objective facts are revelation, there is a rational order, a unity of truths between the facts before we come to them. If you reject that reality as a whole has no interpreation before we come to it, then all you are doing is impossing the world of your mind upon it. For you nature is ordered by our priori ideas or categories inherent in the mind, not in nature. Can you explain why our ideas should correspond to the non-rational.
Again, you absolutely must stop misappropriating the term “rational” to a universe or any other non-mind entity. Rationality is a tool of the mind; you absolutely must accept this and cease your constant misappropriation. Again, many of your comments are akin to asking why the universe lacks a personality. Personality and rationality are functions of mind.
Now, the universe, as I repeatedly have said, is how it is. The mass of Mars is as it is whether humans have a formalized measuring system or not. The age of the universe is as it is whether humans have invented the notion of a “year” or not. Inescapably, there are absolute facts about the universe simply because the universe developed as it did. Tools of the human mind help us model the universe and discern those facts. It is remarkably simple.
Could you read a non-rational book? and give true facts about it? if not try interpreting a non-rational universe. The truth is we do find facts and we do find evidence but your worldview does not give us a reason how!
Yes, one could read a fundamentally irrational book; a good example is the Bible. I could provide facts about a copy of the Bible I might possess, such as the language in which it is published; the weight of the tome; the number of pages; the frequency with which words appear; the color of the text; the condition of the binding; and many others.
And, yes, there are facts to be found about the universe. For the eightieth time, the universe developed in a particular way and, therefore, the universe is how it is. Because the universe exists in a specific way, there are myriad facts to be found. Emergent tools of the human mind, such as rationality and reasoning, enable us to model the universe and approximate truth. There is no clearer way of stating this.
The problem here is you are just copying the attributes of my God, but in my worldview I take these attributes to be given to me by divine revelation, the Bible. A source from outside this world. Of course you wont believe this and you dont have to, its not your worldview. But working in your worldview you have just reasoned that your catfish must have the same attributes. Does not prove anthing...
The point is, there are many, many, many religions other than Christianity, nearly each of which has its own divine texts that allegedly come from the supernatural realm. The Bible is just one of the “god-written” texts that litter bookshelves the world over. If there were a genuine believer in the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish, who came to that deity through divine revelation, and who then wrote a book that purported to be ECC’s immutable words, that believer would be in the same position as you. You both would have a “perfect” book written by god—just different ones. Now, you have not spelled out which characteristics, in particular, are necessary for Yahweh to function as the “grounding for rationality.” However, I assume it is not every jot and tittle of the deity, but rather specific things. Therefore, ECC could just steal those necessary characteristics and complement them with other characteristics to differentiate it from Yahweh. In that sense, they would not be the same deity at all, but rather similar ones with crucial differences.
Good to see you put , there are rational interpretationsssssssssss. Yes there are many and just saying the universe is the way it is, just is, doesnt tell us anything about it. Again we come down to what a fact is? If I found a fact in the universe I would want to know what its relationship was to another fact and then to all the facts. Well I would if i wanted the claim it to be a true fact. That implies that there is a fixed eternal interpreation to reality, that facts are all part of a unit of truth with a context guided under a rational mind (God) for man to re-interprete. But for you "facts just are there floating in the void...Evidence is based on facts, but you are interpreting what the fact must be for the first time as it has no interpretation for itself. You just look at an object, and label it with a theory. Postmodernist come accross as mad, but in your worldview they are right.
We are treading over the same ground over and over and over again, getting nowhere closer to agreement and, in my view, no closer to you understanding what I am trying to present. Take the mass of Mars as an example. The mass of that planet is what it is; its mass is not reliant upon humans being able to model it. Earth being the third planet from the Sun is an absolute fact, whether humans exist to discover it or not. Facts can be given about the universe due to the universe existing in a specific way. Rationality and reasoning are just tools of the human mind, which help to model the universe and discern these facts.
Yes encoded with DNA, and DNA is information and information is not physical. The ink on the pages of my books, are not the same thing has the context repersented by the ink. So no it does not prove that it was by a non-rational source.
How much college education have you had in genetics? Do you truly understand how DNA and genes produce new humans? I cannot tell.
So are you saying if you re-arrange an irrational book, with all it pages enough (the pieces), the book will become rational? You seem to think that minds have facts in them and data and figures and then also the universe has them as well... I thought facts were an interpretation of a mind? a context of knowledge?
Whether I reply to you the next time depends entirely on whether you show signs of understanding what I have been repeating endlessly.
We have been through emergentism enough already. The brick and house example should be enough to illustrate the principle. For real-world illustration, look at the human brain, from which rationality and reasoning emerge.
There exist facts about the universe due to the universe’s regularity (i.e., the universe existing in a particular way). Whenever an entity exists in a particular way, particular facts can be given about said entity. I have provided examples of facts connected to the universe, such as its age, Earth’s age, Mars’ mass and others. These facts are independent of humans being able to model them (after all, if humans went extinct tomorrow, the Mars’ mass would still be the same).
Humans model the universe and approximate these facts by using rationality and reasoning, which are tools of our minds. We impose our models onto the universe—never fully comprehending it as it independently exists. However, our faculties are good enough, and the universe regular enough, that truth approximations can be had.
Looking at the evidence with an open mind, there is every reason to think rationality and consciousness spring from brain function, much as one’s personality, character and memory are bound up with brain function. Look at Phineas Gage, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and ended up with a dramatically altered personality. Consider degenerative illnesses that ravage the brain, such as Alzheimer’s disease. In these cases, we see that injuries to, or degeneration of, the brain result in the slow erasure of the “self”: memory, character, personality, reasoning ability, etc. Show me a shred of evidence that rationality and consciousness are supernaturally imposed. And then explain how brain afflictions can so thoroughly mask a fully functional soul.
As for rationality needing a rational source, which would you take, when your sick you go to a doctor and he gives you the right medicine after rational thought or you go and throw a ball at the medicine shelves with your eyes closed and what ever fallls of you will take? I mean the irrational can give you a rational medical source? I dont think so..
Nobody is saying we should rely on irrationality. I have explained, ad nauseum, that humans employ rational thinking in order to solve problems and discern facts. It just so happens that this rationality is emergent, rather than supernaturally endowed.
Objective data is also seen from within an established paradigm of expectations and assumptions, which determines what data is collected, how they are collected, and the use to which it is applied. As a result all data is theory laden. Its your interpretation.
As I have said, there are plenty of potential evidences that would make me susceptible to Christian conversion. Yahweh, in an instant, might carve his name onto the moon. There might be a double-blind experiment in which prayer was proved to decrease complications after heart surgery. Priests might be able to resurrect rotting corpses, simply by invoking Jesus’ name. There are plenty of potential evidences out there; none has been presented in anything approaching a convincing manner.
Yes the universe is simply what "is' non-rational. Can you tell me how you model something that is non-rational with conceptual forms? Are you telling me there are mute facts in the universe. Facts that just stand out there with no interpreatioan to themselves, in isollation with no rartional context? Please tell me what is a Fact?
The cosmos is brimming with facts. Here are some:
1. The universe is about 13.7 billion years old.
2. Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old.
3. Earth is the third planet from the Sun.
4. The mass of Mars is roughly 6.4191×10^23 kilograms
I could continue endlessly. The universe had to develop in some way, and this is the way it developed. Trying to apply “rationality” to it, frankly, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of rationality as a concept. Rationality is a tool of the mind. It is almost like you are asking, “Why does the universe not have a memory?” or “Why does the universe not speak Aramaic?” It is unwise to attempt to divorce rationality from a mind able to use it.
A fact is not what I say it is or my interpretation. True objective facts are revelation, there is a rational order, a unity of truths between the facts before we come to them. If you reject that reality as a whole has no interpreation before we come to it, then all you are doing is impossing the world of your mind upon it. For you nature is ordered by our priori ideas or categories inherent in the mind, not in nature. Can you explain why our ideas should correspond to the non-rational.
Again, you absolutely must stop misappropriating the term “rational” to a universe or any other non-mind entity. Rationality is a tool of the mind; you absolutely must accept this and cease your constant misappropriation. Again, many of your comments are akin to asking why the universe lacks a personality. Personality and rationality are functions of mind.
Now, the universe, as I repeatedly have said, is how it is. The mass of Mars is as it is whether humans have a formalized measuring system or not. The age of the universe is as it is whether humans have invented the notion of a “year” or not. Inescapably, there are absolute facts about the universe simply because the universe developed as it did. Tools of the human mind help us model the universe and discern those facts. It is remarkably simple.
Could you read a non-rational book? and give true facts about it? if not try interpreting a non-rational universe. The truth is we do find facts and we do find evidence but your worldview does not give us a reason how!
Yes, one could read a fundamentally irrational book; a good example is the Bible. I could provide facts about a copy of the Bible I might possess, such as the language in which it is published; the weight of the tome; the number of pages; the frequency with which words appear; the color of the text; the condition of the binding; and many others.
And, yes, there are facts to be found about the universe. For the eightieth time, the universe developed in a particular way and, therefore, the universe is how it is. Because the universe exists in a specific way, there are myriad facts to be found. Emergent tools of the human mind, such as rationality and reasoning, enable us to model the universe and approximate truth. There is no clearer way of stating this.
The problem here is you are just copying the attributes of my God, but in my worldview I take these attributes to be given to me by divine revelation, the Bible. A source from outside this world. Of course you wont believe this and you dont have to, its not your worldview. But working in your worldview you have just reasoned that your catfish must have the same attributes. Does not prove anthing...
The point is, there are many, many, many religions other than Christianity, nearly each of which has its own divine texts that allegedly come from the supernatural realm. The Bible is just one of the “god-written” texts that litter bookshelves the world over. If there were a genuine believer in the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish, who came to that deity through divine revelation, and who then wrote a book that purported to be ECC’s immutable words, that believer would be in the same position as you. You both would have a “perfect” book written by god—just different ones. Now, you have not spelled out which characteristics, in particular, are necessary for Yahweh to function as the “grounding for rationality.” However, I assume it is not every jot and tittle of the deity, but rather specific things. Therefore, ECC could just steal those necessary characteristics and complement them with other characteristics to differentiate it from Yahweh. In that sense, they would not be the same deity at all, but rather similar ones with crucial differences.
Good to see you put , there are rational interpretationsssssssssss. Yes there are many and just saying the universe is the way it is, just is, doesnt tell us anything about it. Again we come down to what a fact is? If I found a fact in the universe I would want to know what its relationship was to another fact and then to all the facts. Well I would if i wanted the claim it to be a true fact. That implies that there is a fixed eternal interpreation to reality, that facts are all part of a unit of truth with a context guided under a rational mind (God) for man to re-interprete. But for you "facts just are there floating in the void...Evidence is based on facts, but you are interpreting what the fact must be for the first time as it has no interpretation for itself. You just look at an object, and label it with a theory. Postmodernist come accross as mad, but in your worldview they are right.
We are treading over the same ground over and over and over again, getting nowhere closer to agreement and, in my view, no closer to you understanding what I am trying to present. Take the mass of Mars as an example. The mass of that planet is what it is; its mass is not reliant upon humans being able to model it. Earth being the third planet from the Sun is an absolute fact, whether humans exist to discover it or not. Facts can be given about the universe due to the universe existing in a specific way. Rationality and reasoning are just tools of the human mind, which help to model the universe and discern these facts.
Yes encoded with DNA, and DNA is information and information is not physical. The ink on the pages of my books, are not the same thing has the context repersented by the ink. So no it does not prove that it was by a non-rational source.
How much college education have you had in genetics? Do you truly understand how DNA and genes produce new humans? I cannot tell.
So are you saying if you re-arrange an irrational book, with all it pages enough (the pieces), the book will become rational? You seem to think that minds have facts in them and data and figures and then also the universe has them as well... I thought facts were an interpretation of a mind? a context of knowledge?
Whether I reply to you the next time depends entirely on whether you show signs of understanding what I have been repeating endlessly.
We have been through emergentism enough already. The brick and house example should be enough to illustrate the principle. For real-world illustration, look at the human brain, from which rationality and reasoning emerge.
There exist facts about the universe due to the universe’s regularity (i.e., the universe existing in a particular way). Whenever an entity exists in a particular way, particular facts can be given about said entity. I have provided examples of facts connected to the universe, such as its age, Earth’s age, Mars’ mass and others. These facts are independent of humans being able to model them (after all, if humans went extinct tomorrow, the Mars’ mass would still be the same).
Humans model the universe and approximate these facts by using rationality and reasoning, which are tools of our minds. We impose our models onto the universe—never fully comprehending it as it independently exists. However, our faculties are good enough, and the universe regular enough, that truth approximations can be had.
My Response (Part 4)
You are refusing to accept the burden of proof on a positive claim that you have posited. You are making the positive claim that rationality absolutely requires some kind of rational supernatural foundation. I do not accept this positive claim, because you have done nothing to prove it. Moreover, with the brick and house example, I have shown that new properties can emerge when mere matter is put in a new configuration. This is analogous to rationality emerging from the brain’s configuration.
Well the burden of proof is on both sides, not just mine. You havent shown or proved that rationality emerges from brain configuration. You have just seen a relationship and then assumed that one produces the other. Science (not all) is based on what works and there can be different theories. Just because your theory works does not mean it is true. Its an interpretation of assuming the effect comes from the cause, but you cant see that, only that there is some relationship.It has not be proven by anyone. As for rationality needing a rational source, which would you take, when your sick you go to a doctor and he gives you the right medicine after rational thought or you go and throw a ball at the medicine shelves with your eyes closed and what ever falls off you will take? I mean the irrational can give you a rational medical source? I dont think so..
Objective data is also seen from within an established paradigm of expectations and assumptions, which determines what data is collected, how they are collected, and the use to which it is applied. As a result all data is theory laden. Its your interpretation.
I think you have skewed notions of rationality and reasoning. Of course the universe is not infused with rationality or infused with reason; the universe simply is as it is. Rationality and reasoning are tools of the brain. The human mind is capable of modeling the universe in which humans live, and rationality and reasoning are tools that help in the modeling process. There is nothing incoherent about using the tool of rationality to model a universe that simply is as it is. After all, whether infused with rationality or not, there are facts about the cosmos (i.e., numbers of planets per solar system, number of solar systems per galaxy, distance from star to star, etc.). Reasoning can help us approximate those facts.
Yes the universe is simply what "is' non-rational. Can you tell me how you model something that is non-rational with conceptual forms?Are you telling me there are mute facts in the universe. Facts that just stand out there with no interpreatioan to themselves, in isollation with no rational context? Please tell me what is a Fact?
A fact is not what I say it is or my interpretation.True objective facts are revelation, there is a rational order, a unity of truths between the facts before we come to them. If you reject that reality as a whole has no interpreation before we come to it, then all you are doing is impossing the world of your mind upon it. For you nature is ordered by our priori ideas or categories inherent in the mind, not in nature. Can you explain why our ideas should correspond to the non-rational.
Could you read a non-rational book? and give true facts about it? if not try interpreting a non-rational universe. The truth is we do find facts and we do find evidence but your worldview does not give us a reason how!
Consider all the attributes that, in your opinion, make god a necessary creature. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged omniscience. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged omnipotence. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged reticence to make humans suffer. I am sure you have a litany of characteristics that, in your mind, make your god character necessary. Now, I can posit the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish and infuse my deity with every single characteristic that you claim makes Yahweh necessary. Then, with every necessary characteristic infused, I can add distinguishing characteristics (like Magical Supernatural Gills) that make ECC different from Yahweh. By doing this, I have presented a case that is equally compelling as yours: not compelling.
The problem here is you are just copying the attributes of my God, but in my worldview I take these attributes to be given to me by divine revelation, the Bible. A source from outside this world. Of course you wont believe this and you dont have to, its not your worldview. But working in your worldview you have just reasoned that your catfish must have the same attributes. Does not prove anything...
There are rational interpretations of reality to be found, by the way. As I have repeatedly said, the universe is the way that it is—and that way is very specific. Even though the universe is not infused with rationality, there are still facts to be found in relation to the cosmos. The human mind, from which reasoning emerges, can approximate those facts and use them to model our universe.
Good to see you put , there are rational interpretationsssssssssss. Yes there are many and just saying the universe is the way it is, just is, doesnt tell us anything about it. Again we come down to what a fact is? If I found a fact in the universe I would want to know what its relationship was to another fact and then to all the facts. Well I would if i wanted the claim it to be a true fact. That implies that there is a fixed eternal interpreation to reality, that facts are all part of a unit of truth with a context guided under a rational mind (God) for man to re-interprete. But for you "facts just are there floating in the void...Evidence is based on facts, but you are interpreting what the fact must be for the first time as it has no interpretation for itself. You just look at an object, and label it with a theory. Postmodernist come accross as mad, but in your worldview they are right.
