tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57132889310106864122024-02-20T07:46:13.996-08:00Ramblings of a ThomistIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-80951009106100643672009-10-15T06:36:00.000-07:002010-07-18T01:54:40.783-07:00Dawkins' Fatal Flaw<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtvVI0CVlmqaDQ1YAXUqs9T1Too-UtuuGhvuUBnVYSOZqVzIWTBPl_iD57P38cfBN8Z6oL-YyV0ZYjvxENY8XeHlGxe8QAQ-9r2sh2Sz4SModC0zdoaR_ecAFC6A_rGbTA9JIX9ROGD3w/s1600-h/Dawkins.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtvVI0CVlmqaDQ1YAXUqs9T1Too-UtuuGhvuUBnVYSOZqVzIWTBPl_iD57P38cfBN8Z6oL-YyV0ZYjvxENY8XeHlGxe8QAQ-9r2sh2Sz4SModC0zdoaR_ecAFC6A_rGbTA9JIX9ROGD3w/s320/Dawkins.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392820993636439730" border="0" /></a>It has been a long time since I have been able to blog. The truth is that things have been really busy around here between completing a Masters Degree, applying for PhD programs, and taking care of a newborn. However, I have a really good reason to start again.<br /><div id="pBlogBody_514430113" class="blogContent"><br />Last night I had the opportunity to go watch a lecture by Richard Dawkins here in Charlotte. It was a short lecture in which he read sections from his new book, <i>The Greatest Show on Earth. </i>However, it was long enough for him to introduce what I think is a fatal error for his whole claim that evolution is a fact beyond a reasonable doubt.<br /><br />You see, Dawkins admits that the evolution of species (the adaptation of one species to another) is not something that is seen firsthand. Instead, it is the conclusion drawn by means of a forensic investigation. That is, he says that solving the question of descent is much like solving a murder, one need only look at the traces of evidence left behind. Now, I believe that this places him in an interesting dilemma. Let me explain.<br /><br />Based on the forensic nature of the evolutionary claim, I turned my attention to the evidence itself. The first and primary evidence that he offered was the fossil evidence. His claim was that there are no "missing links" in this evidence. Now, contrary to the typical "Christian response" I have no problem granting that this is true. In fact, I am willing to accept that not only do all the actual fossils exist, but lets hypothesize that every conceivable fossil evidence also exists. This would make Dawkins body of evidence perfectly complete. But what does this get him? I don't think it helps his case one iota. Why? Just think about what can be learned from a fossil. I fossil can give you size, shape, kind, temporal order, and age. However, a fossil cannot give you what evolutionists claim it can. It cannot give you descent. Thus, while the fossil record is a necessary condition for the truth of evolution it is not a sufficient condition for the truth of evolution.<br /><br />For those of you who are not familiar with this distinction, a necessary condition is a condition that must be true in order for another condition to be true. For example, the existence of oxygen is necessary for the existence of fire.<br /><br />On the other hand, a sufficient condition is a condition that guarantees the truth of another condition. For example, the existence of fire guarantees the existence of oxygen.<br /><br />Now lets understand this better. A necessary condition is not enough to prove that the condition that it links to is true. Consider the fire and oxygen examples. It is true that oxygen is necessary for fire. But that says nothing as to whether there actually is any fire. The only way that one can determine if there is fire is to see it. In the same way, if the fossil record is only a necessary condition, its existence does nothing to say whether or not evolution has occurred. The most that one can say is that it is possible. But it is just as possible that the fossil record is the way it is for any other logically sound reason.<br /><br />The same can be said for other apparent "evidences" such as similarity of DNA, the geological spread of fossil evidence, etc.<br /><br />Thus, by admitting that evolution is known forensically, Dawkins has cut himself off from being able to prove his case. Now, he could possibly answer this criticism. All he has to do is provide a sufficient condition for evolution to be true. I would love to see this attempt. Any takers?<br /><br />Oh, one last thing. Lest any of you be tempted to argue that the current evidence provides a cumulative case for evolution, it will not work. Each piece of evidence at best provides a 50/50 probability for evolution. Thus, whatever is held to be contrary to evolution maintains the equal possibility of being the case. For example, similarity of DNA structure does not by itself in any way support common descent more than common creator. One could just as easily make the case that the evidence presents a cumulative case for a design theory.<br /></div> <!--- blogger's current book/movie/music/games --->Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-5181933523001158512009-05-11T20:47:00.000-07:002010-07-18T01:54:40.799-07:00Book Review: The Message Behing the Movie by Douglas Beaumont<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3E_TStQNI7Kswj8qkVyBtgduLk-oCN-LPQUWSKshYvpt2KNDogrwqT5C0kWp5urfZMwqAQ6iie62hFKTWAIbK3SsiuFaVnPILpGDAyo6ejPhyt9Akc8mc-19ncFujeyc8kGhGb0U3Nwc/s1600-h/Beaumont.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334780045648462562" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3E_TStQNI7Kswj8qkVyBtgduLk-oCN-LPQUWSKshYvpt2KNDogrwqT5C0kWp5urfZMwqAQ6iie62hFKTWAIbK3SsiuFaVnPILpGDAyo6ejPhyt9Akc8mc-19ncFujeyc8kGhGb0U3Nwc/s320/Beaumont.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Introduction</strong><br /><br />I recently received and have read a new book written by a good friend of mine whose name is Douglas Beaumont. This book, The Message Behind the Movie, attempts to explain how the tendency of Christians to take one of two extreme positions regarding Christianity and the culture—either they tend to be Christian anti-culturists who disavow all things Hollywood or they tend to be naïve advocates of all things Hollywood, considering all content to be harmless in light of its fictional nature—is a problem that needs to be addressed. After offering a short critique of these positions, Doug attempts to fill the apparent hole with a median position that is at the same time both Christian and relevant. As I have already mentioned, I am good friends with Doug, as well as a very grateful student of his. Nonetheless, I will consider his position and will do my best to maintain objectivity. That being said, I will consider this book in accordance with its own threefold division.<br /><br /><strong>Synopsis of the Book</strong><br /><br /><em>Act One: Watching and Understanding Movies<br /></em><br />In the first part of his book, Beaumont gives a general introduction to the aforementioned problem of shallow Christian movie-reviewing and proceeds to build his replacement. He starts by considering the anti-Hollywood position. Here, Doug does an interesting job of building a historico-philosophical backdrop by tying this failing position to the Platonic assumption that art is bad for the soul. (I will not mention the criticisms of this, or any other position that he offers, for spoilers suck just as much for an argumentative read as they do for a suspenseful movie.) Next he considers the opposite position of naïve unconcern for the content of movies and offers some criticisms. After presenting the problem, he gives his solution and proceeds to give the tools needed to implement it.<br /><br />In the remainder of this first section, Beaumont considers many elements of a movie, including its story, style, worldview, and message. The book has a section on each element. Within each section he describes the element and offers how this each element may be susceptible to unfair criticism or under-criticism by the two extreme camps, offering solutions where he does this.<br /><br /><em>Act Two: Evaluating and Discussing Movies<br /></em><br />In this second section of The Message Behind the Movie, Beaumont addresses the religious issues that often are involved in the storylines of movies, whether explicitly or implicitly. Such issues include the nature of salvation, the nature of ultimate reality, the existence of God, and the Bible. Beaumont’s approach is to give examples of how these issues show up in movies, explain the error often associated with the movie’s claims, and to give a defense of the historic Christian faith. Finally, at the end of every section, he gives a scenario which involves fictional characters discussing these themes in light of actual movies.<br /><br /><em>Act Three: Applauding and Avoiding Movies<br /></em><br />In this short final section, Beaumont considers some popular biblical arguments that would seem to counter his mediating position on the matter of entertainment, and he explains that they are based on a poor understanding of the text. He then concludes with a contrast between legalism and spiritual maturity.<br /><br /><strong>My Assessment</strong><br /><br /><em>Act One</em><br /><br />Overall, I am very appreciative of the intention of this section of the book. Until recently, I had never been one to consider a movie (and other forms of entertainment such as music) as much more than a medium for rest—a psychological nap. Having been a person like this I easily found myself falling into that camp that treated movies as ineffectual on one’s disposition—just harmless entertainment despite the content. After finding this to be a failed position, I found myself in the other camp, ready to discount all movies that had a portrayal of evil. Not to my surprise, I quickly found this position to be untenable, and rather boring. However, as of late I have found myself more critical (in the good sense) of those movies that I watch. For example, this weekend I watched two movies (prior to reading this book), The Wrestler and The Uninvited.