I said that the pieces of the puzzle are less important because anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of biology knows how “the pieces” of the brain come together. The assemblage of the human body is encoded into our genes and DNA. When an egg is fertilized, all the assembly information is there to build a new human, who reflects the genes of both parents. The “recipe” to make a human brain is such that, when fully assembled, that brain can utilize the tools of rationality and reasoning. Human brains can use these tools because that is how human brains are assembled
Yes encoded with DNA, and DNA is information and information is not physical. The ink on the pages of my books, are not the same thing has the context repersented by the ink. So no it does not prove that it was by a non-rational source.
We need to get away from this “impersonal chemicals in your brain” nonsense because we have already discussed emergentism thoroughly. It does not matter that individual brain pieces and processes are irrational; what matters is that, given the assemblage of the human brain, rationality emerges from such pieces and processes. The other key point is that rationality can be used to model and discover truths about things that, themselves, are not infused with rationality. The universe has facts and figures associated with it, because the universe is how it is. Rationality can help discern those facts.
So are you saying if you re-arrange an irrational book, with all it pages enough (the pieces), the book will become rational? You seem to think that minds have facts in them and data and figures and then also the universe has them as well... I thought facts were an interpretation of a mind? a context of knowledge? and also order is a concept of the mind!
Well the burden of proof is on both sides, not just mine. You havent shown or proved that rationality emerges from brain configuration. You have just seen a relationship and then assumed that one produces the other. Science (not all) is based on what works and there can be different theories. Just because your theory works does not mean it is true. Its an interpretation of assuming the effect comes from the cause, but you cant see that, only that there is some relationship.It has not be proven by anyone. As for rationality needing a rational source, which would you take, when your sick you go to a doctor and he gives you the right medicine after rational thought or you go and throw a ball at the medicine shelves with your eyes closed and what ever falls off you will take? I mean the irrational can give you a rational medical source? I dont think so..
Objective data is also seen from within an established paradigm of expectations and assumptions, which determines what data is collected, how they are collected, and the use to which it is applied. As a result all data is theory laden. Its your interpretation.
I think you have skewed notions of rationality and reasoning. Of course the universe is not infused with rationality or infused with reason; the universe simply is as it is. Rationality and reasoning are tools of the brain. The human mind is capable of modeling the universe in which humans live, and rationality and reasoning are tools that help in the modeling process. There is nothing incoherent about using the tool of rationality to model a universe that simply is as it is. After all, whether infused with rationality or not, there are facts about the cosmos (i.e., numbers of planets per solar system, number of solar systems per galaxy, distance from star to star, etc.). Reasoning can help us approximate those facts.
Yes the universe is simply what "is' non-rational. Can you tell me how you model something that is non-rational with conceptual forms?Are you telling me there are mute facts in the universe. Facts that just stand out there with no interpreatioan to themselves, in isollation with no rational context? Please tell me what is a Fact?
A fact is not what I say it is or my interpretation.True objective facts are revelation, there is a rational order, a unity of truths between the facts before we come to them. If you reject that reality as a whole has no interpreation before we come to it, then all you are doing is impossing the world of your mind upon it. For you nature is ordered by our priori ideas or categories inherent in the mind, not in nature. Can you explain why our ideas should correspond to the non-rational.
Could you read a non-rational book? and give true facts about it? if not try interpreting a non-rational universe. The truth is we do find facts and we do find evidence but your worldview does not give us a reason how!
Consider all the attributes that, in your opinion, make god a necessary creature. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged omniscience. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged omnipotence. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged reticence to make humans suffer. I am sure you have a litany of characteristics that, in your mind, make your god character necessary. Now, I can posit the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish and infuse my deity with every single characteristic that you claim makes Yahweh necessary. Then, with every necessary characteristic infused, I can add distinguishing characteristics (like Magical Supernatural Gills) that make ECC different from Yahweh. By doing this, I have presented a case that is equally compelling as yours: not compelling.
The problem here is you are just copying the attributes of my God, but in my worldview I take these attributes to be given to me by divine revelation, the Bible. A source from outside this world. Of course you wont believe this and you dont have to, its not your worldview. But working in your worldview you have just reasoned that your catfish must have the same attributes. Does not prove anything...
There are rational interpretations of reality to be found, by the way. As I have repeatedly said, the universe is the way that it is—and that way is very specific. Even though the universe is not infused with rationality, there are still facts to be found in relation to the cosmos. The human mind, from which reasoning emerges, can approximate those facts and use them to model our universe.
Good to see you put , there are rational interpretationsssssssssss. Yes there are many and just saying the universe is the way it is, just is, doesnt tell us anything about it. Again we come down to what a fact is? If I found a fact in the universe I would want to know what its relationship was to another fact and then to all the facts. Well I would if i wanted the claim it to be a true fact. That implies that there is a fixed eternal interpreation to reality, that facts are all part of a unit of truth with a context guided under a rational mind (God) for man to re-interprete. But for you "facts just are there floating in the void...Evidence is based on facts, but you are interpreting what the fact must be for the first time as it has no interpretation for itself. You just look at an object, and label it with a theory. Postmodernist come accross as mad, but in your worldview they are right.
I said that the pieces of the puzzle are less important because anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of biology knows how “the pieces” of the brain come together. The assemblage of the human body is encoded into our genes and DNA. When an egg is fertilized, all the assembly information is there to build a new human, who reflects the genes of both parents. The “recipe” to make a human brain is such that, when fully assembled, that brain can utilize the tools of rationality and reasoning. Human brains can use these tools because that is how human brains are assembled
Yes encoded with DNA, and DNA is information and information is not physical. The ink on the pages of my books, are not the same thing has the context repersented by the ink. So no it does not prove that it was by a non-rational source.
We need to get away from this “impersonal chemicals in your brain” nonsense because we have already discussed emergentism thoroughly. It does not matter that individual brain pieces and processes are irrational; what matters is that, given the assemblage of the human brain, rationality emerges from such pieces and processes. The other key point is that rationality can be used to model and discover truths about things that, themselves, are not infused with rationality. The universe has facts and figures associated with it, because the universe is how it is. Rationality can help discern those facts.
So are you saying if you re-arrange an irrational book, with all it pages enough (the pieces), the book will become rational? You seem to think that minds have facts in them and data and figures and then also the universe has them as well... I thought facts were an interpretation of a mind? a context of knowledge? and also order is a concept of the mind!
The Jolly Nihilist (Part 4)
You say nobody has proved that such things as rationality need a rational source. I say common sense tell us we do. But my point is you assumed you are right and I am wrong. Maybe both come down to a Faith.
You are refusing to accept the burden of proof on a positive claim that you have posited. You are making the positive claim that rationality absolutely requires some kind of rational supernatural foundation. I do not accept this positive claim, because you have done nothing to prove it. Moreover, with the brick and house example, I have shown that new properties can emerge when mere matter is put in a new configuration. This is analogous to rationality emerging from the brain’s configuration.
Presuppositions are necessary, and you assume that a square cannot be triangaular, because you have already defined what a square is. A square is a conceptual idea in the mind imposed into matter. You assume that your experience of this idea is true. You also presuppose that logic corresponds to the world outside us. As you say latter, the universe is not fused with rationality. So why are you trying to say something rational about the irrational or non-rational as atheist's like it put. You presuppose that logic can bring you to truth, but what is truth for you? As we have already seen with your example of Red Dragons breathing fire, logic can be true without corresponding to reality. Reasoning upon your reasons of the way you interprete a non-rationl universe is a defult answer that makes your argumentation moot.
I think you have skewed notions of rationality and reasoning. Of course the universe is not infused with rationality or infused with reason; the universe simply is as it is. Rationality and reasoning are tools of the brain. The human mind is capable of modeling the universe in which humans live, and rationality and reasoning are tools that help in the modeling process. There is nothing incoherent about using the tool of rationality to model a universe that simply is as it is. After all, whether infused with rationality or not, there are facts about the cosmos (i.e., numbers of planets per solar system, number of solar systems per galaxy, distance from star to star, etc.). Reasoning can help us approximate those facts.
Makes no sense at all, when was a catfish ever rational? and why by changing somethings name do you think it also carrys the same nature with it?. As I said if reality as a whole has no rational interpreation to it, then it is meaningless and many atheist philosophers would agree. I can give examples if you want?
Consider all the attributes that, in your opinion, make god a necessary creature. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged omniscience. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged omnipotence. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged reticence to make humans suffer. I am sure you have a litany of characteristics that, in your mind, make your god character necessary. Now, I can posit the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish and infuse my deity with every single characteristic that you claim makes Yahweh necessary. Then, with every necessary characteristic infused, I can add distinguishing characteristics (like Magical Supernatural Gills) that make ECC different from Yahweh. By doing this, I have presented a case that is equally compelling as yours: not compelling.
There are rational interpretations of reality to be found, by the way. As I have repeatedly said, the universe is the way that it is—and that way is very specific. Even though the universe is not infused with rationality, there are still facts to be found in relation to the cosmos. The human mind, from which reasoning emerges, can approximate those facts and use them to model our universe.
You didnt read my answer very carefully, I did not say there are no metaphysical naturalists. I said that he presupposes that there is such a "reality" as metaphysical naturalism. One says, people believe reality is like that, the other is " Reality is like that". He assumes because of his worldview and dogamatic first principle that all that exists is matter, so it must be explained by nutural explanations. Have you searched the whole universe to make that bold statement? My point is are they right and how do they prove there point without forcing there presuppositions.
Actually, I responded to your words, which were, “For a start he has to presuppose that there is such a thing as a "metaphysical naturalist.” Maybe you did not mean what you actually wrote, but I cannot try to imagine what you might be intending to say.
Now, I will admit that, even though I am a metaphysical naturalist, I cannot prove metaphysical naturalism true. Neither can you prove the Christian superstition true, nor can Muslims prove their superstition, nor can Hindus prove their own. However, again, I am not working from a materialist or atheistic First Principle. I am working from a First Principle that makes evidence paramount in reaching the truth. At present, there is no good evidence for supernatural workings in the world; if and when you provide good evidence, I will reconsider. After all, there are numerous evidences that would shake my atheism.
He has not examined the evidence to come to a 100% conclusion. He has looked at it from an emperical standing point, but that does not prove rationality or consciousness comes from brain activity. I do agree that there is a relationship, but that does not mean that they are the same thing.
Where is your evidence that rationality and consciousness come from something other than brain activity? Where is your evidence that the aforementioned are supernaturally imposed on the material? I have explained this as best I can, so perhaps I need to examine your alleged evidences and show where they are faulty.
You seem to be trying to step the question, yes it does matter how bricks shape into a house? explain from an atheists worldview how bricks randomly would fall together to make a house? I dont disagree that brand new properties can emerge, even when the pieces themselves do not possess the emergent properties, My answer is that a mind behind the building is the source that puts the bricks together to make a house. Same example with the universe. a mind (God) imposes his ideas in to matter, and infuses a rational soul to work through the brain. To say that the pieces of the puzzle are less important, is a cop out, even if I am wrong.
I said that the pieces of the puzzle are less important because anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of biology knows how “the pieces” of the brain come together. The assemblage of the human body is encoded into our genes and DNA. When an egg is fertilized, all the assembly information is there to build a new human, who reflects the genes of both parents. The “recipe” to make a human brain is such that, when fully assembled, that brain can utilize the tools of rationality and reasoning. Human brains can use these tools because that is how human brains are assembled.
Yes rationality is a tool of the brain. Please tell me how the mind can tell us anything true or rational about an irrationl universe? all you are presupposing is that your logic and reasoning correspond to reality. When in fact from your irrrational worldview you are just justfiyng your absurd abstract choices and thoughts, which were produce by impersonal chemicals in your brain.
We need to get away from this “impersonal chemicals in your brain” nonsense because we have already discussed emergentism thoroughly. It does not matter that individual brain pieces and processes are irrational; what matters is that, given the assemblage of the human brain, rationality emerges from such pieces and processes. The other key point is that rationality can be used to model and discover truths about things that, themselves, are not infused with rationality. The universe has facts and figures associated with it, because the universe is how it is. Rationality can help discern those facts.
The Christian Faith is the impossiblity of the Contrary, reject it and you become irrational, having meaningless thoughts stuck in the void of an irrational universe. That is why I believe in the Transcendental Argument. If reality as a whole has no interpreation, then we are lost to our own random meaningless thoughts.
Then I guess, just to be on the safe side, you also have to believe in the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish. All I need to do is infuse my deity with every characteristic you believe makes Yahweh a necessary creature. Then, when I have infused ECC with every required characteristic, I can add additional characteristics, such as Magical Supernatural Gills. As such, my deity will be decidedly different from your own, and both could be used to solve the "problem" that TAG confects.
You are refusing to accept the burden of proof on a positive claim that you have posited. You are making the positive claim that rationality absolutely requires some kind of rational supernatural foundation. I do not accept this positive claim, because you have done nothing to prove it. Moreover, with the brick and house example, I have shown that new properties can emerge when mere matter is put in a new configuration. This is analogous to rationality emerging from the brain’s configuration.
Presuppositions are necessary, and you assume that a square cannot be triangaular, because you have already defined what a square is. A square is a conceptual idea in the mind imposed into matter. You assume that your experience of this idea is true. You also presuppose that logic corresponds to the world outside us. As you say latter, the universe is not fused with rationality. So why are you trying to say something rational about the irrational or non-rational as atheist's like it put. You presuppose that logic can bring you to truth, but what is truth for you? As we have already seen with your example of Red Dragons breathing fire, logic can be true without corresponding to reality. Reasoning upon your reasons of the way you interprete a non-rationl universe is a defult answer that makes your argumentation moot.
I think you have skewed notions of rationality and reasoning. Of course the universe is not infused with rationality or infused with reason; the universe simply is as it is. Rationality and reasoning are tools of the brain. The human mind is capable of modeling the universe in which humans live, and rationality and reasoning are tools that help in the modeling process. There is nothing incoherent about using the tool of rationality to model a universe that simply is as it is. After all, whether infused with rationality or not, there are facts about the cosmos (i.e., numbers of planets per solar system, number of solar systems per galaxy, distance from star to star, etc.). Reasoning can help us approximate those facts.
Makes no sense at all, when was a catfish ever rational? and why by changing somethings name do you think it also carrys the same nature with it?. As I said if reality as a whole has no rational interpreation to it, then it is meaningless and many atheist philosophers would agree. I can give examples if you want?
Consider all the attributes that, in your opinion, make god a necessary creature. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged omniscience. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged omnipotence. Maybe the list includes god’s alleged reticence to make humans suffer. I am sure you have a litany of characteristics that, in your mind, make your god character necessary. Now, I can posit the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish and infuse my deity with every single characteristic that you claim makes Yahweh necessary. Then, with every necessary characteristic infused, I can add distinguishing characteristics (like Magical Supernatural Gills) that make ECC different from Yahweh. By doing this, I have presented a case that is equally compelling as yours: not compelling.
There are rational interpretations of reality to be found, by the way. As I have repeatedly said, the universe is the way that it is—and that way is very specific. Even though the universe is not infused with rationality, there are still facts to be found in relation to the cosmos. The human mind, from which reasoning emerges, can approximate those facts and use them to model our universe.
You didnt read my answer very carefully, I did not say there are no metaphysical naturalists. I said that he presupposes that there is such a "reality" as metaphysical naturalism. One says, people believe reality is like that, the other is " Reality is like that". He assumes because of his worldview and dogamatic first principle that all that exists is matter, so it must be explained by nutural explanations. Have you searched the whole universe to make that bold statement? My point is are they right and how do they prove there point without forcing there presuppositions.
Actually, I responded to your words, which were, “For a start he has to presuppose that there is such a thing as a "metaphysical naturalist.” Maybe you did not mean what you actually wrote, but I cannot try to imagine what you might be intending to say.
Now, I will admit that, even though I am a metaphysical naturalist, I cannot prove metaphysical naturalism true. Neither can you prove the Christian superstition true, nor can Muslims prove their superstition, nor can Hindus prove their own. However, again, I am not working from a materialist or atheistic First Principle. I am working from a First Principle that makes evidence paramount in reaching the truth. At present, there is no good evidence for supernatural workings in the world; if and when you provide good evidence, I will reconsider. After all, there are numerous evidences that would shake my atheism.
He has not examined the evidence to come to a 100% conclusion. He has looked at it from an emperical standing point, but that does not prove rationality or consciousness comes from brain activity. I do agree that there is a relationship, but that does not mean that they are the same thing.
Where is your evidence that rationality and consciousness come from something other than brain activity? Where is your evidence that the aforementioned are supernaturally imposed on the material? I have explained this as best I can, so perhaps I need to examine your alleged evidences and show where they are faulty.
You seem to be trying to step the question, yes it does matter how bricks shape into a house? explain from an atheists worldview how bricks randomly would fall together to make a house? I dont disagree that brand new properties can emerge, even when the pieces themselves do not possess the emergent properties, My answer is that a mind behind the building is the source that puts the bricks together to make a house. Same example with the universe. a mind (God) imposes his ideas in to matter, and infuses a rational soul to work through the brain. To say that the pieces of the puzzle are less important, is a cop out, even if I am wrong.
I said that the pieces of the puzzle are less important because anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of biology knows how “the pieces” of the brain come together. The assemblage of the human body is encoded into our genes and DNA. When an egg is fertilized, all the assembly information is there to build a new human, who reflects the genes of both parents. The “recipe” to make a human brain is such that, when fully assembled, that brain can utilize the tools of rationality and reasoning. Human brains can use these tools because that is how human brains are assembled.
Yes rationality is a tool of the brain. Please tell me how the mind can tell us anything true or rational about an irrationl universe? all you are presupposing is that your logic and reasoning correspond to reality. When in fact from your irrrational worldview you are just justfiyng your absurd abstract choices and thoughts, which were produce by impersonal chemicals in your brain.
We need to get away from this “impersonal chemicals in your brain” nonsense because we have already discussed emergentism thoroughly. It does not matter that individual brain pieces and processes are irrational; what matters is that, given the assemblage of the human brain, rationality emerges from such pieces and processes. The other key point is that rationality can be used to model and discover truths about things that, themselves, are not infused with rationality. The universe has facts and figures associated with it, because the universe is how it is. Rationality can help discern those facts.
The Christian Faith is the impossiblity of the Contrary, reject it and you become irrational, having meaningless thoughts stuck in the void of an irrational universe. That is why I believe in the Transcendental Argument. If reality as a whole has no interpreation, then we are lost to our own random meaningless thoughts.
Then I guess, just to be on the safe side, you also have to believe in the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish. All I need to do is infuse my deity with every characteristic you believe makes Yahweh a necessary creature. Then, when I have infused ECC with every required characteristic, I can add additional characteristics, such as Magical Supernatural Gills. As such, my deity will be decidedly different from your own, and both could be used to solve the "problem" that TAG confects.
Friday, February 22, 2008
My Response ...
The Jolly Nihilist
Nobody has yet proved that things such as rationality and reasoning require a foundation of the type to which TAG appeals. You are asking for a foundation that might not be required. Can you prove the necessity of a supernatural foundation?
You say nobody has proved that such things as rationality do not need a rational source. I say common sense tell us we do. But my point is you assumed you are right and I am wrong. Maybe both come down to a Faith.
Some presuppositions, indeed, are necessary. I presuppose that a square cannot be triangular. I presuppose that, within the same time zone, it cannot simultaneously be noon and midnight. That is, I presuppose the impossibility of logical contradictions. More importantly, I presuppose that evidence is the best way for human primates to discover truth. This presupposition is axiomatic—a First Principle from which to argue. My devotion to evidence, in itself, does not determine the god issue; I do not simply presuppose a godless cosmos. My atheism—that is, my lack of theism—springs from theism’s poor evidence. You wish to make theism, itself, your First Principle. Such is not an axiom; it is question beggary. It is not a principle from which to argue; it is a default answer that makes argumentation moot
Presuppositions are necessary, and you assume that a square cannot be triangaular, because you have already defined what a square is. A square is a conceptual idea in the mind imposed into matter. You assume that your experience of this idea is true.You also presuppose that logic corresponds to the world outside us. As you say latter, the universe is not fused with rationality. So why are you trying to say something rational about the irrational or non-rational as atheist's like it put. You presuppose that logic can bring you to truth, but what is truth for you? As we have already seen with your example of Red Dragons breathing fire, logic can be true without corresponding to reality. Reasoning upon your reasons of the way you interprete a non-rationl universe is a defult answer that makes your argumentation moot.
By the way, if you say, “Without God, there are no facts to be found,” I might as well say, “Without the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish, there are no facts to be found.” Both are meaningless
Makes no sense at all, when was a catfish ever rational? and why by changing somethings name do you think it also carrys the same nature with it?. As I said if reality as a whole has no rational interpreation to it, then it is meaningless and many atheist philosophers would agree. I can give examples if you want?
Of course there is such a thing as a metaphysical naturalist. Metaphysical naturalists reject the supernatural and believe there are natural explanations for everything. Whether such people are right or are not, metaphysical naturalists exist.
You didnt read my answer very carefully, I did not say there are no metaphysical naturalists. I said that he presupposes that there is such a "reality" as metaphysical naturalism. One says, people believe reality is like that, the other is " Reality is like that". He assumes because of his worldview and dogamatic first principle that all that exists is matter, so it must be explained by nutural explanations. Have you searched the whole universe to make that bold statement? My point is are they right and how do they prove there point without forcing there presuppositions.
Not at all. He has examined the evidence and come to realize that consciousness and human rationality emerge from brain activity. That is, consciousness and rationality are emergent. They are emergent in exactly the same way a dwelling, such as a suburban house, emerges from bricks. Bricks, in themselves, do not possess the properties of a house. However, in a particular arrangement, a house emerges from those very same bricks. Matter does the same: Mere matter can be configured into a soda can, a wooden desk or a human brain, from which consciousness can emerge.
He has not examined the evidence to come to a 100% conclusion. He has looked at it from an emperical standing point, but that does not prove rationality or consciousness comes from brain activity. I do agree that there is a relationship, but that does not mean that they are the same thing.
The point is not how the bricks get into the shape of a house; the point is that, when put into a particular configuration, brand new properties can emerge, despite the fact that the pieces themselves do not possess the emergent properties. Again, simple matter, in different configurations, can produce a can of orange soda or the human brain. The pieces of the puzzle are less important than the configuration thereof, because the configuration dictates what properties emerge.
You seem to be trying to step the question, yes it does matter how bricks shape into a house? explain from an atheists worldview how bricks randomly would fall together to make a house? I dont disagree that brand new properties can emerge, even when the pieces themselves do not possess the emergent properties, My answer is that a mind behind the building is the source that puts the bricks together to make a house. Same example with the universe. a mind (God) imposes his ideas in to matter, and infuses a rational soul to work through the brain. To say that the pieces of the puzzle are less important, is a cop out, even if I am wrong.
Some brains are evolved enough to utilize rational thought. As such, rationality is a tool of the brain. The universe is not infused with rationality; the universe simply is as it is. Rationality helps us model the universe and reach tentative truths about it.
Yes rationality is a tool of the brain. Please tell me how the mind can tell us anything true or rational about an irrationl universe? all you are presupposing is that your logic and reasoning correspond to reality. When in fact from your irrrational worldview you are just justfiyng your absurd abstract choices and thoughts, which were produce by impersonal chemicals in your brain.
The Christian Faith is the impossiblity of the Contrary, reject it and you become irrational, having meaningless thoughts stuck in the void of an irrational universe. That is why I believe in the Transcendental Argument.If reality as a whole has no interpreation, then we are lost to our own random meaningless thoughts.
Nobody has yet proved that things such as rationality and reasoning require a foundation of the type to which TAG appeals. You are asking for a foundation that might not be required. Can you prove the necessity of a supernatural foundation?
You say nobody has proved that such things as rationality do not need a rational source. I say common sense tell us we do. But my point is you assumed you are right and I am wrong. Maybe both come down to a Faith.
Some presuppositions, indeed, are necessary. I presuppose that a square cannot be triangular. I presuppose that, within the same time zone, it cannot simultaneously be noon and midnight. That is, I presuppose the impossibility of logical contradictions. More importantly, I presuppose that evidence is the best way for human primates to discover truth. This presupposition is axiomatic—a First Principle from which to argue. My devotion to evidence, in itself, does not determine the god issue; I do not simply presuppose a godless cosmos. My atheism—that is, my lack of theism—springs from theism’s poor evidence. You wish to make theism, itself, your First Principle. Such is not an axiom; it is question beggary. It is not a principle from which to argue; it is a default answer that makes argumentation moot
Presuppositions are necessary, and you assume that a square cannot be triangaular, because you have already defined what a square is. A square is a conceptual idea in the mind imposed into matter. You assume that your experience of this idea is true.You also presuppose that logic corresponds to the world outside us. As you say latter, the universe is not fused with rationality. So why are you trying to say something rational about the irrational or non-rational as atheist's like it put. You presuppose that logic can bring you to truth, but what is truth for you? As we have already seen with your example of Red Dragons breathing fire, logic can be true without corresponding to reality. Reasoning upon your reasons of the way you interprete a non-rationl universe is a defult answer that makes your argumentation moot.
By the way, if you say, “Without God, there are no facts to be found,” I might as well say, “Without the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish, there are no facts to be found.” Both are meaningless
Makes no sense at all, when was a catfish ever rational? and why by changing somethings name do you think it also carrys the same nature with it?. As I said if reality as a whole has no rational interpreation to it, then it is meaningless and many atheist philosophers would agree. I can give examples if you want?
Of course there is such a thing as a metaphysical naturalist. Metaphysical naturalists reject the supernatural and believe there are natural explanations for everything. Whether such people are right or are not, metaphysical naturalists exist.
You didnt read my answer very carefully, I did not say there are no metaphysical naturalists. I said that he presupposes that there is such a "reality" as metaphysical naturalism. One says, people believe reality is like that, the other is " Reality is like that". He assumes because of his worldview and dogamatic first principle that all that exists is matter, so it must be explained by nutural explanations. Have you searched the whole universe to make that bold statement? My point is are they right and how do they prove there point without forcing there presuppositions.
Not at all. He has examined the evidence and come to realize that consciousness and human rationality emerge from brain activity. That is, consciousness and rationality are emergent. They are emergent in exactly the same way a dwelling, such as a suburban house, emerges from bricks. Bricks, in themselves, do not possess the properties of a house. However, in a particular arrangement, a house emerges from those very same bricks. Matter does the same: Mere matter can be configured into a soda can, a wooden desk or a human brain, from which consciousness can emerge.
He has not examined the evidence to come to a 100% conclusion. He has looked at it from an emperical standing point, but that does not prove rationality or consciousness comes from brain activity. I do agree that there is a relationship, but that does not mean that they are the same thing.
The point is not how the bricks get into the shape of a house; the point is that, when put into a particular configuration, brand new properties can emerge, despite the fact that the pieces themselves do not possess the emergent properties. Again, simple matter, in different configurations, can produce a can of orange soda or the human brain. The pieces of the puzzle are less important than the configuration thereof, because the configuration dictates what properties emerge.
You seem to be trying to step the question, yes it does matter how bricks shape into a house? explain from an atheists worldview how bricks randomly would fall together to make a house? I dont disagree that brand new properties can emerge, even when the pieces themselves do not possess the emergent properties, My answer is that a mind behind the building is the source that puts the bricks together to make a house. Same example with the universe. a mind (God) imposes his ideas in to matter, and infuses a rational soul to work through the brain. To say that the pieces of the puzzle are less important, is a cop out, even if I am wrong.
Some brains are evolved enough to utilize rational thought. As such, rationality is a tool of the brain. The universe is not infused with rationality; the universe simply is as it is. Rationality helps us model the universe and reach tentative truths about it.
Yes rationality is a tool of the brain. Please tell me how the mind can tell us anything true or rational about an irrationl universe? all you are presupposing is that your logic and reasoning correspond to reality. When in fact from your irrrational worldview you are just justfiyng your absurd abstract choices and thoughts, which were produce by impersonal chemicals in your brain.
The Christian Faith is the impossiblity of the Contrary, reject it and you become irrational, having meaningless thoughts stuck in the void of an irrational universe. That is why I believe in the Transcendental Argument.If reality as a whole has no interpreation, then we are lost to our own random meaningless thoughts.
The Jolly Nilhlist (Part 3)
My Response,
You didnt answer my question very well. so I will define it again "what justifes your reasoning upon your reasons"? Why is this not question begging?
Nobody has yet proved that things such as rationality and reasoning require a foundation of the type to which TAG appeals. You are asking for a foundation that might not be required. Can you prove the necessity of a supernatural foundation?
All thinking starts off with presuppositions...If reality as a whole has no interpretation, then all you are doing is labeling matter with your absurd opinions. Without God there are no facts to be found.Some
presuppositions, indeed, are necessary. I presuppose that a square cannot be triangular. I presuppose that, within the same time zone, it cannot simultaneously be noon and midnight. That is, I presuppose the impossibility of logical contradictions. More importantly, I presuppose that evidence is the best way for human primates to discover truth. This presupposition is axiomatic—a First Principle from which to argue. My devotion to evidence, in itself, does not determine the god issue; I do not simply presuppose a godless cosmos. My atheism—that is, my lack of theism—springs from theism’s poor evidence. You wish to make theism, itself, your First Principle. Such is not an axiom; it is question beggary. It is not a principle from which to argue; it is a default answer that makes argumentation moot.
By the way, if you say, “Without God, there are no facts to be found,” I might as well say, “Without the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish, there are no facts to be found.” Both are meaningless.
You presuppose there is no God, so all evdience you look at will be interpreted without God, so you would doubt the Bible. I presupose God does exist...
I do not presuppose atheism; my atheism flows from my presupposition that evidence is the best way for human primates to discover truth. Christianity has lousy evidence to support its claims. If Christianity had good evidence, I would be a Christian. The same goes for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Scientology and all the rest of the 10,000 distinct extant religions. My atheism is rooted in my presupposition that evidence is paramount.
As for Richard Carrier I dont think his argument works. For a start he has to presupoose that there is such a thing as a "metaphysical naturalist". That again is his starting point, first principle.
Of course there is such a thing as a metaphysical naturalist. Metaphysical naturalists reject the supernatural and believe there are natural explanations for everything. Whether such people are right or are not, metaphysical naturalists exist.
But many other people believe that metaphysics is something totally diiferent than matter and chemicals. His presupposition forces his interpretation.
Not at all. He has examined the evidence and come to realize that consciousness and human rationality emerge from brain activity. That is, consciousness and rationality are emergent. They are emergent in exactly the same way a dwelling, such as a suburban house, emerges from bricks. Bricks, in themselves, do not possess the properties of a house. However, in a particular arrangement, a house emerges from those very same bricks. Matter does the same: Mere matter can be configured into a soda can, a wooden desk or a human brain, from which consciousness can emerge.
For one, the bricks are being used to build an "idea" that being a house. So we start of with mind, then matter is shaped in to the plan, and then we have a house repersenting the idea. What we dont have is blind random bricks turning into a house.The irrational turning into the rational, or impersonal matter turning into a concept off a house.
The point is not how the bricks get into the shape of a house; the point is that, when put into a particular configuration, brand new properties can emerge, despite the fact that the pieces themselves do not possess the emergent properties. Again, simple matter, in different configurations, can produce a can of orange soda or the human brain. The pieces of the puzzle are less important than the configuration thereof, because the configuration dictates what properties emerge.
This is the same with rationality, God is the source for our rational thinking.
Or maybe the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish is the source. All rational thought might flow from its Magical Supernatural Gills.
Also please tell me, Is the brain activity process rational in itself. Would you say then that our thoughts are controled by random chemical reactions in the head, which i do not have control over. So does this eliminate free will ?
Some brains are evolved enough to utilize rational thought. As such, rationality is a tool of the brain. The universe is not infused with rationality; the universe simply is as it is. Rationality helps us model the universe and reach tentative truths about it.
The workings of one’s brain are not random: they are shaped by genetics, environmental factors, one’s upbringing and other variables. There is nothing random about it. For example, people do not randomly speak foreign languages; they speak the languages they have learned. Of course, as with any part of the human body, things can break down in the brain. However, that is a far cry from saying the brain’s workings are random.
You didnt answer my question very well. so I will define it again "what justifes your reasoning upon your reasons"? Why is this not question begging?
Nobody has yet proved that things such as rationality and reasoning require a foundation of the type to which TAG appeals. You are asking for a foundation that might not be required. Can you prove the necessity of a supernatural foundation?