<br /><br />The first movie had as a major element of its story repeated visitations to a strip club. While in the past I would have simply thought that this fact should result in turning the movie off immediately, I found myself less than bothered by it, and even understanding of its purpose there (to portray the despair of the protagonist). However, I still chose to redirect my eyes when any nudity appeared, evidencing the fact that my rejection of the anti-Hollywood attitude did not leave me in the naïve position. Now, I was rather unreflective into these reactions, but The Message Behind the Movie did a good of giving an explanation as to why I had them. It flows from my being a more reflective person to begin with (which has been developed in my philosophical training). So, whereas I was rather consciously unreflective in my watching of the movie, some of my speculative habits spilt over, which made the movie watching experience more fulfilling. Now this was only accidental for me, and without my philosophical training it would most likely have been completely missed. But what about those people who lack such training? These people may be discounting movies with good messages because they do not see the purpose of a “strip club scene” or something similar. Beaumont’s book helps to understand how to evaluate such content.<br /><br />The second movie was different. It wasn’t a movie that included such scenes. Instead, it was a suspenseful movie. And, as with any decent suspense movie, there was a twist. Now, once the twist occurred, the movie went back and tied it to a seemingly unimportant scene in the beginning of the movie. I found it to be quite surprising, yet gratifying. I was really able to appreciate the director’s arrangement. Now, had I read The Message Behind the Movie prior to watching this, I would have possibly been able to pick up on this fact, since it occurs within the first thirty minutes (which Doug explains would include no “filler” in a well done movie). Thus, I would have been able to be more active in my consideration of the plot, which would have made for a richer movie watching experience.<br /><br />Now that I have read this book, I look forward to future movie watching where I can expect a new appreciation for the art. However, there is one element of this section that I was left confused about. In the very beginning, Beaumont compares the anti-Christian attitude to the Platonic attitude of looking down upon art. However, I do not think that this analogy is the correct one for his message. I do not think that these Christians view art as bad because it stirs the emotions and supersedes the intellect, as Plato did. I think that most Christians are worried about the depiction of evil in films simply because it is evil. Thus, I think the real problem is not that Christians are Platonic; I think that it is because they are Kantian. Such Christians will tend to think that it is always wrong under all circumstances to depict sin. This is what is known as moral absolutism. I think that this is the philosophical foundation for this error, not the faulty Platonic ontology. That said, I think that Doug’s turn to Aristotle is still a move in the right direction, though I believe that a consideration of his virtue-theory of ethics will bring forth the real solution that he ultimately advocates. Knowing Doug, I am sure that he would agree with me about this psychological description of these critical believers and I am sure that he is completely aware that what he is advocating is a sort of virtue-theory of movie watching. Thus, this critique is not about his message, which I wholeheartedly agree with, it is simply about his corollary.<br /><br /><em>Act Two<br /></em><br />As I began reading act two, I found myself a bit confused. I have to say that I was not at all expecting a section that focused on speculative apologetics. I think that a large part of my problem here was the complete lack of mention in the book title, the section heading, or the chapter headings that instilling tools for evangelism was a goal for this book. Now, I know that Beaumont discusses the importance of engaging the culture through the medium of movies in Act One; however I thought that this meant that the book was going to consider the mechanics of doing that. I do not think that this necessarily takes away from the book; in fact I think that Beaumont was wise in choosing to include this information, considering the obvious fact that the church has not been adequately exposed to the reasons why Christianity is properly considered to be a rational belief system. I just think that titling the section and chapters differently could have gone a long way in preparing me for the move.<br /><br />That having been said, the apologetic arguments offered by Beaumont are instances of the standard arguments historically used by classical apologists. There is little in the way of anything new in his arguments, nor should there be since this is clearly a book aimed to convey the information in a summary fashion for those who have never heard it before. This is exactly the kind of information that I was thankful for when I first discovered apologetics, and for his recognition as to what the church needs, Beaumont should be praised. I know first hand how easy it is to want to go deeper into these issues because I know just how detailed the discussion can get. Good for him for remembering that this book is a tool for educating neophytes. Finally, I really appreciated the dialogical section at the end of every chapter. It is in this section that I think Beaumont demonstrably evidences his petition that the culture needs to be accessed in order for evangelism to be relevant and effective.<br /><br /><em>Act Three<br /></em><br />There is little to say regarding the final section. I thought that it was very appropriate and well put. Some may wish that Beaumont had given a list of dos and don’ts for a Christian movie watcher, but if they had they would be missing the whole point (and should buy another copy and start over . . . . j/k).<br /><br /><strong>Concluding Thoughts<br /></strong><br />Upon completion of this book I am especially happy that I read the first section, pleased that the second section is included, and glad at the open door left in the third section. The problems that I have with the book are circumstantial, for the most part, and do not relate to the overall argument presented. Being a book which appears to have been intended as an introduction, I think it succeeds wonderfully in its goal. When all is considered, I will give this book 4.5 out of five, the half point being taken for the confusion regarding the second section. Nonetheless, that confusion would not inhibit me in the least from recommending The Message Behind the Movie to any Christian who wishes to be a successful evangelist, whether to millions, or simply to their friends. This is a terribly important message that could not be released at a better time.<br /><br />Finally, I hope for the author and the publisher to consider a series of sequels, and to dive deeper into these topics discussed. I would like to see the first section expanded into its own volume, if not multiple volumes. It would also be neat to see a volume aimed at detailed evaluation, to show what that would look like.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-59980133457140734672009-01-30T06:50:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:40.816-07:00Will the True Liberal Please Stand Up?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZU8bINYpSrSvkcxwko_BDaJIpWprqdMtqUnguNLT3w3pmXT2dR9KuXVe5iRN7pSOE-Tw6FRPbskS_AvMWZ_pbSfRRPYbhHG4sOs-MVlTmHuGqXwRCOZL4GEMMTMlTThOxure2ocjE80s/s1600-h/Obama.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297100292343569010" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 190px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZU8bINYpSrSvkcxwko_BDaJIpWprqdMtqUnguNLT3w3pmXT2dR9KuXVe5iRN7pSOE-Tw6FRPbskS_AvMWZ_pbSfRRPYbhHG4sOs-MVlTmHuGqXwRCOZL4GEMMTMlTThOxure2ocjE80s/s320/Obama.jpg" border="0" /></a>In this blog, I have decided to bring together two of my most dominant interests, politics and philosophy. I have been reading Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and I just finished the section on the moral/social virtues. If you know anything about Aristotle, a virtue is a mean (middle quality) between a vice of excess and a vice of defect. One of the moral virtues is liberality. Liberality is that virtue that lies between the excess of prodigality and the defect of meanness. While I was reading on this topic, some things stuck out to me regarding what we now tend to call liberalism. Hear what Aristotle has to say:<br /><div><br />A liberal man is liberal because it is virtuous, not because he can gain anything else. He will give the right amounts to the right people at the right times and with pleasure (or without pain). In addition, the liberal takes from the right sources. He goes on to say that it is rare for a liberal to become rich because he views wealth as an object for giving, and thus does not hold onto it long enough to accumulate it.</div><br /><div><br />A prodigal, on the other hand, will often exhaust their resources since they exceed in giving and lack in taking. Such a man is to be considered as foolish, though not necessarily wicked. A major problem is that many prodigals take from the wrong sources. They will often make those who should be poor to be rich and ignore those who are noble in character.<br />I think that there is one element that needs to be clarified here. It is generally clear what Aristotle means when he says right amounts, right times, etc. (not necessarily the number values, but the concepts; the number values will change dependant on the circumstances). However, it is unclear thus far as to what he means by "taking from the right sources." He states that the true liberal "will take from the right sources, <a name="61"></a>e.g. from his own possessions, not as something noble but as a necessity, <a name="62"></a>that he may have something to give."</div><br /><div><br />Finally, I love what Aristotle says here. "Liberality resides not in the multitude of the gifts <a name="70"></a>but in the state of character of the giver, and this is relative to the <a name="71"></a>giver's substance. There is therefore nothing to prevent the man who gives <a name="72"></a>less from being the more liberal man, if he has less to give those are <a name="73"></a>thought to be more liberal who have not made their wealth but inherited <a name="74"></a>it; for in the first place they have no experience of want, and secondly <a name="75"></a>all men are fonder of their own productions."</div><br /><div><br />Given all of this, what category would modern liberalism fall under?<br />They give the wrong amounts to the wrong people at the wrong times with pain. And to kick it off, they take from the wrong people and for the sake of re-election. Each of these will be exampled below.</div><br /><div><br />From the wrong sources: They tax the rich instead of using their own money. </div><br /><div><br />To the wrong people: They give much to those who should be poor because of their decisions (the girl with four children out of wedlock, the person who did nothing to prepare for a retirement, etc.). </div><br /><div><br />In the wrong amounts: They spend more than they bring in. For the wrong reasons: They pride themselves on funding the most special interest groups. But he who gives the most is not the most liberal.</div><br /><div><br />At the wrong times: When the economy is hurting the most.</div><br /><div><br />With pain: Just watch and see.</div><br /><div><br />All this said, according to Aristotle, those whom we deem to be liberal are in fact more representative of the foolish, though not necessarily wicked, prodigal. The true liberal is the ideal fiscal conservative, of course this says nothing about whether we have any of those left in office. </div>Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-16778714149343941522008-06-28T07:14:00.000-07:002010-07-18T01:54:40.840-07:00Leibniz' Cosmological Argument<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTSpZFuTBZ7rahG6bhuvBjCJf5vOF5E3Wt_6EFzv5Z4pQ_bam60UEUJnz0lOvX8mGgYZ8GilnVoPOm-0GYqgwt-s_U4j8E19OTc6zMKpr5PMbs6Wjav-rGYAeCg8yL5P0G0K7D0bZeEE/s1600-h/Begging+the+Question.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216938266015431714" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTSpZFuTBZ7rahG6bhuvBjCJf5vOF5E3Wt_6EFzv5Z4pQ_bam60UEUJnz0lOvX8mGgYZ8GilnVoPOm-0GYqgwt-s_U4j8E19OTc6zMKpr5PMbs6Wjav-rGYAeCg8yL5P0G0K7D0bZeEE/s320/Begging+the+Question.JPG" border="0" /></a>William Lane Craig sets Leibniz' cosmological argument as follows (Cosmological Argument, 274):<br /><br />1. Something exists<br />2. There must be a sufficient reason or rational basis for why something exists rather than nothing.<br />3. This sufficient reason cannot be found in any single thing or in the whole aggregate of things or in the efficient causes for all things.<br />a. Things in the world are contingent, that is determined in their being by other things such that if matter and motion were changed, they would not exist.<br />b. The world is simply the conglomeration of such things and is thus itself contingent<br />c. The efficient causes of all things are simply prior states of the world, and these successive states do not explain why there are any states, any world, at all.<br />4. Therefore, there must exist outside the world and the states of the world a sufficient reason for the existence of the world.<br />5. This sufficient reason will be a metaphysically necessary being, that is, a being whose sufficient reason for existence is self-contained.<br /><br />Premise one is undeniable; for in order to deny the existence of something, one must first exist. Thus, such a denial would be self-defeating. Likewise, in order to affirm the existence of something one must exist. Leibniz is making an affirmation here. Thus something certainly exists.<br /><br />Premise two is a bit ambiguous. What does Leibniz mean by rational basis? It seems to me that this premise can be taken in two ways. Either it means that there is a knowable explanation for why the "something" from premise one exists or it means that there is a purpose for its existence. I think that taking "rational basis" in the second way will explicitly beg the question for the existence of God. However, there is a sense in which taking the premise in the first way implicitly begs the question—since it assumes an order to the universe. And order is not a given in a materialistic world. Nonetheless, to be charitable, I will grant that the order of the universe is a brute fact and allow the second premise on the first understanding, that "rational basis" applies to our ability to know the efficient (material) cause of something, rather than the purpose.<br /><br />But then we find that Leibniz, in premise three, tells us that the reason cannot be found in the order of efficient causes. Thus his "rational basis" is premise two must be an appeal to a purpose. But this seems to beg the question. You cannot have a purpose without having an intelligent agent. Thus the very assumption that a purpose is a necessary condition for existence implies a necessary intelligent agent, or God.<br /><br />Thus the rest of the argument put forth by Leibniz is mute. The whole "proof," since it relies on this assumption, fails.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-62273274180438712712008-06-04T10:21:00.000-07:002010-07-18T01:54:40.852-07:00The Kalam Argument for God's Existence<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0t-47i44jr386FWaPf0ChL5cHkxq_Bhmd7KPw9BJ1_A63lNezhy7oq25Vxdl6anFtPh-TpBt09JCPaEHy2ep4ITAyWgNs823b6lL8NuEdFBC59j3or3Dx229achyphenhyphen5pFhO4oWZ-F-JaV0/s1600-h/Traversing+the+Infinite.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208079259480668930" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0t-47i44jr386FWaPf0ChL5cHkxq_Bhmd7KPw9BJ1_A63lNezhy7oq25Vxdl6anFtPh-TpBt09JCPaEHy2ep4ITAyWgNs823b6lL8NuEdFBC59j3or3Dx229achyphenhyphen5pFhO4oWZ-F-JaV0/s320/Traversing+the+Infinite.bmp" border="0" /></a>The Kalam Cosmolog-ical Argument is one of the most basic and effective proofs for the existence of God. It is also one of the most highly challenged proofs. It can be stated as follows:<br /><br />Premise 1: Everything that began to exist had a cause.<br />Premise 2: The universe began to exist.<br />Conclusion: Therefore, the universe had a cause.<br /><br />This argument carries a logical form that guarantees the conclusion is true if the premises are true (modus ponens). Therefore, a successful defense of this argument need only prove the two premises to guarantee its soundness. My goal here will be to briefly mention some criticisms of each premise, then to defend each premise, and finally to draw some implications of this proof.<br /><br /><strong>Premise 1: Everything that began to exist had a cause.</strong><br /><div><br />For the most part, this premise is a generally accepted one. However, some have challenged whether or not we can know this to be true. To defend it against such doubt, I would like to point out that—for things that began to exist—there are only three possible explanations:<br /><br />1- It was uncaused<br />2- It was caused to exist by itself<br />3- It was caused to exist by another<br /><br />Now to say that a thing that began to exist was uncaused seems to go against all reason. Indeed this explanation is one that must rely on pure faith and that goes against everything in our experience. Some may argue that research in Quantum Mechanics supports the idea that things can be uncaused, but this hypothesis is highly questionable and there has not been given a demonstrable proof of it to this point.<br /><br />The second option is absurd, seeing as the thing would have to exist before it existed in order to cause itself. I have never heard of this option defended.<br /><br />Thus, the third option is by far the most plausible. In all of our experience, we can say that of all things that have begun to exist that they have had a cause.<br /><br />One final note that should be made here regards an objection that has been around since Kant. It is the claim that, if everything needs a cause, then so does God—thus the first premise is half of an antinomy. But this argument is based on a clear misreading of the claim. The first premise states that everything that begins to exist must have a cause. Not that everything needs a cause. Thus the objection is misplaced.<br /><br /><strong>Premise 2: The universe began to exist.</strong><br /><br />This premise can be defended in two different ways. One by a priori reasoning (reasoning that comes in a way that is separate from experience) and one by a posteriori reasoning (reasoning that comes by way of experience). The a priori defense of this premise argues from the impossibility of an infinite number of moments. The main claim is that one cannot traverse an actual infinite. Consider this: if today is here, could it be possible that an infinite number of days were prior to today? If so, then how did we reach today? Wouldn't there always be at least one more day prior to this day? Some will argue that an infinite can be shown to exist in the fact that all measurements are infinitely divisible. Take for instance a line 3 inches long. Mathematically, there are an infinite number of points on this line—thus within an apparent finite measurement there are an infinite number of length-moments. Therefore there is no reason to believe that within an apparent finite amount of time there are an infinite number of time-moments.