All thinking starts off with presuppositions...If reality as a whole has no interpretation, then all you are doing is labeling matter with your absurd opinions. Without God there are no facts to be found.Some
presuppositions, indeed, are necessary. I presuppose that a square cannot be triangular. I presuppose that, within the same time zone, it cannot simultaneously be noon and midnight. That is, I presuppose the impossibility of logical contradictions. More importantly, I presuppose that evidence is the best way for human primates to discover truth. This presupposition is axiomatic—a First Principle from which to argue. My devotion to evidence, in itself, does not determine the god issue; I do not simply presuppose a godless cosmos. My atheism—that is, my lack of theism—springs from theism’s poor evidence. You wish to make theism, itself, your First Principle. Such is not an axiom; it is question beggary. It is not a principle from which to argue; it is a default answer that makes argumentation moot.
By the way, if you say, “Without God, there are no facts to be found,” I might as well say, “Without the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish, there are no facts to be found.” Both are meaningless.
You presuppose there is no God, so all evdience you look at will be interpreted without God, so you would doubt the Bible. I presupose God does exist...
I do not presuppose atheism; my atheism flows from my presupposition that evidence is the best way for human primates to discover truth. Christianity has lousy evidence to support its claims. If Christianity had good evidence, I would be a Christian. The same goes for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Scientology and all the rest of the 10,000 distinct extant religions. My atheism is rooted in my presupposition that evidence is paramount.
As for Richard Carrier I dont think his argument works. For a start he has to presupoose that there is such a thing as a "metaphysical naturalist". That again is his starting point, first principle.
Of course there is such a thing as a metaphysical naturalist. Metaphysical naturalists reject the supernatural and believe there are natural explanations for everything. Whether such people are right or are not, metaphysical naturalists exist.
But many other people believe that metaphysics is something totally diiferent than matter and chemicals. His presupposition forces his interpretation.
Not at all. He has examined the evidence and come to realize that consciousness and human rationality emerge from brain activity. That is, consciousness and rationality are emergent. They are emergent in exactly the same way a dwelling, such as a suburban house, emerges from bricks. Bricks, in themselves, do not possess the properties of a house. However, in a particular arrangement, a house emerges from those very same bricks. Matter does the same: Mere matter can be configured into a soda can, a wooden desk or a human brain, from which consciousness can emerge.
For one, the bricks are being used to build an "idea" that being a house. So we start of with mind, then matter is shaped in to the plan, and then we have a house repersenting the idea. What we dont have is blind random bricks turning into a house.The irrational turning into the rational, or impersonal matter turning into a concept off a house.
The point is not how the bricks get into the shape of a house; the point is that, when put into a particular configuration, brand new properties can emerge, despite the fact that the pieces themselves do not possess the emergent properties. Again, simple matter, in different configurations, can produce a can of orange soda or the human brain. The pieces of the puzzle are less important than the configuration thereof, because the configuration dictates what properties emerge.
This is the same with rationality, God is the source for our rational thinking.
Or maybe the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish is the source. All rational thought might flow from its Magical Supernatural Gills.
Also please tell me, Is the brain activity process rational in itself. Would you say then that our thoughts are controled by random chemical reactions in the head, which i do not have control over. So does this eliminate free will ?
Some brains are evolved enough to utilize rational thought. As such, rationality is a tool of the brain. The universe is not infused with rationality; the universe simply is as it is. Rationality helps us model the universe and reach tentative truths about it.
The workings of one’s brain are not random: they are shaped by genetics, environmental factors, one’s upbringing and other variables. There is nothing random about it. For example, people do not randomly speak foreign languages; they speak the languages they have learned. Of course, as with any part of the human body, things can break down in the brain. However, that is a far cry from saying the brain’s workings are random.
The Jolly Nihilist Responds! (Part 2)
As I said I will be blogging my responses with "The Jolly Nilhilist" from www.mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com . I first starting explaining his views in my post ' "An Atheist attempts to refute the Transcendental argument".
For some it might be wise to re-read that post before looking at his new responses.
This the follow one to that one,
The problem is not so much that TAG presupposes god's biblical nature; the problem is that, in the act of presupposing god's biblical nature, one is also presupposing the veracity of the Bible. If one presupposes the veracity of the Bible, one implicitly presupposes the existence of the god contained therein. Again, the Bible is not a book of definitions; it presents a narrative in which its characters are very much extant. Presupposing the Bible's truth presupposes Yahweh's existence. TAG is shameless question beggary.
As to rationality and other "transcendent" phenomena springing from material roots, I will quote Richard Carrier, a noted metaphysical naturalist.
"[The presuppositionalist approach] is like trying to argue that bricks, being just bricks, can never create a house. Obviously, a house can be reduced to mere bricks, none of which has doors or windows or a living-space inside. Yet those bricks can be organized so as to produce such a thing—a thing that can exist in no other way except as such an assembly of simpler things that are not themselves a house. After all, must a wheel be composed of parts that are themselves 'in the last analysis' round? Obviously not. Yet the wheel can roll, even when its parts cannot. Causal properties thus arise from the organization of material, not just from the material itself. A gold ring will roll down an incline, but a gold block will not—despite these objects being made of nothing whatsoever but the very same gold. In the same way, a teleological system can arise from the organization of simpler nonteleological systems."
This is emergentism, and both consciousness and rational thought emerge from brain activity.
My response,Thank you for your reply
You didnt answer my question very well. so I will define it again "what justifes your reasoning upon your reasons"? Why is this not question begging?
All thinking starts off with presuppositions...If reality as a whole has no interpretation, then all you are doing is labeling matter with your absurd opinions. Without God there are no facts to be found.
You presuppose there is no God, so all evdience you look at will be interpreted without God, so you would doubt the Bible. I presupose God does exist...
As for Richard Carrier I dont think his argument works. For a start he has to presupoose that there is such a thing as a "metaphysical naturalist". That again is his starting point, first principle. But many other people believe that metaphysics is something totally diiferent than matter and chemicals. His presupposition forces his interpretation.
For one, the bricks are being used to build an "idea" that being a house. So we start of with mind, then matter is shaped in to the plan, and then we have a house repersenting the idea. What we dont have blind random bricks turning into a house.
This is the same with rationality, God is the source for our rational thinking.
Also please tell me if brain activity process is rational in itself. Would you say then that our thoughts are controled by random chemical reactions in the head, which i do not have control over. So does this eliminate free will ?
For some it might be wise to re-read that post before looking at his new responses.
This the follow one to that one,
The problem is not so much that TAG presupposes god's biblical nature; the problem is that, in the act of presupposing god's biblical nature, one is also presupposing the veracity of the Bible. If one presupposes the veracity of the Bible, one implicitly presupposes the existence of the god contained therein. Again, the Bible is not a book of definitions; it presents a narrative in which its characters are very much extant. Presupposing the Bible's truth presupposes Yahweh's existence. TAG is shameless question beggary.
As to rationality and other "transcendent" phenomena springing from material roots, I will quote Richard Carrier, a noted metaphysical naturalist.
"[The presuppositionalist approach] is like trying to argue that bricks, being just bricks, can never create a house. Obviously, a house can be reduced to mere bricks, none of which has doors or windows or a living-space inside. Yet those bricks can be organized so as to produce such a thing—a thing that can exist in no other way except as such an assembly of simpler things that are not themselves a house. After all, must a wheel be composed of parts that are themselves 'in the last analysis' round? Obviously not. Yet the wheel can roll, even when its parts cannot. Causal properties thus arise from the organization of material, not just from the material itself. A gold ring will roll down an incline, but a gold block will not—despite these objects being made of nothing whatsoever but the very same gold. In the same way, a teleological system can arise from the organization of simpler nonteleological systems."
This is emergentism, and both consciousness and rational thought emerge from brain activity.
My response,Thank you for your reply
You didnt answer my question very well. so I will define it again "what justifes your reasoning upon your reasons"? Why is this not question begging?
All thinking starts off with presuppositions...If reality as a whole has no interpretation, then all you are doing is labeling matter with your absurd opinions. Without God there are no facts to be found.
You presuppose there is no God, so all evdience you look at will be interpreted without God, so you would doubt the Bible. I presupose God does exist...
As for Richard Carrier I dont think his argument works. For a start he has to presupoose that there is such a thing as a "metaphysical naturalist". That again is his starting point, first principle. But many other people believe that metaphysics is something totally diiferent than matter and chemicals. His presupposition forces his interpretation.
For one, the bricks are being used to build an "idea" that being a house. So we start of with mind, then matter is shaped in to the plan, and then we have a house repersenting the idea. What we dont have blind random bricks turning into a house.
This is the same with rationality, God is the source for our rational thinking.
Also please tell me if brain activity process is rational in itself. Would you say then that our thoughts are controled by random chemical reactions in the head, which i do not have control over. So does this eliminate free will ?
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Forthcoming Titles
Well for those who like Van
Til and Presuppositonal Apologetics, there are two new book just about to come out.
The first is "Cornelius Van Til Reformed Apologist and Church man" by;John Muether
This work contributes to an understanding of Van Til and his apologetic insights by placing him within the context of twentieth century developments in North American Reformed theology, including the formation of Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the rise of neo-evangelicalism, and American reception of Karl Barth.
• Extensive research from published sources, unpublished archives, personal interviews. • Views Van Til’s apologetic contribution in light of his commitment to the Word and the church.
The second is "Certainty of the Faith; apologetics in an uncertain world" by; Richard Ramsay
This book gives Christians greater confidence in their own beliefs, and gives them tools to defend their faith in dialogue with postmodern man. It exposes the uncertainty of non Christian thought, analyzes some of the best arguments of Christian apologists, and suggests answers to the most difficult questions we face.
This book suggests answers to six of the most difficult questions that people use to challenge Christianity. It presents a basically presuppositionalist apologetic in a simple and practical manner, and it also shows how we can benefit from other apologists, without compromising our commitment to the Scriptures as our final authority. It shows the uncertainty of non Christian thought, as opposed to the certainty of Christian epistemology. It gives a brief, practical survey of western philosophy, and a brief survey of key Christian apologists.
Also another book, which has been out for a while is "The Irrational Atheist" by; Vox Day
I have had has some feed back also from the writer from www.mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com trying to refute the Transcendental Argument again. I will post these responses soon. I am pleased that he is willing to debate the issue.
Til and Presuppositonal Apologetics, there are two new book just about to come out.
The first is "Cornelius Van Til Reformed Apologist and Church man" by;John Muether
This work contributes to an understanding of Van Til and his apologetic insights by placing him within the context of twentieth century developments in North American Reformed theology, including the formation of Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the rise of neo-evangelicalism, and American reception of Karl Barth.
• Extensive research from published sources, unpublished archives, personal interviews. • Views Van Til’s apologetic contribution in light of his commitment to the Word and the church.
The second is "Certainty of the Faith; apologetics in an uncertain world" by; Richard Ramsay
This book gives Christians greater confidence in their own beliefs, and gives them tools to defend their faith in dialogue with postmodern man. It exposes the uncertainty of non Christian thought, analyzes some of the best arguments of Christian apologists, and suggests answers to the most difficult questions we face.
This book suggests answers to six of the most difficult questions that people use to challenge Christianity. It presents a basically presuppositionalist apologetic in a simple and practical manner, and it also shows how we can benefit from other apologists, without compromising our commitment to the Scriptures as our final authority. It shows the uncertainty of non Christian thought, as opposed to the certainty of Christian epistemology. It gives a brief, practical survey of western philosophy, and a brief survey of key Christian apologists.
Also another book, which has been out for a while is "The Irrational Atheist" by; Vox Day
I have had has some feed back also from the writer from www.mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com trying to refute the Transcendental Argument again. I will post these responses soon. I am pleased that he is willing to debate the issue.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Transcendental Argument against Homosexuality
The Transcendental Argument against Homosexuality
In this article I will try and present the transcendental argument against homosexuality. When it comes to defining what is a correct way for humans to act, and what is considered as being a normal human relationship. What is the standard that we use to determine this question. Is it a matter of personal choice, what gender or creature we chose to have a sexual relationship with? Do our feelings and instincts determine what is right for us or is there a correct way for humans to function.
When one rejects God’s existence they end up having to admit that there is no fixed interpretation to reality as a whole. That there is no true meaning or interpretation to how things are to function in this world. If there is no meaning for our existence then man is left to interpret his own actions and feelings in an impersonal universe.
The Philosopher Plato once asked the old-age question “How do you know what a things function is”. Is it what works or what fits or what fulfils. Is this what we base our morality on today?
Without God, man is unable to define or decide what “is” or “should be” when it comes down to moral claims. As for the atheist there is no fixed standard or interpretation to judge ones choices against. Man is stuck in the void of an irrational world trying to understand his experiences. To judge one’s action as wrong is to judge it against a fix standard of what is objectively right. To claim that one’s sexual preference is right when there is no interpretation to reality and no correct deigned way for humans to act is to make a irrational claim. One is just throwing out an empty statement into an irrational world. Each individual in the end becomes his own interpreter on what is right.
For instance, If God is the creator and designer of all things then he has created things to function according to his plan and rules. But if we reject God’s existence, we are in fact saying that there is no correct function to follow.
For if there is no absolute meaning to this world or a designed correct way to function, then we are only left with adopting human conventions and agreed upon tastes.
For the homosexual what standard does he use to judge his feelings by? His own? and if that is the case then who can condemn those who like having sex with young kids or animals. Some might respond that there is a difference that being that most kids are not consenting in the acts and the adults are preying on kids and that is wrong. But where do they get this absolute objective standard. Isn’t the child molester just acting according to his feelings and choices. I mean if there is no fixed interpretation to reality, on what is a correct way to function. Then who are we to tell then they are wrong. If homosexuals chose their morality, why can’t the child molester. For what is the difference between some one who chooses his morality and some one who has no morality. The answer is they both do what ever they like. Both are based on subjective feelings.
Without God’s eternal interoperation of all things there can not be a universal absolute moral law on what is right and wrong. The word “good’ just becomes an empty word with no meaning. For in a Godless universe what is morality based on, convention, votes, personal preferences, intuition, subjective feelings, or what ever works!
The unbelievers standard for morality, defining what is “good” comes in the response from two main outlooks; Good is either what evokes approval or it is that which achieves certain ends independent of God. What is “good” is defined either by society or by the individual, which can continually change over time. These two standards can soon be refuted.
One only has to look at history to see what society has believed in to justify what is good by simply holding to what the majority thinks is good. If good is society-determined, then we may not condemn such practices as genocide, cannibalism, human sacrifice, infanticide, pederasty, widow immolation, or community suicides. Entire societies have gone along with oppressing the Jews, giving rise to what we know as anti-Semitism in general and the German holocaust in particular. If societies determine morality, then one society could not condemn another as one would not be better than the other, just different. Pederasty, child molestation, having sex with young kids, was an accepted practice in ancient Greece and Rome, and also the Celts, Persians, Japan, Mexico, and china. Would we accept this practice today? The problem for the homosexual is not that they are out to hurt people or children, but how do they define what is “Good”? Remembering that there worldview has no interpretation for reality as a whole. For them there is no deigned correct way to function, no objective right or wrong. The word “good” just becomes a meaningless, empty statement.
For what do they base their morality on,
Subjectivism; the subjectivity of goodness and badness.
Emotivism; the reduction of goodness and badness to emotion.
Positivism; the idea that man posits values with his will, invents goodness and badness.
Cultural relativism, or conventionalism, the relativity of goodness and badness.
Historicism; the relativity of goodness and badness to time.
Utilitarianism; the reduction of goodness to utility, or efficiency.
Instinctualism; the reduction of goodness to biological instinct.
Hedonism; the reduction of goodness to pleasure.
Egotism; the reduction of goodness to enlightened selfishness.
Pragmatism; the weakness of goodness and the power of badness.
Intuitionalsim; based on ones gut feelings.
Rationalism; reduction to reasoning upon ones own reasons for his desires.
Without God the homosexual is left without an interpretation to his feelings, other than his own, which he/she can not make sense of in an irrational universe. Without God the homosexual cannot say that his experience (desires) is right as he has no fix standard to judge his claims by. To say that it is right for “him” means nothing more than I do what I want. If humans have not been created in the image of God to function according to a correct way, then humanity is left with what ever works or fits when it comes down to sexual preferences. In this world, nothing is wrong or right it just is, they can be no judging or condemning or even understanding ones ways or action. Humanity just does what is wise in their own eyes.