<br /><br />So can this problem be solved? Yes. In response to the skeptic here, it needs to be pointed out that the example fails. It is treating the mathematical points as if they were units of measurement, when in fact they have no actual dimension in the space-time world. It is because they are dimensionless beings of reason that one can say that they total an infinite number of possibilities. If points were real beings of which can be equated with length, then the total number of them that would fit into a 3 inch line would be finite. The same thing can be said with regards to time. A moment cannot be considered as a timeless measurement, because each moment, as they are considered in this argument, actually spans time. In conclusion, the mental-existence of potential infinites is not sufficient to prove that it is possible for an actual infinite to exist, let alone to be traversed. Therefore, this premise is demonstrable on an a priori basis.<br /><br />Now, for those who are earthier and lovers of the evidence from the senses—like me—there is the a posteriori evidence for this argument. Simply put- Big Bang cosmology and the Laws of Thermodynamics support that the universe had a beginning. A full defense and explanation of this right here is not possible, so if anyone desires the particulars of this evidence, please ask. Otherwise, I will move right into the objections. Some say that the First Law of Thermodynamics proves that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; thus implying that the universe is eternal. But this is a misreading of the Law, which states that in a closed system the amount of energy is a constant unchangeable value. Some will say that the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that the amount of useable energy in a closed system is always decreasing, does not apply since the universe may be an open system. But this is ad hoc, since there is no reason to accept the hypothesis except to reject the implication that the universe was created. Likewise, appeals to other theories such as the ever expanding-contracting universe are also ad hoc. In the end, the most reasonable interpretation of the scientific evidence points to a beginning of the universe.<br /><br /><strong>Conclusion</strong><br /><br />Hence, since the premises both appear to be true, the conclusion must also be true. The most rational belief is that the universe must have had a cause. It is often at this point that many theists stop and many atheists will admit a cause but reject that the cause is God. But I would like to show that the cause demonstrated can ultimately be shown to be a theistic God, fully compatible with the picture of God described by Christianity.<br /><br /><strong>Implications</strong><br /><br />There are many conclusions that can be drawn from this argument. First, because the cause is the cause of time, it must be eternal. Second, if Einstein's Theory of General Relativity is correct—as is generally accepted by most scientists—then the cause must also be non-spatial and non-material as well since time, space and matter are correlative. In other words, the cause is unlimited omnipresent spirit. Third, since time is the measurement of befores and afters and since the cause is non-temporal then there can be no befores and afters for the cause. Thus the cause must be unchanging. And since the cause is unchanging, then all that it is is all that it could ever be. Thus the cause must be Pure Actuality, with no potentiality. Fourth, given the existence of this cause, it is apparent that it is a necessarily existing thing. This is not to say that it is logically necessary, as the Ontological Argument wrongly tries to prove, but that it is actually necessary. We can know this because it exists and could not not-exist since it could not change. Fifth, the cause must be super-powerful since it created space, time, and matter out of no space, no-time, and no matter—or nothing. Finally, since the being is unlimited, then it must be one—for if there were two unlimited spirits, they would have to differ by something. But to differ, one must be lacking in something had by the other. But a lack implies a limit, thus one would not be the cause, but an effect of some sorts.<br /><br />In summary, the Kalam argument can be used to demonstrate that a single super-powerful eternal, unlimited, omnipresent, unchanging, actually necessary spirit being exists. And, in the words of Thomas Aquinas, this being we call God.</div>Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com69tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-74030466905425958762008-04-22T11:08:00.000-07:002010-07-18T01:54:40.868-07:00The Incompatibility of Materialism and Science<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjazY9g_EZXiDYVJiwfBLL8YuDQn1pzJwnGuWn-YYfTVtF5WtELTVolAH0xXvWWtL79XjuTtwAzUL6lJK7b9cUeQL0DHWDQ-b4HucGnO7IkSWPaAIbHj1BQv1LimDHcwpy36ZUIhJxaHAc/s1600-h/Kant.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5192133519414988210" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjazY9g_EZXiDYVJiwfBLL8YuDQn1pzJwnGuWn-YYfTVtF5WtELTVolAH0xXvWWtL79XjuTtwAzUL6lJK7b9cUeQL0DHWDQ-b4HucGnO7IkSWPaAIbHj1BQv1LimDHcwpy36ZUIhJxaHAc/s320/Kant.jpg" border="0" /></a>I have science on my mind this week, well more properly I have the philosophy of science on my mind. First I went and saw Expelled (which was pretty good and I recommend it to everyone . . . it is not so much a blast on evolution as much as a call for academic freedom). Then, I read John Loftus' Why I Rejected Christianity. For the most part, the book consisted of the same old arguments that have been answered. Not to say that the questions he raised aren't important--they are. But most had been answered ad infinitum. There were a couple of things that he has brought up that are in need of more dialogue though, especially regarding historical knowledge. Nonetheless, I am not here to rave about the movie or blast the book. I am here to talk about something the book got me thinking about.<br /><div><br />On page 93, Loftus says "There are four assumptions of science: 1) The belief of an external world independent of the perceiving subject as the basis of all natural science . . . 2) The intelligibility of nature . . . 3) The uniformity of nature . . . 4) The adequacy of scientific language and math to adequately describe the world." Now, I agree with these claims. I am an empiricist (meaning I believe that all knowledge is derived from the physical world). But I think that it is my belief that all physical things are material/immaterial compositions that allows for all these beliefs. Let me explain.</div><br /><div><br />You see, for the materialist, there are no immaterial objects. Only physical objects and physical processes. Now, it is because they believe this that I think that they cannot affirm these points. First, the assumption number one is fine. There is no reason that this cannot be assumed. But assumption number two is a problem. I'll explain.</div><br /><div><br />First, a rational assumption is one where there seems no reason to deny the claim, but it remains difficult, if not impossible to prove. But I think that there is good reason to deny this claim, given a materialist metaphysic. You see, if all external reality is purely matter, then the object of one's knowledge is not at all identical to the object in reality. The object in one's knowledge would be identical to whatever chemicals, electric pulses, and whatnot are involved in the act of the thought. But the object in reality is not identical to those factors; it is identical to whatever elements, compounds, accidents, and characteristics of extension that it maintains. In fact, if one were to line up all the characteristics of either object next to one another, they would find that they share not a single one in common. </div><br /><div><br />This means that, of everything we know about the two objects, they are wholly different from one another. So is it even rational to assume that the objects are even similar? No. There is too much of a reason to doubt it. Thus there is good reason to deny the intelligibility of nature. But then assumptions three and four are worthless. Therefore, the materialist is left with assumption number one, which now is nothing but an article of blind faith. So science, if it is considered to be knowledge of all physical reality, is incompatible with materialism, since no physical reality may really be known.</div><br /><div><br />So how do I avoid this? Well, it is my position that the only way to explain sameness through change (which includes the sameness of an object in reality to a changed state in my mind) is to postulate an immaterial aspect to all reality. Now this is not a mere assumption, since sameness through change is demonstrable (for instance, I am the same person that I was 20 years ago, and that is rationally undeniable--but none of the physical elements of me are the same). Therefore, belief in a material/immaterial composition is necessary for science and is such a belief is demonstrable and thus not ad hoc.</div><br /><div><br />Thoughts?</div>Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-64224642948462883862008-03-27T13:53:00.000-07:002010-07-18T01:54:40.882-07:00"Some Minor Theodicies," "Conclusion," and "Appendix"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpq-rioIjuqlD3nVn__tLFEmlG4Hf3ODhpBqfOiiKxBMw071T3uW5KCYGCNaYt2UKU0VpxRamp0_Nci_ehn1aqWpWGVP2iY91028VP9PCN2bAXZaaECahQ6B0q2y-dKINfB9qn9JYh58o/s1600-h/The+End.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182528484892758690" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpq-rioIjuqlD3nVn__tLFEmlG4Hf3ODhpBqfOiiKxBMw071T3uW5KCYGCNaYt2UKU0VpxRamp0_Nci_ehn1aqWpWGVP2iY91028VP9PCN2bAXZaaECahQ6B0q2y-dKINfB9qn9JYh58o/s320/The+End.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>CHAPTER 18, CONCLUSION, and APPENDIX</strong><br /><br />In this final section of Dr. Martin’s book he critiques some lesser advocated theodicies, concludes his entire argument, and offers an appendix. I really enjoyed this final section and gleaned a lot of good insights from it. Overall, I have been satisfied with the way that this endeavor has turned out and I am confident that I have shown Martin’s case, while he has made some strong points that should be addressed by theists, is not sufficient to destroy the rational foundations for theism. I hope those of you who have had the patience to bear with me through this long series have been edified.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin’s Claims</strong><br /><br />Martin’s final chapter of his argument for positive atheism continues and completes his section based on the problem of evil. Since he has already evaluated the strongest theistic positions, he chooses to at least make mention and critique of some lesser known theodicies. He states that these are less compelling and usually used by those who are not theologians or philosophers of religion.<br /><br />He begins with the "Finite God Theodicy." As an example of this, Martin presents Rabbi Kushner’s position that God is not all powerful and, thus, cannot prevent all evil. Kushner believes that some evil is the result of chaos that God has been trying to get in order; other evils are the result of natural law. Martin critiques Kushner’s finite view by pointing out that: (1) Kushner has given no examples of evils resulting from uncaused events; (2) there is no evidence that some natural laws are newer than others, which would be the case if God was getting the chaos in order; (3) Kushner doesn’t explain why a god powerful enough to establish laws didn’t make them with fewer possibilities for evil; and (4) Kushner doesn’t explain why God doesn’t help some people. In response to four, Martin notes, some argue that God is preoccupied with preventing greater evils. But he answers that, if God could create the entire universe simultaneously, then why can’t he attend to all parts of it simultaneously.<br /><br />Next, Martin assesses "The Best of all Possible Worlds Theodicy." This attempt to answer the problem of evil claims that the evil in this world is necessary since this is the best of all possible worlds. Martin offers two primary challenges to this answer. First, he says, it is improbable that this world could not be made better. Second, the notion of the best of all possible worlds is incoherent. In support of this second criticism, Martin offers arguments from Alvin Plantinga and Patrick Grim. Alvin Plantinga relates such a concept as "the best of all possible worlds" to "the greatest number." It seems to him that whatever object you conceive of can be upped one. Thus the concept is incoherent. Grim, on the other hand, claims that all possible worlds are equally good. He says that, since God is morally perfect, He could not create any worlds inferior to others. Thus all the possible worlds are morally equal. Now, if Grim is right, then there are many difficult implications—e.g., (1) this world would be as perfect as God Himself; (2) ethical fatalism; (3) counterfactual problems. Thus this theodicy also fails.<br /><br />The next theodicy that Martin looks at is the "Original Sin Theodicy." This is the Judeo-Christian answer regarding the fall from grace (Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden). Martin objects to it saying that: (1) science shows that death and disaster came before human sin; (2) it is unjust, since to punish the descendants because of their parents’ sins is unjust; and (3) it is incoherent that perfect creatures in a perfect world could sin. This amounts to creating evil ex nihilo.<br /><br />The fourth theodicy offered by Martin is the "Ultimate Harmony Theodicy." This answer claims that what seems like evil is not really evil from God’s perspective; or it is evil but has good consequences and, thus, it is justified. Martin offers four criticisms of this view: (1) if evil is an illusion, then moral fatalism results; (2) It seems to imply that God has a different morality than us. Then how can He be an object of worship or a moral guidance to us? (3) If God is omnipotent, then why not limit the evil and still have good consequences? Or, even if the amount is necessary, is it really worth the price? And (4) Heaven as a compensation for suffering cannot solve the problem since compensation doesn’t make the action right.<br /><br />Finally, Martin offers four lesser known theodicies. The first is "The Degree of Desirability of a Conscious State Theodicy." This is a complex theodicy that I will not explain here. The second is the "Reincarnation Theodicy. He offers four criticisms to this view: (1) the implications are absurd and morally appalling; (2) it is morally empty; (3) it contradicts the scientific discovery that life began a finite time ago; and (4) it still doesn’t explain why God allowed the evil in the first place. Next Martin presents the "Contrast Theodicy," which claims that evil is allowed to make the good more appreciable. Martin offers two criticisms: (1) why then is it experienced rather than simply seen? And (2) this doesn’t explain the extent of evil. Finally, Martin offers the "Warning Theodicy," which is a proposed solution to the problem of natural evil that views pain and disaster as warnings. To this solution, he asks "couldn’t God warn human beings without causing them harm?"<br /><br />Next, Martin moves on to his Conclusion. Here, he gives a short summary of what he has claimed and then proceeds to expound what he believes would happen if disbelief in God became prevalent. He says that if disbelief in God became the prevalent belief, moral standards would not necessarily change. He also says that people would still join religious groups for the social benefit or aesthetic value. Further, it is conceivable that religious freedom could still reign. He then gives a list of things that would change, including: (1) the religious right would lose much of its power and moral education and legislation would change; (2) there would be fewer wars; and (3) the birthrate would drop. He concludes with his belief that such changes are not likely since people are tempted to believe in the transcendental.<br /><br />Lastly, Martin gives us an Appendix where he makes distinctions between positive and negative, broad and narrow, and atheism and alienated theism. Then he gives the differences between atheism and agnosticism, skepticism, naturalism, rationalism, positivism, humanism, communism, the Freethought Movement, and the Ethical Culture Movement.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />I had many agreements and appreciations for this section of Martin’s book. First, I agree with Martin’s overall assessment of the "Finite God Theodicy," though there are a couple points of disagreement that I will note in my critique. Second, I agree with Martin’s rejection of the "Best of all Possible Worlds Theodicy," and I have only one disagreement which I will mention later. Third, I will grant Martin’s critique of "The Degree of Desirability of a Conscious State Theodicy," and will add that I reject the idea that God is obligated to any creatures. I don’t think this is so regardless of their degree of desirability. Fourth, I agree with each point of the "Reincarnation Theodicy." Fifth, regarding the "Contrast Theodicy," I agree with Martin. I will add that a contrast is not needed if one realizes that evil is not a thing to be compared but a privation. On this understanding, the "Contrast Theodicy" would seem to be saying that it is easier to appreciate an imperfect thing than a perfect thing, which seems silly. Sixth, I think that Martin’s Appendix was extremely helpful and should be read by all theists and atheists alike.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />Now for my final critique. First, I have two criticisms from Martin’s critique of Kushner. (1) Martin complains that Kushner doesn’t explain why a God powerful enough to establish laws didn’t make them with fewer possibilities for evil. But I would like to ask Martin: "Why should God be obligated to do this?" If He wouldn’t be, then there is no problem. If He would be, then Martin needs to show how. (2) Martin then faults Kushner’s God for not helping some people. But how does Martin know that He doesn’t? Second, I have a single critique from the section on "The Best of all Possible Worlds Theodicy." Martin quotes Patrick Grim who claims that, since God is morally perfect, He could not create any worlds inferior to others. Thus all the possible worlds are morally equal. But this assumes that God is a moral being. Further, it seems to be ambiguous as to what is meant by "possible." A distinction between "logically possible" and "actually possible" needs to be made to clarify what he is saying.<br /><br />My most extensive critique relates to Martin’s criticism of the "Original Sin Theodicy," which I wholly disagreed with. First, Martin claims that science shows that death and disaster came before human sin. But I ask, "Death and disaster of what?" There is no science that says that human death came before human sin. And since humans are the only known moral creatures, then there is no problem with the kind of death that occurred beforehand. Further, there is no evidence that disaster had any affect on humans who did not sin. Thus this argument fails. Second, Martin claims that it is unjust to punish the descendants because of their parents’ sins. But this is implying that God is actively punishing His creation. This is false. What He has done is allow the human race to choose to live outside of His grace. The blame is not on God in any way, but on humanity. Furthermore, He has not been content to just let things be, but He has made a way back into His grace, through Jesus Christ. So not only is God not responsible for the effects of humanity’s choice to separate itself from Him, but He has gracefully given us a way back if we admit our fault. Third, Martin claims that it is incoherent that perfect creatures in a perfect world could sin since this amounts to evil being created ex nihilo. But this is a confused concept of evil. Evil is not a thing to be created. It is a privation in a good thing. Thus evil can exist only in virtue of a good thing existing.