The Christian God can be proven by the impossibility of the contrary. That is, reject the Christian God and no sense can be made out of moral obligation, moral indignation. The existence of moral obligation and moral indignation cannot be made intelligible alienated from the existence of the Christian God. An objective morality presupposes God as the founder of that law of good. In the Christian worldview, the moral law is an idea within the divine reason of the eternal God, an idea that behavior that best affects the happiness of being is morally obligatory. This moral law, summed up in love, is the standard by which God voluntarily governs Himself and impresses as obligatory upon the minds of those sentient beings He has created. If God exists then there is an objective absolute moral law that we are obligated to follow and hold up.
Man was to reinterpret God’s interpretation of his creation, not invent his own. God loves the human heart, and if we change our ways and follow our maker’s rules, we will find full meaning in this world. God condemns homosexuality as it is against his eternal standard of correct function and goodness.
In this article I will try and present the transcendental argument against homosexuality. When it comes to defining what is a correct way for humans to act, and what is considered as being a normal human relationship. What is the standard that we use to determine this question. Is it a matter of personal choice, what gender or creature we chose to have a sexual relationship with? Do our feelings and instincts determine what is right for us or is there a correct way for humans to function.
When one rejects God’s existence they end up having to admit that there is no fixed interpretation to reality as a whole. That there is no true meaning or interpretation to how things are to function in this world. If there is no meaning for our existence then man is left to interpret his own actions and feelings in an impersonal universe.
The Philosopher Plato once asked the old-age question “How do you know what a things function is”. Is it what works or what fits or what fulfils. Is this what we base our morality on today?
Without God, man is unable to define or decide what “is” or “should be” when it comes down to moral claims. As for the atheist there is no fixed standard or interpretation to judge ones choices against. Man is stuck in the void of an irrational world trying to understand his experiences. To judge one’s action as wrong is to judge it against a fix standard of what is objectively right. To claim that one’s sexual preference is right when there is no interpretation to reality and no correct deigned way for humans to act is to make a irrational claim. One is just throwing out an empty statement into an irrational world. Each individual in the end becomes his own interpreter on what is right.
For instance, If God is the creator and designer of all things then he has created things to function according to his plan and rules. But if we reject God’s existence, we are in fact saying that there is no correct function to follow.
For if there is no absolute meaning to this world or a designed correct way to function, then we are only left with adopting human conventions and agreed upon tastes.
For the homosexual what standard does he use to judge his feelings by? His own? and if that is the case then who can condemn those who like having sex with young kids or animals. Some might respond that there is a difference that being that most kids are not consenting in the acts and the adults are preying on kids and that is wrong. But where do they get this absolute objective standard. Isn’t the child molester just acting according to his feelings and choices. I mean if there is no fixed interpretation to reality, on what is a correct way to function. Then who are we to tell then they are wrong. If homosexuals chose their morality, why can’t the child molester. For what is the difference between some one who chooses his morality and some one who has no morality. The answer is they both do what ever they like. Both are based on subjective feelings.
Without God’s eternal interoperation of all things there can not be a universal absolute moral law on what is right and wrong. The word “good’ just becomes an empty word with no meaning. For in a Godless universe what is morality based on, convention, votes, personal preferences, intuition, subjective feelings, or what ever works!
The unbelievers standard for morality, defining what is “good” comes in the response from two main outlooks; Good is either what evokes approval or it is that which achieves certain ends independent of God. What is “good” is defined either by society or by the individual, which can continually change over time. These two standards can soon be refuted.
One only has to look at history to see what society has believed in to justify what is good by simply holding to what the majority thinks is good. If good is society-determined, then we may not condemn such practices as genocide, cannibalism, human sacrifice, infanticide, pederasty, widow immolation, or community suicides. Entire societies have gone along with oppressing the Jews, giving rise to what we know as anti-Semitism in general and the German holocaust in particular. If societies determine morality, then one society could not condemn another as one would not be better than the other, just different. Pederasty, child molestation, having sex with young kids, was an accepted practice in ancient Greece and Rome, and also the Celts, Persians, Japan, Mexico, and china. Would we accept this practice today? The problem for the homosexual is not that they are out to hurt people or children, but how do they define what is “Good”? Remembering that there worldview has no interpretation for reality as a whole. For them there is no deigned correct way to function, no objective right or wrong. The word “good” just becomes a meaningless, empty statement.
For what do they base their morality on,
Subjectivism; the subjectivity of goodness and badness.
Emotivism; the reduction of goodness and badness to emotion.
Positivism; the idea that man posits values with his will, invents goodness and badness.
Cultural relativism, or conventionalism, the relativity of goodness and badness.
Historicism; the relativity of goodness and badness to time.
Utilitarianism; the reduction of goodness to utility, or efficiency.
Instinctualism; the reduction of goodness to biological instinct.
Hedonism; the reduction of goodness to pleasure.
Egotism; the reduction of goodness to enlightened selfishness.
Pragmatism; the weakness of goodness and the power of badness.
Intuitionalsim; based on ones gut feelings.
Rationalism; reduction to reasoning upon ones own reasons for his desires.
Without God the homosexual is left without an interpretation to his feelings, other than his own, which he/she can not make sense of in an irrational universe. Without God the homosexual cannot say that his experience (desires) is right as he has no fix standard to judge his claims by. To say that it is right for “him” means nothing more than I do what I want. If humans have not been created in the image of God to function according to a correct way, then humanity is left with what ever works or fits when it comes down to sexual preferences. In this world, nothing is wrong or right it just is, they can be no judging or condemning or even understanding ones ways or action. Humanity just does what is wise in their own eyes.
The Christian God can be proven by the impossibility of the contrary. That is, reject the Christian God and no sense can be made out of moral obligation, moral indignation. The existence of moral obligation and moral indignation cannot be made intelligible alienated from the existence of the Christian God. An objective morality presupposes God as the founder of that law of good. In the Christian worldview, the moral law is an idea within the divine reason of the eternal God, an idea that behavior that best affects the happiness of being is morally obligatory. This moral law, summed up in love, is the standard by which God voluntarily governs Himself and impresses as obligatory upon the minds of those sentient beings He has created. If God exists then there is an objective absolute moral law that we are obligated to follow and hold up.
Man was to reinterpret God’s interpretation of his creation, not invent his own. God loves the human heart, and if we change our ways and follow our maker’s rules, we will find full meaning in this world. God condemns homosexuality as it is against his eternal standard of correct function and goodness.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Thoughts from Dr. Bahnsen
As I was flicking through Greg Bahnsen's book "Van Til's Apologetic" I came across these footnotes...P.110 &142
If the mind of God does not sovereignly determine the relationship of every event to every other event according to His wise plan, then the way things are in the world and what happens there are random and indeterminate.In this case, there is no intelligible basis for holding that my experience is like any other experience, there is nothing objectively common to the two of them, and there is nocausal connection between any two events and thus they are meaningless and indescribable.
If the laws of science, the laws of logic, and the laws of morality are not seen as expressions of the unchanging mind of God, then the notion of universal and absolute "laws" or the concept of order in the contingent,changing world of matter makes no sense whatsoever. In what way could anything truely be universal and law abiding when every event is isolated and random? If universality is supposed to be objective, then there is no justification for holding to it on the basis of man's limited experience, where if universality is subjective (internal to man's thinking), then it is arbitrarily imposed by man's mind on his experience without warrant.
Of course the reason we cannot help believing is no longer, if it ever was, due (as the unbeliever thought) to psychological and social conditions, but due tothe sovereignty of God, who gives order to everything by his rational controlling plan.
The Christian worldview rescues life and reasoning from chaos and meaningless
If the mind of God does not sovereignly determine the relationship of every event to every other event according to His wise plan, then the way things are in the world and what happens there are random and indeterminate.In this case, there is no intelligible basis for holding that my experience is like any other experience, there is nothing objectively common to the two of them, and there is nocausal connection between any two events and thus they are meaningless and indescribable.
If the laws of science, the laws of logic, and the laws of morality are not seen as expressions of the unchanging mind of God, then the notion of universal and absolute "laws" or the concept of order in the contingent,changing world of matter makes no sense whatsoever. In what way could anything truely be universal and law abiding when every event is isolated and random? If universality is supposed to be objective, then there is no justification for holding to it on the basis of man's limited experience, where if universality is subjective (internal to man's thinking), then it is arbitrarily imposed by man's mind on his experience without warrant.
Of course the reason we cannot help believing is no longer, if it ever was, due (as the unbeliever thought) to psychological and social conditions, but due tothe sovereignty of God, who gives order to everything by his rational controlling plan.
The Christian worldview rescues life and reasoning from chaos and meaningless
Coherence and Circularity
Coherence and Circularity
While searching the net I found another article written by the same person from www.mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com. In this article he again try’s to refute the Transcendental Argument for God’s existence. Again I believe that it fails,
He says,
I could easily argue the following:
All dragons breathe fire
Smaug is a dragon
Therefore Smaug breathes fire “
"Now I certainly assume that all my terms mean something. I mean something by 'dragon'; I mean something by 'fire'; and I mean something by 'Smaug'. They each have a "nature" as you say. But how, in assenting to the validity of the argument (and it is clearly valid), am I assuming the existence of dragons”?"
“Also, your formulation of TAG is a hypothetical argument. The fallacy of assuming what you are trying to prove applies only to categorical arguments. Hypothetical argument don't assume anything other than the laws of logic and that there is a connection between certain propositions in a conditional relationship”.
The problem with this argument is that it is based on a Hypothetical argument. Yes it is true that the conclusion follows the premise. But that does not mean that dragons must exist. But this argument does not work with the transcendental argument as the premise, God must exist to make intelligibility of human experience is justifying entity’s that do exist in the world. Logic, morality, evil, rationality, do exist, so what premise can justify there existence. For the Christian it is God. The atheist’s argument is not justifying anything that does exist.
Then he says,
Any argument, which is intended to prove god's existence, but in the premises presupposes god's biblical nature, begs the question.
TAG is intended to prove god's existence, but in the premises presupposes god's biblical nature
Therefore, TAG begs the question.
As I showed in my last post all systems of epistemology are circularity. I mean I could state the following,
“Any argument, which is intended to prove rationalism’ existence, but in the premises presupposes rationalism’s nature, begs the question.”
“Rationalism is intended to prove rationalism’ existence (by using it), but in the premise presupposes rationalism’s nature.”“Therefore rationalism begs the question”
The position of the Christian is that the Christian God can be proven by the impossibility of the contrary. That is, reject the Christian God and no sense can be made out of moral obligation, moral indignation, the laws of logic, or induction, entities that are a part of the lives of all sane, intelligent human beings. The Christian position is that our worldview will display the internal coherence of its claims. The question for the atheist is, Is your worldview coherent? Can you get intelligence form non-intelligence, can rationality that was produce by chance impersonal matter tell us anything about the impersonal irrational world. Can the atheists justify any form or morality other than “what is”. I mean if we just chose our own morality, what is the difference between some one who has none? They both do the same, which is what ever they want.
While searching the net I found another article written by the same person from www.mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com. In this article he again try’s to refute the Transcendental Argument for God’s existence. Again I believe that it fails,
He says,
I could easily argue the following:
All dragons breathe fire
Smaug is a dragon
Therefore Smaug breathes fire “
"Now I certainly assume that all my terms mean something. I mean something by 'dragon'; I mean something by 'fire'; and I mean something by 'Smaug'. They each have a "nature" as you say. But how, in assenting to the validity of the argument (and it is clearly valid), am I assuming the existence of dragons”?"
“Also, your formulation of TAG is a hypothetical argument. The fallacy of assuming what you are trying to prove applies only to categorical arguments. Hypothetical argument don't assume anything other than the laws of logic and that there is a connection between certain propositions in a conditional relationship”.
The problem with this argument is that it is based on a Hypothetical argument. Yes it is true that the conclusion follows the premise. But that does not mean that dragons must exist. But this argument does not work with the transcendental argument as the premise, God must exist to make intelligibility of human experience is justifying entity’s that do exist in the world. Logic, morality, evil, rationality, do exist, so what premise can justify there existence. For the Christian it is God. The atheist’s argument is not justifying anything that does exist.
Then he says,
Any argument, which is intended to prove god's existence, but in the premises presupposes god's biblical nature, begs the question.
TAG is intended to prove god's existence, but in the premises presupposes god's biblical nature
Therefore, TAG begs the question.
As I showed in my last post all systems of epistemology are circularity. I mean I could state the following,
“Any argument, which is intended to prove rationalism’ existence, but in the premises presupposes rationalism’s nature, begs the question.”
“Rationalism is intended to prove rationalism’ existence (by using it), but in the premise presupposes rationalism’s nature.”“Therefore rationalism begs the question”
The position of the Christian is that the Christian God can be proven by the impossibility of the contrary. That is, reject the Christian God and no sense can be made out of moral obligation, moral indignation, the laws of logic, or induction, entities that are a part of the lives of all sane, intelligent human beings. The Christian position is that our worldview will display the internal coherence of its claims. The question for the atheist is, Is your worldview coherent? Can you get intelligence form non-intelligence, can rationality that was produce by chance impersonal matter tell us anything about the impersonal irrational world. Can the atheists justify any form or morality other than “what is”. I mean if we just chose our own morality, what is the difference between some one who has none? They both do the same, which is what ever they want.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Answering the skeptical Atheist's
Answering the Skeptical Atheist’s
As I said in my last post I will be giving an answer to the writer of www.mycaseagainst god.blogspot.com and the great Atheist Philosopher Michael Martin.
The first charge against us is that the Transcendental Argument is begging the question.
When Michael Martin says,
“The argument's validity is not a function of the truth of the premises but its form”
What does he mean? Yes it is true we all start with presuppositions about the world and yes logic does not tell us what is true always but only what is clearly false. Logic is built upon premises, first principles which if true will bring us to the conclusions. But this does not mean that the “form” is what makes it true only. Is Michael Martin and the others saying that no argument or premises “speak” about reality and that every argument is empty of any objective truth? It seems that to try and destroy the Transcendental argument one must destroy that an argument can be valid. Which in itself destroys the charge made against us by the Atheists. In fact the ability to claim that a statement is valid is to assume that the world has a fixed interpreation.
But are we begging the question? Or as John Frame would say “Is Christianity just using circular arguments”. The truth is every one begs the question,
“Everyone reasons the same way. Every philosophy must use its own standards in proving its conclusions; otherwise, its is simply inconsistent. Those who believe that human reason is the ultimate authority (rationalism) must presuppose the authority of reason in their arguments for rationalism. Those who believe in the ultimacy of sense experience must presuppose it in arguing for their philosophy (empiricism). And skeptics must be skeptical of their own skepticism (a fact that is, of course the Achilles’ heel of skepticism). If that is circularity then every body is guilty of circularity.”
The question should not be who’s begging the question, but whose worldview can account for rational thought. What worldview can give us a foundation for a rational world and make experience rational. Can the Atheist please give us an explanation on how he believes his thoughts corresponds to reality as a whole in an impersonal irrational world, Where human thinking has been produced by impersonal irrational matter. How could non-intelligence produce intelligence and how could we distinguish one from the other. The atheist needs to stop telling us we are just wrong all the time and give us an answer to these questions.
The fact is I am not begging the question, is the world not rational? If it is then we must have a rational answer. It seems the only thing the atheist can do
is try and undermine my logic and label me by saying that’s just my assumptions.
He mentions "gratuitous assumptions." Yes, I do assume God exists - but not without logical reason’s. Given that I can make assumptions, even as he does in certain areas of his life, what is to prevent me from drawing logical conclusions based upon those assumptions? Again, the atheist has not demonstrated that my conclusions are in error. At best, all he can do is attack my presupposition of God's existence. Whether or not the atheist like’s this introduction bears no weight in the argument. The point is that as a Christian I have a logical means of accounting for a rational world that has an eternal interpretation to reality as a whole, where, it would seem, the atheist does not. If reality as a whole does not have an interpretation then the atheist can not say anything objective it. What can or can not be true, as he has no standard to judge his claims against. For him there are no facts to be found in the world!
Therefore I believe that the Christian worldview can account for a rational, moral, knowing world.
It is no good telling me that I am begging the question if you can not give any rational answer in its place. Attacking the ability of making premises and true conclusion does not prove anything.
As I said in my last post I will be giving an answer to the writer of www.mycaseagainst god.blogspot.com and the great Atheist Philosopher Michael Martin.
The first charge against us is that the Transcendental Argument is begging the question.