<br /><br />Next, I have a few criticisms of the "Ultimate Harmony Theodicy." First, one of Martin’s criticisms was that it seems to imply that God has a different morality than us. So he asks, "How can He be an object of worship or a moral guidance to us?" I answer that God doesn’t have a morality. He is worshipped in virtue of His ontology, i.e., what He is. Finally, He is not a moral guidance for us. He is the lawmaker, not its greatest keeper. Second, Martin asks "If God is omnipotent, then why not limit the evil and still have good consequences? Or, even if the amount is necessary, is it really worth the price?" But these arguments presume that the accuser knows more than God. If God is all knowing and all powerful, He has taken all possibilities into account and there is nothing to question here. Third, Martin critiques the picture of Heaven as a compensation for suffering since compensation doesn’t make the affliction right. But Heaven is not compensation, it is a gift. Further, God doesn’t inflict the evils, He allows them.<br /><br />Next, I have a couple of criticisms regarding Martin’s handling of the "Warning Theodicy." Martin asks, "Couldn’t God warn human beings without causing them harm?" Maybe this would not be effective. Pain makes the warning existentially relevant. Other messages, due to our limitations, may not appear as relevant. Overall, the other criticisms offered in this section by Martin are unfounded because they assume that God has an obligation to warn people in a better way. In fact, God has no obligation to warn us in the first place. It is an act of grace when He does.<br /><br />Finally, I have a few criticisms of Martin’s conclusion. First, Martin claims that, if disbelief in God became the prevalent belief, moral standards would not necessarily change. But they would if people lived consistently with their beliefs. I know that I would act way differently if I believed that God did not exist. I would act as I did before I became a Christian, if not worse. Second, Martin claims that the religious right would lose much of its power and moral education and legislation would change. I say that if people were consistent, moral education and legislation would end. Third, Martin claims that there would be fewer wars. But contrary to the popular assumption, most wars have no religious significance. They are political and economic in nature. Further, this assumes that religious beliefs are not active deterrents to war. This assumption needs to be demonstrated. Finally, Martin says that such changes are not likely since people are tempted to believe in the transcendental. I would add to this that they are likely due to the fact that the arguments of this book are insufficient for demonstrating that God does not exist. In fact, in light of the criticisms raised here, I think that it is safe to say that theism remains the most rationally defensible position.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-80985438735329299382008-03-20T12:52:00.000-07:002010-07-18T01:54:40.898-07:00"Natural Evil" and "The Soul-Making Theodicy"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiv22ihi3PS06XfAm53xdnuHip-vSrMvyPQMdOBVNcQmqDZnaR29W6zkxaDf6u_n0woy55IfJA8_H-a_xhbQbwSa0owiwcVUX2Ttjg_MCuUpWbEok4iTQzd0FblGpnt0CCV0l2h5_y0Ow/s1600-h/Natural+Evil.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179916178409149074" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiv22ihi3PS06XfAm53xdnuHip-vSrMvyPQMdOBVNcQmqDZnaR29W6zkxaDf6u_n0woy55IfJA8_H-a_xhbQbwSa0owiwcVUX2Ttjg_MCuUpWbEok4iTQzd0FblGpnt0CCV0l2h5_y0Ow/s320/Natural+Evil.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>CHAPTERS 16 and 17<br /></strong><br />In Chapters 16 and 17, Dr. Martin continues with his considerations about the fact of evil and its relation to the viability of belief in God. In the last chapter he began his appraisal of the common theistic attempts to explain the existence of evil by evaluating the Free Will Defense. In Chapter 16, Martin looks at the existence of natural evils and in Chapter 17 he evaluates the "soul Making Theodicy," or the attempt to explain natural evils as being necessary for developing certain desirable character traits.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin’s Claims</strong><br /><br />In Chapter 16, Martin assesses natural evil, or evil not associated with the free choice and intentions of human beings. He notes that most of the evil of the world is of this kind. It is Martin’s belief that theism cannot account for such evils and, thus, their existence counts as evidence for atheism. To defend this position, he looks at three contemporary theists’ attempts to solve the dilemma.<br /><br />First, Martin looks at Alvin Plantinga’s claim that natural evil could be the result of the acts of evil beings such as Satan. Note that Dr. Plantinga does not argue that Satan exists, but that it is not improbable that Satan exists and that, because of this, it is a real possibility that he is the reason for natural evil. Martin begins his criticism by pointing out that, while it may not be impossible that Satan exists, that it is not obvious how probable such a claim really is. He answers his apparently rhetorical question by asserting that it is unlikely that consciousness could actually exist in a non-bodily form. Next, he claims that there is no reason to even believe that demons or angels could affect the physical world. After this, he grants the claim and then asks "if Satan is responsible for this evil, why isn’t there more of it?" After this momentary granting of the argument, he returns to his position and notes that even theists, such as Swinburne, believe that such an argument is ad hoc. He proceeds by pointing out that those who believe in Satan tend to be less educated than those who do not believe in him and that science has been more accurate about religious things than the religions have (i.e. age of earth and evolution). Finally, he asks, "if Satan is responsible, why wouldn’t God help the innocent victims?"<br /><br />Next, Dr. Martin looks at an argument proposed by Richard Swinburne. Swinburne proposes that the amount of evil is the real problem. But this, he says, can be explained by claiming that the amount of evil in the world is necessary to bring about the knowledge (since data is required for knowledge) needed to cause or prevent future evils. And, this would add to the moral freedom and potential for responsibility in people, which are both goods. Martin answers that, if this is His purpose, God has not done a good job. He supports this by pointing to: (1) the existence of rare diseases; (2) the fact that, for some diseases, we have all the necessary information about and, yet, they continue to affect us; (3) the fact that God could have created us with innate knowledge rather than leaving us as suffering tabula rasas; and (4) the notion that inflicting evil without the innocent victim’s consent is repugnant.<br /><br />Next, Dr. Martin looks at Bruce Reichenbach’s proposed solution. Reichenbach claims that natural evil is the outworking of the natural laws of God’s creation. And these natural laws help humans to be truly free in their choices since, without such order, rational choice would be impossible. Martin answers by proposing that there is no reason to believe that a world that operated by means of constant miracles rather than natural laws wouldn’t be orderly and, thus, the out-workings of these natural laws are not necessary to preserve rationality. Nonetheless, even if He did set the world up in this way, He could have performed miracles to prevent the natural evils from harming people. Further, God could have created the world to operate by statistical laws instead.<br /><br />In Chapter 17, Martin assesses the theistic answer that naturalistic evil exists in order to develop the character of human beings. He begins by noting that theists often claim that second order goods such as kindness and courage could only be actuated give some first order evils. However, Dr, Martin claims that it is possible to have kindness, generosity, sympathy, or bravery in a world without evils.<br /><br />He then proceeds to critique what he believes to be the strongest presentation of the "Soul-Making" theodicy, that of John Hick. Hick claims that God has created the world in such a way as to hide His appearance. The result of this is that men live self-centered lives. This also, however, makes available the opportunity for a man to freely worship God. Hick does not have an explanation for the amount of evil but he does offer the idea of an intermediate state that makes right those wrongs that seemed to occur without any possibility for character growth (such as a person being murdered).<br /><br />Martin begins his critique of Hick by pointing out that excessive evil remains a problem. He continues how some organisms have the desire for avoidance of danger "built in," with no need for pain. Next, he points out that Hick’s idea of epistemic distance is ambiguous and that it can not give a reason for change of belief regarding God, hence it ultimately results in fideism. Next, Martin says that Hick does not justify his claim that man, if in God’s presence, could not sin. He supports this by showing that, if this were true, then all religious believers who had "experienced God" would stop sinning. But they don’t. After this, he shows how the purpose for epistemic distance, freedom to believe as one wishes, is compromised by Hick’s intermediate state. Then he critiques Hick’s notion of freedom since there is a logically possible world where creatures are free and yet do not sin. Finally, he claims that Hick, by writing this book, seems to be working against the distance desired by God.