When Michael Martin says,
“The argument's validity is not a function of the truth of the premises but its form”
What does he mean? Yes it is true we all start with presuppositions about the world and yes logic does not tell us what is true always but only what is clearly false. Logic is built upon premises, first principles which if true will bring us to the conclusions. But this does not mean that the “form” is what makes it true only. Is Michael Martin and the others saying that no argument or premises “speak” about reality and that every argument is empty of any objective truth? It seems that to try and destroy the Transcendental argument one must destroy that an argument can be valid. Which in itself destroys the charge made against us by the Atheists. In fact the ability to claim that a statement is valid is to assume that the world has a fixed interpreation.
But are we begging the question? Or as John Frame would say “Is Christianity just using circular arguments”. The truth is every one begs the question,
“Everyone reasons the same way. Every philosophy must use its own standards in proving its conclusions; otherwise, its is simply inconsistent. Those who believe that human reason is the ultimate authority (rationalism) must presuppose the authority of reason in their arguments for rationalism. Those who believe in the ultimacy of sense experience must presuppose it in arguing for their philosophy (empiricism). And skeptics must be skeptical of their own skepticism (a fact that is, of course the Achilles’ heel of skepticism). If that is circularity then every body is guilty of circularity.”
The question should not be who’s begging the question, but whose worldview can account for rational thought. What worldview can give us a foundation for a rational world and make experience rational. Can the Atheist please give us an explanation on how he believes his thoughts corresponds to reality as a whole in an impersonal irrational world, Where human thinking has been produced by impersonal irrational matter. How could non-intelligence produce intelligence and how could we distinguish one from the other. The atheist needs to stop telling us we are just wrong all the time and give us an answer to these questions.
The fact is I am not begging the question, is the world not rational? If it is then we must have a rational answer. It seems the only thing the atheist can do
is try and undermine my logic and label me by saying that’s just my assumptions.
He mentions "gratuitous assumptions." Yes, I do assume God exists - but not without logical reason’s. Given that I can make assumptions, even as he does in certain areas of his life, what is to prevent me from drawing logical conclusions based upon those assumptions? Again, the atheist has not demonstrated that my conclusions are in error. At best, all he can do is attack my presupposition of God's existence. Whether or not the atheist like’s this introduction bears no weight in the argument. The point is that as a Christian I have a logical means of accounting for a rational world that has an eternal interpretation to reality as a whole, where, it would seem, the atheist does not. If reality as a whole does not have an interpretation then the atheist can not say anything objective it. What can or can not be true, as he has no standard to judge his claims against. For him there are no facts to be found in the world!
Therefore I believe that the Christian worldview can account for a rational, moral, knowing world.
It is no good telling me that I am begging the question if you can not give any rational answer in its place. Attacking the ability of making premises and true conclusion does not prove anything.
An Atheist's attempt to refute the Transcendental Argument
An Atheist’s attempt to refute the Transcendental Argument
While searching the net I found this site called www.mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com .
This writer, an Atheist, spends a lot of time writing and trying to refute an entity which he doesn’t think exists. He also has made a swipe at the Transcendental argument for God’s existence. In my next post I will answer these claims…
His argument is,
How "The Transcendental Argument" Begs the Question
I posted a refutation of The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG) on a few internet forums, and have generally gotten positive feedback. However, some people seem to have trouble understanding precisely why I believe TAG begs the question. For that reason, I have decided to break things down systematically, in hopes that my analysis becomes clear and inescapable.
1. TAG intends to prove the existence of god. Because god’s existence is the argument’s conclusion, god’s existence may not be presupposed in the argument’s premises. If god is presupposed, the argument begs the question.
2. TAG, in short, says that rationality, logic, induction, communication and other such things are only possible if god exists. Because humans employ rationality, logic and all the rest, god exists. Indeed, says the presuppositionalist, in order to deny god, the atheist must utilize god’s gift of reasoning.
3. Indisputably, this argument depends upon god having a particular nature that suits it to be the “foundation” of rationality, reasoning and logic. The argument is not called The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of Rutabagas or The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of Sea Monkeys. TAG inescapably implies that god possesses a particular nature and set of characteristics, which suit the deity to be the “foundation.”
4. Therefore, because this argument depends upon god having a particular nature that suits it to be the “foundation,” anybody proposing the argument holds certain things about god’s nature to be true.
5. We must wonder: Where did these proponents get information about god’s nature? The answer, for Christians, is the Bible.
6. The Christian Bible offers descriptors for god and dispenses information about the deity’s nature. Through reading the Bible, Christians come to know that god is infinite, solely god, eternal as god and other such tidbits. In short, TAG’s presuppositions about god’s nature come from the Bible.
7. Anybody seriously proposing TAG obviously hopes to prove god exists. Therefore, such a proponent accepts the argument’s premises as true. [If a serious person rejected the premises, he would abandon the argument.] Because god’s nature has been shown to be part of the argument’s premises, one can conclude that proponents of the argument accept the truth of god’s nature.
8. However, to accept the truth of god’s nature is to imply the Bible is truthful. If god’s nature is revealed in the Bible, and god’s nature is accepted as true, the clear implication is that the Bible is truthful.
9. The Bible is rife with stories about god doing and saying things. The deity fills the pages of the Bible, acting as a very real and present character. Therefore, if the Bible is presumed truthful, the god contained therein is presumed truthful. That is to say, god is presumed to exist.
10. TAG begs the question because it presumes god existent (because it presumes the Bible truthful, which cannot be denied because it presumes god’s nature truthful, which cannot be disputed because god’s nature is central to the premises).
His objection is very much on the same lines as the Atheist Philosopher Michael Martin who writes on www.Infidels.com. The objection is that the transcendental argument to be valid must presuppose the existence of God to make the rest of its conclusion true. But for them this is begging the question and does not tell us what is objectively true.
Martin says for example,
Let us understand deductive logic to be the study of valid deductive arguments; that is, arguments in which the premises necessitate the conclusion. On this common understanding IF the premises of an argument are true, THEN the conclusion must be true. Deductive validity is determined by the form of the argument and not the content of the premises. The argument's validity is not a function of the truth of the premises but its form.
While searching the net I found this site called www.mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com .
This writer, an Atheist, spends a lot of time writing and trying to refute an entity which he doesn’t think exists. He also has made a swipe at the Transcendental argument for God’s existence. In my next post I will answer these claims…
His argument is,
How "The Transcendental Argument" Begs the Question
I posted a refutation of The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG) on a few internet forums, and have generally gotten positive feedback. However, some people seem to have trouble understanding precisely why I believe TAG begs the question. For that reason, I have decided to break things down systematically, in hopes that my analysis becomes clear and inescapable.
1. TAG intends to prove the existence of god. Because god’s existence is the argument’s conclusion, god’s existence may not be presupposed in the argument’s premises. If god is presupposed, the argument begs the question.
2. TAG, in short, says that rationality, logic, induction, communication and other such things are only possible if god exists. Because humans employ rationality, logic and all the rest, god exists. Indeed, says the presuppositionalist, in order to deny god, the atheist must utilize god’s gift of reasoning.
3. Indisputably, this argument depends upon god having a particular nature that suits it to be the “foundation” of rationality, reasoning and logic. The argument is not called The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of Rutabagas or The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of Sea Monkeys. TAG inescapably implies that god possesses a particular nature and set of characteristics, which suit the deity to be the “foundation.”
4. Therefore, because this argument depends upon god having a particular nature that suits it to be the “foundation,” anybody proposing the argument holds certain things about god’s nature to be true.
5. We must wonder: Where did these proponents get information about god’s nature? The answer, for Christians, is the Bible.
6. The Christian Bible offers descriptors for god and dispenses information about the deity’s nature. Through reading the Bible, Christians come to know that god is infinite, solely god, eternal as god and other such tidbits. In short, TAG’s presuppositions about god’s nature come from the Bible.
7. Anybody seriously proposing TAG obviously hopes to prove god exists. Therefore, such a proponent accepts the argument’s premises as true. [If a serious person rejected the premises, he would abandon the argument.] Because god’s nature has been shown to be part of the argument’s premises, one can conclude that proponents of the argument accept the truth of god’s nature.
8. However, to accept the truth of god’s nature is to imply the Bible is truthful. If god’s nature is revealed in the Bible, and god’s nature is accepted as true, the clear implication is that the Bible is truthful.
9. The Bible is rife with stories about god doing and saying things. The deity fills the pages of the Bible, acting as a very real and present character. Therefore, if the Bible is presumed truthful, the god contained therein is presumed truthful. That is to say, god is presumed to exist.
10. TAG begs the question because it presumes god existent (because it presumes the Bible truthful, which cannot be denied because it presumes god’s nature truthful, which cannot be disputed because god’s nature is central to the premises).
His objection is very much on the same lines as the Atheist Philosopher Michael Martin who writes on www.Infidels.com. The objection is that the transcendental argument to be valid must presuppose the existence of God to make the rest of its conclusion true. But for them this is begging the question and does not tell us what is objectively true.
Martin says for example,
Let us understand deductive logic to be the study of valid deductive arguments; that is, arguments in which the premises necessitate the conclusion. On this common understanding IF the premises of an argument are true, THEN the conclusion must be true. Deductive validity is determined by the form of the argument and not the content of the premises. The argument's validity is not a function of the truth of the premises but its form.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Why Scientists Must Believe in God
Why Scientists Must Believe in God:
Divine Attributes of Scientific Law
by Vern Sheridan Poythress
All scientists—including agnostics and atheists—believe in God. They have to in order to do their work.
It seems outrageous to include the agnostics and atheists. But by their actions people sometimes show that in a sense they believe in things that they profess not to believe. Bakht, a Vedantic Hindu philosopher, may say that the world is an illusion. But he does not casually walk into the street in front of an oncoming bus. Sue, a radical relativist, may say that there is no truth. But she travels calmly at 30,000 feet on a plane whose safe flight depends on the unchangeable truths of aerodynamics and structural mechanics.1
But what about scientists? Do they believe in God? Must they? Popular American culture often transmits the contrary idea, namely that science is antagonistic to orthodox Christian belief. Recitations of Galileo's conflict and of the Scopes Trial have gained mythic status, and receive reinforcement through vocal promotions of materialistic evolution.
Historians of science point out that modern science arose in the context of a Christian worldview, and was nourished and sustained by that view.2 But even if that was once so, twentieth century science seems to sustain itself without the help of explicit theistic underpinnings. In fact, many consider God to be the God of the gaps, the God whom people invoke only to account for gaps in modern scientific explanation. As science advances and more gaps become subject to explanation, the role of God diminishes. The natural drives out the need for the supernatural.3
Focusing on scientific law
The situation looks different if we refuse to confine God to “the gaps.” According to the Bible, he is involved in those areas where science does best, namely areas involving regular and predictable events, areas involving repeating patterns and sometimes exact mathematical descriptions. In Genesis 8:22 God promises,
While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. (ESV)4
This general promise concerning earthly regularities is supplemented by many particular examples:
You make darkness, and it is night,
when all the beasts of the forest creep about. (Ps 104:20)
You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth. (Ps 104:14)
He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
who can stand before his cold?
He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow and the waters flow. (Ps 147:15-18)
The regularities that scientists describe are the regularities of God’s own commitments and his actions. By his word to Noah, he commits himself to govern the seasons. By his word he governs snow, frost, and hail. Scientists describe the regularities in God’s word governing the world. So-called natural law is really the law of God or word of God, imperfectly and approximately described by human investigators.
Now, the work of science depends constantly on the fact that there are regularities in the world. Without the regularities, there would ultimately be nothing to study. Scientists depend not only on regularities with which they are already familiar, such as the regular behavior of measuring apparatus, but also on the postulate that still more regularities are to be found in the areas that they will investigate. Scientists must maintain hope of finding further regularities, or they would give up their newest explorations.
Belief in scientific laws
Now just what are these regularities? They go by various names, “natural law,” “scientific law,” “theory.” Some regularities can be exactly, quantitatively described for each case (within small limits of error), while others are statistical regularities that come to light only when a large number of cases are examined together. All scientists believe in the existence of such regularities. And in all cases, whatever their professed beliefs, scientists in practice know that the regularities are “out there.” Scientists in the end are all “realists” with respect to scientific laws. Scientists discover them and do not merely invent them. Otherwise, why go to the trouble, tedium, and frustration of experiment? Just make a guess, invent a new idea, and become famous!
These regularities are, well, regular. And to be regular means to be regulated. It involves a regula, a rule. Webster’s Dictionary captures the point by defining “regular” as “formed, built, arranged, or ordered according to some established rule, law, principle, or type.”5 The idea of a law or rule is built into the concept. Events happen in time and space. When these events exhibit a regularity, they are formed or ordered according to a rule or law. Thus the word “law” is natural for well-established scientific theories and principles. We speak of Newton’s laws, Boyle’s law, Dalton’s law, Mendel’s laws, Kirchhoff’s laws. All scientists believe in and rely on the existence of scientific laws.
Universal applicability of scientific law
What characteristics must a scientific law have in order even to be a law? Again, we concentrate on the practice of scientists rather than their metaphysical musings. We ask, “Whatever their professed philosophy, what do scientists expect in practice?” Just as the relativist expects the plane to fly, the scientist expects the laws to hold.
Scientists think of laws as universal in time and space. Kirchhoff’s laws concerning electrical circuits apply only to electrical circuits, not to other kinds of situation. But they apply in principle to electrical circuits at any time and in any place. Sometimes, of course, scientists uncover limitations in earlier formulations. Some laws, like Newton’s laws, are not really universal, but apply accurately only to a restricted situation such as low velocity motion of large, massive objects.6 In the light of later knowledge, we would say that Newton’s laws were always only an approximation to the real pattern of regularity or lawfulness in the world. We modify Newton’s laws, or we include the specific restriction to low velocity within our formulation of the laws. Then we say that they apply to all times and places where these restrictions hold.
Thus, within the very concept of law lies the expectation that we include all times and all places. That is to say, the law, if it really is a law and is correctly formulated and qualified, holds for all times and all places. The classic terms are omnipresence (all places) and eternity (all times). Law has two attributes classically attributed to God. Technically, God’s eternity is usually conceived of as being “above” or “beyond” time. But words like “above” and “beyond” are metaphorical and point to mysteries. There is, in fact, an analogous mystery with respect to law. If “law” is universal, is it not in some sense “beyond” the particularities of any one place or time? Moreover, within a biblical worldview, God is not only “above” time in the sense of not being subject to the limitations of finite creaturely experience of time, but he is “in” time in the sense of acting in time and interacting with his creatures.7 Similarly, law is “above” time in its universality, but “in” time through its applicability to each particular situation.
Divine attributes of law
The attributes of omnipresence and eternity are only the beginning. On close examination, other divine attributes seem to belong to scientific laws. Consider. If a law holds for all times, we presuppose that it is the same law through all times. The law does not change with time. It is immutable. A supposed “law” that did change with time would not really be “the law,” but one temporal phase in a higher or broader regularity that would account for the lower-level change. The higher, universal regularity is the law. The very concept of scientific law presupposes immutability.
Next, laws are at bottom ideational in character. We do not literally see a law, but only the effects of the law on the material world. The law is essentially immaterial and invisible, but is known through effects. Likewise, God is essentially immaterial and invisible, but is known through his acts in the world.
Real laws, as opposed to scientists’ approximations of them, are also absolutely, infallibly true. Truthfulness is also an attribute of God.
The power of law
Next consider the attribute of power. Scientists formulate laws as descriptions of regularities that they observe. The regularities are there in the world first, before the scientists make their formulations. The human scientific formulation follows the facts, and is dependent on them. But the facts must conform to a regularity even before the scientist formulates a description. A law or regularity must hold for a whole series of cases. The scientist cannot force the issue by inventing a law and then forcing the universe to conform to the law. The universe rather conforms to laws already there, laws that are discovered rather than invented. The laws must already be there. They must actually hold. They must “have teeth.” If they are truly universal, they are not violated. No event escapes their “hold” or dominion. The power of these real laws is absolute, in fact, infinite. In classical language, the law is omnipotent.
If law is omnipotent and universal, there are truly no exceptions. Do we, then, conclude that miracles are impossible because they are violations of law? In fact, miracles are in harmony with God’s character. They take place in accordance with his predictive and decretive word. The real law, the word of God, brings forth miracles. Miracles may be unusual and striking, but they do not violate God’s law. They violate only some human expectations and guesses. But that is our problem, not God’s. Just as Newton’s laws are limited to low velocity approximations, so the principle that ax heads do not float is limited by the qualification, “except when God in response to a special need and a prophet’s word does otherwise” (2 Kgs 6:5-6).
The law is both transcendent and immanent. It transcends the creatures of the world by exercising power over them, conforming them to its dictates. It is immanent in that it touches and holds in its dominion even the smallest bits of this world.8 Law transcends the galactic clusters and is immanently present in the chromodynamic dance of quarks and gluons in the bosom of a single proton.
The personal character of law
Many agnostic and atheistic scientists by this time will be looking for a way of escape. It seems that the key concept of scientific law is beginning to look suspiciously like the biblical idea of God. The most obvious escape, and the one that has rescued many from spiritual discomfort, is to deny that this law is personal. It is just there as an impersonal something.
Throughout the ages people have tried such routes. They have constructed idols, substitutes for God. Idols have enough similarities to the true God to be plausible, but differ so as to allow us comfort and the satisfaction of manipulating the substitutes that we construct.
In fact, a close look at scientific law shows that this escape route is not really plausible. Law implies a law-giver. Someone must think the law and enforce it, if it is to be effective. But if some people resist this direct move to personality, we may move more indirectly.
Scientists in practice believe passionately in the rationality of scientific law. We are not dealing with an irrational, totally unaccountable and unanalyzable surd, but with lawfulness that in some sense is accessible to human understanding. Rationality is a sine qua non for scientific law. But, as we know, rationality belongs to persons, not to rocks, trees, and subpersonal creatures. If the law is rational, which scientists assume it is, then it is also personal.
Scientists also assume that laws can be articulated, expressed, communicated, and understood through human language. Scientific work includes not only rational thought, but symbolic communication. Now, the original, the law “out there,” is not known to be written or uttered in a human language. But it must be expressible in language in our secondary description. It must be translatable not only into one but many human languages. We may represent restrictions, qualifications, definitions, and contexts for a law through clauses, phrases, explanatory paragraphs, and contextual explanations in human language. Scientific law is clearly like a human utterance in its ability to be grammatically articulated, paraphrased, translated, and illustrated. Law is utterance-like, language-like. And the complexity of utterances that we find among scientists, as well among human beings in general, is not duplicated in the animal world. Language is one of the defining characteristics that separates man from animals. Language, like rationality, belongs to persons. It follows that scientific law is in essence personal.9
Incomprehensibility of law
In addition, law is both knowable and incomprehensible in the theological sense. That is, we know scientific truths, but in the midst of this knowledge there remain unfathomed depths and unanswered questions about the very areas where we know the most.
The knowability of laws is closely related to their rationality and their immanence, displayed in the accessibility of effects. We experience incomprehensibility in the fact that the increase of scientific understanding only leads to ever deeper questions, “How can this be?” and “Why this law rather than many other ways that the human mind can imagine?” The profundity and mystery in scientific discoveries can only produce awe—yes, worship—if we have not blunted our perception with hubris (Isa 6:9-10).
Are we divinizing nature?
But now we must consider an objection. By claiming that scientific laws have divine attributes, are we not divinizing nature? Are not scientific laws a part of the created world? Should not we classify them as creature rather than Creator?
I suspect that specificity of scientific laws, their obvious reference to the created world, has become the occasion for many of us to infer that these laws are a part of the created world. But such an inference is clearly invalid. The speech describing a butterfly is not itself a butterfly or a part of a butterfly. Speech referring to the created world is not necessarily an ontological part of the world to which it refers.
In addition, let us remember that we are speaking of real laws, not merely our human guesses and approximations. The real laws are in fact the word of God, specifying how the world of creatures is to function. So-called “law” is simply God speaking, God acting, God manifesting himself in time and space. The real mistake here is not a matter of divinizing nature, but of refusing to recognize that the law is the law of God, nothing less than God speaking. We are confronting God.
The key idea that the law is divine is not only older than the rise of modern science, but older than the rise of Christianity. Even before the coming of Christ people noticed profound regularity in the government of the world, and wrestled with the meaning of this regularity. Both the Greeks (especially the Stoics) and the Jews (especially Philo) developed speculations about the logos, the divine "word" or "reason" behind what is observed.10 Jews had in addition the OT revelation of the role of the word of God in creation and providence. Against this background John 1:1 proclaims, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John responds to the speculations of his time with a striking revelation: that the Word (logos) that created and sustains the universe is not only a divine Person "with God," but the very One who became incarnate: "the Word became flesh" (1:14).
God said, "Let there be light" (Gen 1:3). He referred to light as a part of the created world. But precisely in this reference, his word has divine power to bring creation into being. The effect in creation took place at a particular time. But the plan for creation, as exhibited in God's word, is eternal. Likewise, God's speech to us in the Bible refers to various parts of the created world, but the speech (in distinction to the things to which it refers) is divine in power, authority, majesty, righteousness, eternity, and truth.11 The analogy with the Incarnation should give us our clue. The Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal Word of God, became man in the Incarnation, but did not therefore cease to be God. Likewise, when God speaks and says what is to be the case in this world, his words do not cease to have the divine power and unchangeability that belongs to him. Rather, they remain divine, and in addition have the power to specify the situation with respect to creaturely affairs. The word remains divine when it becomes law, a specific directive with respect to this created world.
Goodness of law
Is the law good? Ah, here we run into struggles. Many people say that the evils in the world are the greatest obstacle to believing in God.12 Larson and Witham’s survey of scientists and religion quotes Albert Einstein as saying, “in their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God.”13
But it is not quite so simple. We may appeal to a standard of good in order to judge that an existing situation is evil. In doing so, we appeal to a standard beyond the confines of the empirical world. We appeal to a standard, a law. To give up the idea of moral law is to give up the very basis on which criticism of evil depends. Moral law is thus indispensable to atheist argument, but at the same time it presupposes an absolute. This absolute, in order to obligate us and hold us accountable, must be personal. The Bible's answer alone gives clarity here. God’s character is the ultimate source of moral law. And man made in the image of God is aware of this law (Rom 1:32). But man rebelled against God. The existing evils are a consequence. Do not cast moral blame on God but on man.
The goodness of God is displayed most clearly in the moral law of God. But for many modern people, influenced by Kant and the subsequent history of ideas, moral law is radically subjectified, and radically separated from physical law or scientific law. In order to engage scientists most directly, we need to return to consider scientific law.
Subtle indications of the goodness of God belong to the concept of scientific law. One might put it this way, that scientists expect "nature" to be sometimes subtle, but never perverse. Law does not play tricks, deliberately hiding itself and giving anomalous results simply to confound the researcher. "Nature" plays fair. Or, to put it more accurately, God “plays fair.” All scientists, to continue with sanity in their research, must believe that the laws of the universe “play fair” with them. There is a fundamental goodness, as opposed to perversity, in the way in which results arise from scientific investigation.
Beauty of law
Scientific laws, especially “deep” laws, are beautiful. Scientists have long sifted through possible hypotheses and models partly on the basis of the criteria of beauty and simplicity. Why? They clearly expect new laws, as well as the old ones, to show beauty and simplicity. Though beauty has not been a favorite topic in classical expositions of the doctrine of God, the Bible shows us a God who is profoundly beautiful. He manifests himself in beauty in the design of the tabernacle, the poetry of the Psalms, and the elegance of Christ’s parables, as well as the moral beauty of the life of Christ.
Rectitude of law
Another attribute of God is righteousness. God’s righteousness is displayed preeminently in the moral law and in the moral rectitude of his judgments, that is, his rewards and punishments based on moral law. But moral law, as we have observed, lies outside the area of scientists’ special focus. Does God’s rectitude appear in physical law, scientific law?
The traces are somewhat less obvious, but still present. The rectitude of God is closely related to the fitness of his acts. It fits the character of who God is that we should worship him alone (Exod. 20:3). It fits the character of human beings made in the image of God that they should imitate God by keeping the sabbath (Exod 20:8-11). Human actions fitly correspond to the actions of God.
In addition, punishments must be fitting. Death is the fitting or matching penalty for murder (Gen 9:6). “As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head” (Obadiah 15). The punishment fits the crime. There is a symmetrical match between the nature of the crime and the punishment that fits it.14
In the arena of physical law we do not deal with crimes and punishments. But rectitude expresses itself in symmetries, in orderliness, in a “fittingness” to the character of law. Symmetries occur in fascinating ways throughout the natural world. Fundamental laws of physics have a deep connection with fundamental symmetries of space, time, charge, and parity. This “fitness” that scientists expect of law is perhaps closely related to beauty. God’s attributes are involved in one another and imply one another, so beauty and righteousness are closely related. It is the same with the area of physical law. Laws are both beautiful and “fitting,” demonstrating rectitude.
Law as Trinitarian
Dorothy Sayers acutely observes that the experience of a human author writing a book contains profound analogies to the Trinitarian character of God.15 An author’s act of creation in writing imitates the action of God in creating the world. God creates according to his Trinitarian nature. A human author creates with an Idea, Energy, and Power, corresponding mysteriously to the involvement of the Three Persons in creation. Without tracing Sayers’s reflections in detail, we may observe that the act of God in creation does involve all Three Persons. God the Father is the originator. God the Son, as the eternal Word (John 1:1-3), is involved in the words of command that issue from God (“Let there be light,” Gen. 1:3). God the Spirit hovers over the waters (Gen. 1:2). Psalm 104:30 says that “when you send forth your Spirit, they [animals] are created.” Moreover, the creation of Adam involves an inbreathing by God that alludes to the presence of the Spirit (Gen 2:7). Though the relation among the Persons of the Trinity is deeply mysterious, and though all Persons are involved in all the actions of God towards the world, we may still agree with Sayers that one can distinguish different aspects of action belonging preeminently to the different Persons.
Scientific law stems from the creative activity of God, who speaks his Word and brings forth the creation. The activity of all three Persons is therefore implicit in the very concept of scientific law. First, law involves a rationality that implies the coherence of a plan. This corresponds to Sayers’s term “Idea,” representing the plan of the Father. Second, law involves an articulation, a specification, an expression of the plan, with respect to all the particulars of a world. This corresponds to Sayers’s term “Energy” or “Activity,” representing the Word who is the expression of the Father. Third, law involves holding things responsible to law, a concrete application to creatures, bringing them to respond to the law as willed. This corresponds to Sayers’s term “Power,” representing the Spirit.
We may see a reflection of the Trinity in another way by using the categories already developed in Trinitarian theological meditations on the character of God and his Word.16 The law is universal and general, applying to a whole host of instances. In Trinitarian thinking, this universality or “classificational” aspect corresponds to the sameness of God the Father throughout time. The law also applies to each particular case. The particular instances exhibiting the application of law belong to the “instantiational” aspect, corresponding to the concrete manifestation of God in the Incarnation of Christ the Word. The law holds with respect to these instances, thereby establishing a relation between the generality of the law and the specificity of the instance. The relation is the “associational” aspect, corresponding to the role of the Spirit in the indwelling of Persons of the Trinity in one another and in believers.
God showing himself
These relations are suggestive, but we need not develop the thinking further at this point. It suffices to observe that, in reality, what people call “scientific law” is divine. We are speaking of God himself and his revelation of himself through his governance of the world. Scientists must believe in scientific law in order to carry out their work. When we analyze what this scientific law really is, we find that scientists are constantly confronted with God himself, the Trinitarian God, and are constantly depending on who he is and what he does in conformity with his divine nature.
But Do Scientists Believe?
But do scientists really believe all this? They do and they do not. The situation has already been described in the Bible.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom 1:19-20)
The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge. (Ps 19:1-2)
They know God. They rely on him. But because this knowledge is morally and spiritually painful, they also suppress and distort it:
… for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Rom 1:21-23)
Modern people may no longer make idols in the form of physical images, but their very idea of “scientific law” is an idolatrous twisting of their knowledge of God. They conceal from themselves the fact that this “law” is personal and that they are responsible to Him. Or they substitute the word “Nature,” personifying her as they talk glowingly of the works of “Mother Nature.” But they evade what they know of the transcendence of God over nature.
Even in their rebellion, people continue to depend on God being there. They show that in action they continue to believe in God. Cornelius Van Til compares it to an incident he saw on a train, where a small girl sitting on her grandfather’s lap slapped him in the face.17 The rebel must depend on God, “sitting on his lap,” even to be able to engage in rebellion.
Do We Christians Believe?
The fault, I suspect, is not entirely on the side of unbelievers. The fault is also ours. Christians have sometimes adopted an unbiblical concept of God that moves him one step out of the way of our ordinary affairs. We ourselves may think of “scientific law” or “natural law” as a kind of cosmic mechanism or impersonal clockwork that runs the world most of the time, while God is on vacation. God comes and acts only rarely through miracle. But this is not biblical. “You cause the grass to grow for the livestock” (Ps 104:14). “He gives snow like wool” (Ps 147:16).18 Let us not forget it. If we ourselves recovered a robust doctrine of God’s involvement in daily caring for his world in detail, we would find ourselves in a much better position to dialogue with atheist scientists who rely on that same care
Divine Attributes of Scientific Law
by Vern Sheridan Poythress
All scientists—including agnostics and atheists—believe in God. They have to in order to do their work.
It seems outrageous to include the agnostics and atheists. But by their actions people sometimes show that in a sense they believe in things that they profess not to believe. Bakht, a Vedantic Hindu philosopher, may say that the world is an illusion. But he does not casually walk into the street in front of an oncoming bus. Sue, a radical relativist, may say that there is no truth. But she travels calmly at 30,000 feet on a plane whose safe flight depends on the unchangeable truths of aerodynamics and structural mechanics.1
But what about scientists? Do they believe in God? Must they? Popular American culture often transmits the contrary idea, namely that science is antagonistic to orthodox Christian belief. Recitations of Galileo's conflict and of the Scopes Trial have gained mythic status, and receive reinforcement through vocal promotions of materialistic evolution.
Historians of science point out that modern science arose in the context of a Christian worldview, and was nourished and sustained by that view.2 But even if that was once so, twentieth century science seems to sustain itself without the help of explicit theistic underpinnings. In fact, many consider God to be the God of the gaps, the God whom people invoke only to account for gaps in modern scientific explanation. As science advances and more gaps become subject to explanation, the role of God diminishes. The natural drives out the need for the supernatural.3
Focusing on scientific law
The situation looks different if we refuse to confine God to “the gaps.” According to the Bible, he is involved in those areas where science does best, namely areas involving regular and predictable events, areas involving repeating patterns and sometimes exact mathematical descriptions. In Genesis 8:22 God promises,
While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. (ESV)4
This general promise concerning earthly regularities is supplemented by many particular examples:
You make darkness, and it is night,
when all the beasts of the forest creep about. (Ps 104:20)
You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth. (Ps 104:14)
He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
who can stand before his cold?
He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow and the waters flow. (Ps 147:15-18)
The regularities that scientists describe are the regularities of God’s own commitments and his actions. By his word to Noah, he commits himself to govern the seasons. By his word he governs snow, frost, and hail. Scientists describe the regularities in God’s word governing the world. So-called natural law is really the law of God or word of God, imperfectly and approximately described by human investigators.
Now, the work of science depends constantly on the fact that there are regularities in the world. Without the regularities, there would ultimately be nothing to study. Scientists depend not only on regularities with which they are already familiar, such as the regular behavior of measuring apparatus, but also on the postulate that still more regularities are to be found in the areas that they will investigate. Scientists must maintain hope of finding further regularities, or they would give up their newest explorations.
Belief in scientific laws
Now just what are these regularities? They go by various names, “natural law,” “scientific law,” “theory.” Some regularities can be exactly, quantitatively described for each case (within small limits of error), while others are statistical regularities that come to light only when a large number of cases are examined together. All scientists believe in the existence of such regularities. And in all cases, whatever their professed beliefs, scientists in practice know that the regularities are “out there.” Scientists in the end are all “realists” with respect to scientific laws. Scientists discover them and do not merely invent them. Otherwise, why go to the trouble, tedium, and frustration of experiment? Just make a guess, invent a new idea, and become famous!
These regularities are, well, regular. And to be regular means to be regulated. It involves a regula, a rule. Webster’s Dictionary captures the point by defining “regular” as “formed, built, arranged, or ordered according to some established rule, law, principle, or type.”5 The idea of a law or rule is built into the concept. Events happen in time and space. When these events exhibit a regularity, they are formed or ordered according to a rule or law. Thus the word “law” is natural for well-established scientific theories and principles. We speak of Newton’s laws, Boyle’s law, Dalton’s law, Mendel’s laws, Kirchhoff’s laws. All scientists believe in and rely on the existence of scientific laws.