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned<br /></strong><br />As with the other chapters in this second part of Atheism, there were not many opportunities for agreement with Martin. However, I do think that he brought up a few very good points. First, overall, I agree that blaming Satan for natural evil is not the best way to approach the problem of natural evil. But I say this because there are other ways to attack it, not because I have a prior assumption against the existence of such beings. Second, I agree with most of the criticisms leveled at Swinburne, except for the innocent victim one. (Swinburne offers three reasons to doubt it, the second of which—that God as creator has rights over us—being the strongest. Martin’s counter to this is rather weak.) Third, I agree that Hick’s notion of epistemic distance seems to be ambiguous and leads to fideism, that is, as far as it has been accurately presented. Fourth, regarding the criticism of the intermediate state, I believe that Dr. Martin has made a great point. I really appreciate this criticism’s strength. Finally, regarding the compatibility of Hick’s writing this book with his beliefs, I think Martin’s criticism is interesting, but I have a feeling that it may not be charitable.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />Chapter 16<br /><br />First, I have many criticisms regarding the section critiquing Dr. Plantinga. First, Martin challenges Plantinga regarding "how probable" Satan’s existence really is. I think that he is asking a question that cannot be answered by a finite mind since it would require applying probability values to events without knowing all the relevant data. Thus, this is no defeater of Plantinga. Second, he claimed that it is unlikely that consciousness could exist in a non-bodily form. Well, this was a nice assertion, but he has not supported it. Beware of such moves by any philosopher or theologian. Third, Martin asks why Satan hasn’t produced more evil if he is the reason for it. But why should there be more? If Satan is free, why can’t he choose where to stop? Need he be as evil as can be? These questions all demonstrate that these responses by Martin do not actually prove anything except that he is inquisitive. Fourth, his claim that theists are less intelligent than naturalists is irrelevant at best and an ad hominen or a grouping fallacy at worst. Further, claiming that people like Plantinga, Swinburne, Bill Craig, J.P. Moreland, Etienne Gilson, Eleonore Stump, etc. are uneducated is a very brave, yet naïve claim. Fifth, the idea that science has been more accurate about religious things confuses the teachings of a religion with the teachings of the religious people. Regarding the age of the earth, there is no clear scriptural claim for young or old—only interpretations by people. Second, evolution has not been proven by any stretch; though it has been made an axiom by many. Sixth, and finally, Martin’s question as to why God hasn’t helped the innocent victims assumes that God doesn’t have reasons unknown to us. We are finite minds, He is not. There is nothing about God that requires that He helps all victims of particular tragedies.<br /><br />Next, regarding Martin’s criticisms of Reichenbach, I have a couple criticisms of my own. First Martin claimed that there is no reason to believe that a world that operated by means of constant miracles rather than natural laws wouldn’t be orderly. But this doesn’t help us to know things, unless the miracles appear to be results of natural processes and, thus, they deceive us. But this wouldn’t be real knowledge. In the end, we could only have hindsight knowledge, not the power to judge potential outcomes required for free choice. So Martin doesn’t answer the original problem. Second, God has no obligation to always do miracles to prevent evil. Further, it may better for us that he doesn’t. Third, regarding the appeal for statistical laws, there is no reason to suppose that this would be better. God, being omniscient, is perfectly capable of judging which world suits his purposes, we are not.<br /><br />Overall, I would say that the biggest problem with the critiques submitted in this chapter is that they assume that there are no good reasons for allowing natural calamities. We know that there are natural advantages brought by hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and the like. Thus, these events, taken of themselves, are good events. The fact that they sometimes result in human loss does not make the event evil as much as it highlights a bad relationship between two events—the human’s current state and nature’s current state. There is no reason to suppose that allowing the convergence of such states is necessarily an evil act. Thus, the ’evilness’ of the act must be derived from some other factor other than the simple occurrence of the convergence of events. Furthermore, I think that the language used to describe these events is unjustified for the naturalist. What is an evil? For them, such an event can only be an observed fact. There is no room for moral outrage or a claim that the event ’ought’ to have been other than it was. ’Ought’ implies design or order, which implies a designer or orderer. Thus the atheistic argument can never really get off the ground. So, while we theists may not be able to give a surefire answer to the question "why this evil?" the atheist cannot even ask the question in the first place without presupposing God.<br /><br />Chapter 17<br /><br />I only have a few criticisms of this chapter, but they seem to undermine Martin’s whole argument. First, Martin asserted that it is possible to have kindness, generosity, sympathy, or bravery in a world without evils. How? First, it would be impossible to be unkind if there were no evil possible, so kindness loses its value. Generosity can only be had where need is present. But wouldn’t a need be considered a privation, i.e. an evil? Sympathy likewise implies loss, which would also be considered as an evil. Finally, bravery would require a true danger, i.e. an evil. Otherwise, it is not bravery but confidence. He attempts to give numerous examples of how he can have these goods without evil, but they all fail. Second, the problems stated in the section on Hick’s theodicy are similar to those addressed elsewhere. Martin’s main problems here are that he presumes to know what God could actually (beyond logically) accomplish and what he should have allowed. Martin needs to face the fact that he is limited as to the information available to him and that such judgments may in fact be unfounded. Third, regarding Martin’s claim that those who have experienced God would have stopped sinning, I believe that Hick sufficiently answers him. I think that Hick’s distinction between a continuous experience and a momentary one solves this problem. By our nature as humans, we know things in a temporal fashion. Thus, when something is not on our mind, it is not going to have its full effect on us. With God, since He is the ultimate good, if we had Him, we would seek nothing else. To willingly go after a lesser good at the expense of a greater good is impossible. Finally, regarding Dr. Martin’s claim that a world where everyone is free and yet no one sins is logically possible, I agree. This world is called heaven. But it may not have been actually possible to achieve such a world without a world such as thisIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-46457894071557214592008-03-15T09:03:00.000-07:002010-07-18T01:54:40.914-07:00"The Free-Will Defense"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF3iLhTo8IzmEzUz5FeARuKvAHaBb-Zt1AXhrwb5uoK6SLG9mHZGsYew1szfLIKVES23VwBjOoylDicDtIrMh0yUr6RtALehqHHaVpvcEVw6S6HL_iD1hU3wr9Y9fKtQv2SsdIaOdhPVc/s1600-h/Determinism.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178000915983808034" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF3iLhTo8IzmEzUz5FeARuKvAHaBb-Zt1AXhrwb5uoK6SLG9mHZGsYew1szfLIKVES23VwBjOoylDicDtIrMh0yUr6RtALehqHHaVpvcEVw6S6HL_iD1hU3wr9Y9fKtQv2SsdIaOdhPVc/s320/Determinism.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>CHAPTER 15</strong><br /><br />Chapter Fifteen builds off of the argument from evil against the existence of God that Dr. Martin began in the previous chapter. Theists have made many attempts to counter the Argument from Evil, and Martin, aware of this, will devote his final section of his book to answering them. In this Chapter, he attempts to combat the most popular defense, that evil is the result of human free will.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin’s Claims</strong><br /><br />Martin starts this chapter by noting that the Free Will Defense is an explanation of moral evils, not natural evils. He correctly states the theist’s argument as "God gave humans free choice and a world with free choice is more desirable than a world without free choice." He then proceeds to give some background information to this debate. This information included distinctions between First, Second, and Third Order Goods as well as First and Second Order Evils. After this preliminary info, Martin began his explanation and critique of the theistic position.<br /><br />Martin claims that there are three assumptions to the theistic position that are challengeable and that he believes he will show to be false. These are: (1) that free will is a very important good; (2) that free will is worth the price that it comes with; and (3) that the evils that result from free will cannot be blamed on God.<br /><br />First, Martin claims that the assumption of the importance of freedom is false. He begins by assessing Alvin Plantinga’s claim that, all other things being equal, a world with ’significantly free creatures’ is more valuable than a world with no free creatures. Martin asserts that this argument is irrelevant since "all things are not equal." Thus, he offers a reformulation of the argument that he believes captures Plantinga’s desire. He then goes on to reject these because they seem to assume that the value of freedom is nearly infinite. He notes that it is true that freedom seems very valuable initially. But, we sometimes think that it can be sacrificed for other values and thus Plantinga’s assumption is unfounded. Next, Martin looks at Plantinga’s rejection of compatibilist and causal determination views and calls his (Plantinga’s) position Contracausal Freedom. Then Martin critiques this position claiming that: (1) there is no practical use for Contracausal Freedom; and (2) that a Contracausal world is not the best that God could have created.