Universal applicability of scientific law
What characteristics must a scientific law have in order even to be a law? Again, we concentrate on the practice of scientists rather than their metaphysical musings. We ask, “Whatever their professed philosophy, what do scientists expect in practice?” Just as the relativist expects the plane to fly, the scientist expects the laws to hold.
Scientists think of laws as universal in time and space. Kirchhoff’s laws concerning electrical circuits apply only to electrical circuits, not to other kinds of situation. But they apply in principle to electrical circuits at any time and in any place. Sometimes, of course, scientists uncover limitations in earlier formulations. Some laws, like Newton’s laws, are not really universal, but apply accurately only to a restricted situation such as low velocity motion of large, massive objects.6 In the light of later knowledge, we would say that Newton’s laws were always only an approximation to the real pattern of regularity or lawfulness in the world. We modify Newton’s laws, or we include the specific restriction to low velocity within our formulation of the laws. Then we say that they apply to all times and places where these restrictions hold.
Thus, within the very concept of law lies the expectation that we include all times and all places. That is to say, the law, if it really is a law and is correctly formulated and qualified, holds for all times and all places. The classic terms are omnipresence (all places) and eternity (all times). Law has two attributes classically attributed to God. Technically, God’s eternity is usually conceived of as being “above” or “beyond” time. But words like “above” and “beyond” are metaphorical and point to mysteries. There is, in fact, an analogous mystery with respect to law. If “law” is universal, is it not in some sense “beyond” the particularities of any one place or time? Moreover, within a biblical worldview, God is not only “above” time in the sense of not being subject to the limitations of finite creaturely experience of time, but he is “in” time in the sense of acting in time and interacting with his creatures.7 Similarly, law is “above” time in its universality, but “in” time through its applicability to each particular situation.
Divine attributes of law
The attributes of omnipresence and eternity are only the beginning. On close examination, other divine attributes seem to belong to scientific laws. Consider. If a law holds for all times, we presuppose that it is the same law through all times. The law does not change with time. It is immutable. A supposed “law” that did change with time would not really be “the law,” but one temporal phase in a higher or broader regularity that would account for the lower-level change. The higher, universal regularity is the law. The very concept of scientific law presupposes immutability.
Next, laws are at bottom ideational in character. We do not literally see a law, but only the effects of the law on the material world. The law is essentially immaterial and invisible, but is known through effects. Likewise, God is essentially immaterial and invisible, but is known through his acts in the world.
Real laws, as opposed to scientists’ approximations of them, are also absolutely, infallibly true. Truthfulness is also an attribute of God.
The power of law
Next consider the attribute of power. Scientists formulate laws as descriptions of regularities that they observe. The regularities are there in the world first, before the scientists make their formulations. The human scientific formulation follows the facts, and is dependent on them. But the facts must conform to a regularity even before the scientist formulates a description. A law or regularity must hold for a whole series of cases. The scientist cannot force the issue by inventing a law and then forcing the universe to conform to the law. The universe rather conforms to laws already there, laws that are discovered rather than invented. The laws must already be there. They must actually hold. They must “have teeth.” If they are truly universal, they are not violated. No event escapes their “hold” or dominion. The power of these real laws is absolute, in fact, infinite. In classical language, the law is omnipotent.
If law is omnipotent and universal, there are truly no exceptions. Do we, then, conclude that miracles are impossible because they are violations of law? In fact, miracles are in harmony with God’s character. They take place in accordance with his predictive and decretive word. The real law, the word of God, brings forth miracles. Miracles may be unusual and striking, but they do not violate God’s law. They violate only some human expectations and guesses. But that is our problem, not God’s. Just as Newton’s laws are limited to low velocity approximations, so the principle that ax heads do not float is limited by the qualification, “except when God in response to a special need and a prophet’s word does otherwise” (2 Kgs 6:5-6).
The law is both transcendent and immanent. It transcends the creatures of the world by exercising power over them, conforming them to its dictates. It is immanent in that it touches and holds in its dominion even the smallest bits of this world.8 Law transcends the galactic clusters and is immanently present in the chromodynamic dance of quarks and gluons in the bosom of a single proton.
The personal character of law
Many agnostic and atheistic scientists by this time will be looking for a way of escape. It seems that the key concept of scientific law is beginning to look suspiciously like the biblical idea of God. The most obvious escape, and the one that has rescued many from spiritual discomfort, is to deny that this law is personal. It is just there as an impersonal something.
Throughout the ages people have tried such routes. They have constructed idols, substitutes for God. Idols have enough similarities to the true God to be plausible, but differ so as to allow us comfort and the satisfaction of manipulating the substitutes that we construct.
In fact, a close look at scientific law shows that this escape route is not really plausible. Law implies a law-giver. Someone must think the law and enforce it, if it is to be effective. But if some people resist this direct move to personality, we may move more indirectly.
Scientists in practice believe passionately in the rationality of scientific law. We are not dealing with an irrational, totally unaccountable and unanalyzable surd, but with lawfulness that in some sense is accessible to human understanding. Rationality is a sine qua non for scientific law. But, as we know, rationality belongs to persons, not to rocks, trees, and subpersonal creatures. If the law is rational, which scientists assume it is, then it is also personal.
Scientists also assume that laws can be articulated, expressed, communicated, and understood through human language. Scientific work includes not only rational thought, but symbolic communication. Now, the original, the law “out there,” is not known to be written or uttered in a human language. But it must be expressible in language in our secondary description. It must be translatable not only into one but many human languages. We may represent restrictions, qualifications, definitions, and contexts for a law through clauses, phrases, explanatory paragraphs, and contextual explanations in human language. Scientific law is clearly like a human utterance in its ability to be grammatically articulated, paraphrased, translated, and illustrated. Law is utterance-like, language-like. And the complexity of utterances that we find among scientists, as well among human beings in general, is not duplicated in the animal world. Language is one of the defining characteristics that separates man from animals. Language, like rationality, belongs to persons. It follows that scientific law is in essence personal.9
Incomprehensibility of law
In addition, law is both knowable and incomprehensible in the theological sense. That is, we know scientific truths, but in the midst of this knowledge there remain unfathomed depths and unanswered questions about the very areas where we know the most.
The knowability of laws is closely related to their rationality and their immanence, displayed in the accessibility of effects. We experience incomprehensibility in the fact that the increase of scientific understanding only leads to ever deeper questions, “How can this be?” and “Why this law rather than many other ways that the human mind can imagine?” The profundity and mystery in scientific discoveries can only produce awe—yes, worship—if we have not blunted our perception with hubris (Isa 6:9-10).
Are we divinizing nature?
But now we must consider an objection. By claiming that scientific laws have divine attributes, are we not divinizing nature? Are not scientific laws a part of the created world? Should not we classify them as creature rather than Creator?
I suspect that specificity of scientific laws, their obvious reference to the created world, has become the occasion for many of us to infer that these laws are a part of the created world. But such an inference is clearly invalid. The speech describing a butterfly is not itself a butterfly or a part of a butterfly. Speech referring to the created world is not necessarily an ontological part of the world to which it refers.
In addition, let us remember that we are speaking of real laws, not merely our human guesses and approximations. The real laws are in fact the word of God, specifying how the world of creatures is to function. So-called “law” is simply God speaking, God acting, God manifesting himself in time and space. The real mistake here is not a matter of divinizing nature, but of refusing to recognize that the law is the law of God, nothing less than God speaking. We are confronting God.
The key idea that the law is divine is not only older than the rise of modern science, but older than the rise of Christianity. Even before the coming of Christ people noticed profound regularity in the government of the world, and wrestled with the meaning of this regularity. Both the Greeks (especially the Stoics) and the Jews (especially Philo) developed speculations about the logos, the divine "word" or "reason" behind what is observed.10 Jews had in addition the OT revelation of the role of the word of God in creation and providence. Against this background John 1:1 proclaims, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John responds to the speculations of his time with a striking revelation: that the Word (logos) that created and sustains the universe is not only a divine Person "with God," but the very One who became incarnate: "the Word became flesh" (1:14).
God said, "Let there be light" (Gen 1:3). He referred to light as a part of the created world. But precisely in this reference, his word has divine power to bring creation into being. The effect in creation took place at a particular time. But the plan for creation, as exhibited in God's word, is eternal. Likewise, God's speech to us in the Bible refers to various parts of the created world, but the speech (in distinction to the things to which it refers) is divine in power, authority, majesty, righteousness, eternity, and truth.11 The analogy with the Incarnation should give us our clue. The Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal Word of God, became man in the Incarnation, but did not therefore cease to be God. Likewise, when God speaks and says what is to be the case in this world, his words do not cease to have the divine power and unchangeability that belongs to him. Rather, they remain divine, and in addition have the power to specify the situation with respect to creaturely affairs. The word remains divine when it becomes law, a specific directive with respect to this created world.
Goodness of law
Is the law good? Ah, here we run into struggles. Many people say that the evils in the world are the greatest obstacle to believing in God.12 Larson and Witham’s survey of scientists and religion quotes Albert Einstein as saying, “in their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God.”13
But it is not quite so simple. We may appeal to a standard of good in order to judge that an existing situation is evil. In doing so, we appeal to a standard beyond the confines of the empirical world. We appeal to a standard, a law. To give up the idea of moral law is to give up the very basis on which criticism of evil depends. Moral law is thus indispensable to atheist argument, but at the same time it presupposes an absolute. This absolute, in order to obligate us and hold us accountable, must be personal. The Bible's answer alone gives clarity here. God’s character is the ultimate source of moral law. And man made in the image of God is aware of this law (Rom 1:32). But man rebelled against God. The existing evils are a consequence. Do not cast moral blame on God but on man.
The goodness of God is displayed most clearly in the moral law of God. But for many modern people, influenced by Kant and the subsequent history of ideas, moral law is radically subjectified, and radically separated from physical law or scientific law. In order to engage scientists most directly, we need to return to consider scientific law.
Subtle indications of the goodness of God belong to the concept of scientific law. One might put it this way, that scientists expect "nature" to be sometimes subtle, but never perverse. Law does not play tricks, deliberately hiding itself and giving anomalous results simply to confound the researcher. "Nature" plays fair. Or, to put it more accurately, God “plays fair.” All scientists, to continue with sanity in their research, must believe that the laws of the universe “play fair” with them. There is a fundamental goodness, as opposed to perversity, in the way in which results arise from scientific investigation.
Beauty of law
Scientific laws, especially “deep” laws, are beautiful. Scientists have long sifted through possible hypotheses and models partly on the basis of the criteria of beauty and simplicity. Why? They clearly expect new laws, as well as the old ones, to show beauty and simplicity. Though beauty has not been a favorite topic in classical expositions of the doctrine of God, the Bible shows us a God who is profoundly beautiful. He manifests himself in beauty in the design of the tabernacle, the poetry of the Psalms, and the elegance of Christ’s parables, as well as the moral beauty of the life of Christ.
Rectitude of law
Another attribute of God is righteousness. God’s righteousness is displayed preeminently in the moral law and in the moral rectitude of his judgments, that is, his rewards and punishments based on moral law. But moral law, as we have observed, lies outside the area of scientists’ special focus. Does God’s rectitude appear in physical law, scientific law?
The traces are somewhat less obvious, but still present. The rectitude of God is closely related to the fitness of his acts. It fits the character of who God is that we should worship him alone (Exod. 20:3). It fits the character of human beings made in the image of God that they should imitate God by keeping the sabbath (Exod 20:8-11). Human actions fitly correspond to the actions of God.
In addition, punishments must be fitting. Death is the fitting or matching penalty for murder (Gen 9:6). “As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head” (Obadiah 15). The punishment fits the crime. There is a symmetrical match between the nature of the crime and the punishment that fits it.14
In the arena of physical law we do not deal with crimes and punishments. But rectitude expresses itself in symmetries, in orderliness, in a “fittingness” to the character of law. Symmetries occur in fascinating ways throughout the natural world. Fundamental laws of physics have a deep connection with fundamental symmetries of space, time, charge, and parity. This “fitness” that scientists expect of law is perhaps closely related to beauty. God’s attributes are involved in one another and imply one another, so beauty and righteousness are closely related. It is the same with the area of physical law. Laws are both beautiful and “fitting,” demonstrating rectitude.
Law as Trinitarian
Dorothy Sayers acutely observes that the experience of a human author writing a book contains profound analogies to the Trinitarian character of God.15 An author’s act of creation in writing imitates the action of God in creating the world. God creates according to his Trinitarian nature. A human author creates with an Idea, Energy, and Power, corresponding mysteriously to the involvement of the Three Persons in creation. Without tracing Sayers’s reflections in detail, we may observe that the act of God in creation does involve all Three Persons. God the Father is the originator. God the Son, as the eternal Word (John 1:1-3), is involved in the words of command that issue from God (“Let there be light,” Gen. 1:3). God the Spirit hovers over the waters (Gen. 1:2). Psalm 104:30 says that “when you send forth your Spirit, they [animals] are created.” Moreover, the creation of Adam involves an inbreathing by God that alludes to the presence of the Spirit (Gen 2:7). Though the relation among the Persons of the Trinity is deeply mysterious, and though all Persons are involved in all the actions of God towards the world, we may still agree with Sayers that one can distinguish different aspects of action belonging preeminently to the different Persons.
Scientific law stems from the creative activity of God, who speaks his Word and brings forth the creation. The activity of all three Persons is therefore implicit in the very concept of scientific law. First, law involves a rationality that implies the coherence of a plan. This corresponds to Sayers’s term “Idea,” representing the plan of the Father. Second, law involves an articulation, a specification, an expression of the plan, with respect to all the particulars of a world. This corresponds to Sayers’s term “Energy” or “Activity,” representing the Word who is the expression of the Father. Third, law involves holding things responsible to law, a concrete application to creatures, bringing them to respond to the law as willed. This corresponds to Sayers’s term “Power,” representing the Spirit.
We may see a reflection of the Trinity in another way by using the categories already developed in Trinitarian theological meditations on the character of God and his Word.16 The law is universal and general, applying to a whole host of instances. In Trinitarian thinking, this universality or “classificational” aspect corresponds to the sameness of God the Father throughout time. The law also applies to each particular case. The particular instances exhibiting the application of law belong to the “instantiational” aspect, corresponding to the concrete manifestation of God in the Incarnation of Christ the Word. The law holds with respect to these instances, thereby establishing a relation between the generality of the law and the specificity of the instance. The relation is the “associational” aspect, corresponding to the role of the Spirit in the indwelling of Persons of the Trinity in one another and in believers.
God showing himself
These relations are suggestive, but we need not develop the thinking further at this point. It suffices to observe that, in reality, what people call “scientific law” is divine. We are speaking of God himself and his revelation of himself through his governance of the world. Scientists must believe in scientific law in order to carry out their work. When we analyze what this scientific law really is, we find that scientists are constantly confronted with God himself, the Trinitarian God, and are constantly depending on who he is and what he does in conformity with his divine nature.
But Do Scientists Believe?
But do scientists really believe all this? They do and they do not. The situation has already been described in the Bible.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom 1:19-20)
The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge. (Ps 19:1-2)
They know God. They rely on him. But because this knowledge is morally and spiritually painful, they also suppress and distort it:
… for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Rom 1:21-23)
Modern people may no longer make idols in the form of physical images, but their very idea of “scientific law” is an idolatrous twisting of their knowledge of God. They conceal from themselves the fact that this “law” is personal and that they are responsible to Him. Or they substitute the word “Nature,” personifying her as they talk glowingly of the works of “Mother Nature.” But they evade what they know of the transcendence of God over nature.
Even in their rebellion, people continue to depend on God being there. They show that in action they continue to believe in God. Cornelius Van Til compares it to an incident he saw on a train, where a small girl sitting on her grandfather’s lap slapped him in the face.17 The rebel must depend on God, “sitting on his lap,” even to be able to engage in rebellion.
Do We Christians Believe?
The fault, I suspect, is not entirely on the side of unbelievers. The fault is also ours. Christians have sometimes adopted an unbiblical concept of God that moves him one step out of the way of our ordinary affairs. We ourselves may think of “scientific law” or “natural law” as a kind of cosmic mechanism or impersonal clockwork that runs the world most of the time, while God is on vacation. God comes and acts only rarely through miracle. But this is not biblical. “You cause the grass to grow for the livestock” (Ps 104:14). “He gives snow like wool” (Ps 147:16).18 Let us not forget it. If we ourselves recovered a robust doctrine of God’s involvement in daily caring for his world in detail, we would find ourselves in a much better position to dialogue with atheist scientists who rely on that same care
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