<br /><br />After this, Martin considers what he believes to be defeaters for a Contracausal view of freedom. First, he offers the fact that social scientists predict behavior, presents a rebuttal by Plantinga, and critiques it. Second, he claims that the difference in the choices of apes, mentally retarded people, and otherwise healthy human beings is a difference in degree, not in kind. Third, he claims that a distinction, that free acts are caused, but not coerced, will help to support his position. Fourth, he claims that if Contracausal Freedom is correct, then there are uncaused causes. He notes that this led to many great theologians accepting a compatibilist position. Finally, he claims that Plantinga has offered no solution to the claim that uncaused events are random. In support of his position, that free acts are caused but not coerced, Martin offers a possibility. He says that it is logically possible that there could be a world where human choices are controlled by statistical laws and yet not causally necessitated. After presenting his argument, He critiques a potential defeater from Reichenbach.<br /><br />In the next section, Martin presents reasons he thinks that we should doubt that freedom was "worth the risk." First, he claims that it is logically possible to create a free world where nothing wrong is done. In support of this, he critiques a counter offered by some who maintain that a world with no wrong done (though it is possible) may not be better than this one. Second, he claims that if God were omnipotent, he could have actualized a free world where no evil was done. In support of this he critiques an argument of Plantinga’s the argument of Trans-World Depravity. Then, Martin points out that some, such as Bruce Reichenbach have said that God does not know if counterfactuals would be true or false. This, according to Martin, would result in the impossibility that God could know any future free act, including any of His own acts. He points out that it would also undermine morality, unless one accepts an extreme deontological view.<br /><br />In the final section, Martin attempts to show that God would ultimately be responsible for the evil acts of creatures under any possible view. In defense of this he offers Frederic Fitch’s theorem along with an amendment by J.L. Mackie. He then presents a legal case and a moral case against God. Finally, he argues that God is no Good Samaritan.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />As with the other chapters in this section, there was not a lot for me to agree with. However, I did appreciate a few things that Martin mentioned. First, I love the opening section and the explanation of the ordered goods and evils. I have never heard the theistic position broke down that way (I have not read much on the problem of evil, I am primarily interested in the proofs). I thought that the introduction to this chapter was his best yet. Second, I am glad that he noted that the great theologians were compatibilists, but he is equivocating on Compatibilism, which I will explain in my critique. Third, I totally agree with Martin that the idea that "a world with no wrong done (though where it is possible) may not be better than this one" is a highly unlikely idea. Fourth, I will grant Martin’s critique of Plantinga, though I admit that I am doing so because I do not know Plantinga’s full position. Sixth, I agree with Martin’s critique of Reichenbach’s answer to the critique of Plantinga, but I think that a middle ground exists between Plantinga and Reichenbach that sufficiently answers the criticism. I will discuss this briefly in the next section. Finally, I agree with Martin that God is responsible for the fact of evil, but I do not see this as a problem. Again, this will be elaborated in the next section.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />I have many criticisms regarding Martin’s assessment that freedom is not important. First, he claims that Contracausal Freedom has no practical benefits. But this is just false. Ethical living is only possible with true freedom. Without true freedom, there becomes no justification for incarceration, condemnation, or any other related actions. Second, all the ’better’ talk used by Martin when comparing worlds assumes some standard of goodness. But this cannot be appealed to by the naturalist. At best, the naturalist can only describe reality; he cannot prescribe how it ’ought to be.’ Martin is borrowing from theism to make his critique.<br /><br />In the next section Martin gives a few reasons to reject Contracausal Freedom. The first reason is that social scientists can predict behavior. However, this does not prove natural causation. It only demonstrates that certain conditions increase the likelihood of certain choices. It is still the case that many times the social scientists will predict wrongly. It seems that Martin’s critique assumes an identity between an increase in tendency and causality. However, it seems that causality is more appropriately equated with natural necessity for the naturalist. I don’t think tendency helps his argument. Second, Martin claimed that the difference between ape and human freedom is one of degree, not kind. But this is just false. There is no evidence that apes or any other animals are really free. They have to be trained to make choices that are contrary to their natural tendencies. Third, regarding his claim that ’free acts are caused, but not coerced,’ I don’t think that he has such an option. I would like to see a further explanation. Fourth, he criticizes Contracausal Freedom claiming that it results in the admission of uncaused causes, and explains that this is why the great theologians were compatibilists. But the free acts are caused - by created efficient causes. He is correct that the great theologians were compatibilists, but they are in a theological sense referring to God’s causality, not according to the order of the natural world. It seems to me that Compatibilism only makes sense when two minds are involved, not when nature is on one end of the equation. Finally, Martin claims that it is logically possible that there could be a world where human choice is controlled by statistical laws and yet not causally necessitated. But this does not even make sense. First of all, statistics are not laws; they are descriptive rather than prescriptive. Second, if any series of events were always seen in the same relation to one another, we would have reason to believe that the consequent event was causally determined.<br /><br />In the next section, Martin discusses whether or not free will was "worth the risk." As with the previous section I have many criticisms here. First, Martin claims that it is possible to create a free world where nothing wrong is done. But how does he know this? If one makes the distinction between something being logically possible and something being actually possible, I think that the burden shifts to Martin to demonstrate this claim, which he doesn’t do. Second, Martin claims that if God was omnipotent, he could have actualized a free world where no evil was done. Omnipotence is being able to do whatever can be done. But to presume that God could have created a world where all the free creatures always acted rightly begs the whole question. Hence, we do not necessarily have any problem. Again, the atheist would have to demonstrate that such a world is actually, not merely logically, achievable in order for theists to defend their position against this claim. All that being said, Christianity does claim that the result of this world will be such a world where free creatures always do the good anyway. That world is heaven. It may just be the case that this kind of world is the only way to achieve that kind of world. Third, regarding the critique Martin has of Plantinga, I avoid this criticism by rejecting as meaningful such modal criticisms since they are based on pure speculation. I am interested in the world as it is, not as I suppose it could be. I am a finite mind and, thus, I do not have access to all the information necessary to have in order to know what could be and what couldn’t be. As far as I can tell, neither Plantinga nor Martin is omniscient either, thus disqualifying them from such considerations too. Fourth, regarding the criticism of Reichenbach, remember that I agreed with Martin’s conclusion. I think that Reichenbach went too far. However, I think that such an issue is solved by admitting the truth values for counterfactuals to those beings that have all knowledge. Doing so preserves God’s omniscience and the truth values of counterfactuals while at the same time pointing out that it is not profitable for finite minds to make arbitrary guesses about important issues via ’counterfactual knowledge.’<br /><br />Finally, I have a few criticisms of Martin’s case that God is responsible for evil. First, regarding Fitch’s Theorem, I think it is unfounded to attribute that which is logically possible for creatures, i.e. to do evil, to God. It does not follow that God can do everything that creatures can do since they are efficient causes. Regarding Mackie’s addition, it is not clear why these distinctions disappear. More needs to be said. Second, in response to the legal case against God, I agreed that God is clearly responsible for the fact of evil. But so what? He doesn’t have an authority or a moral law over Him. Further, He is free to act in accordance with His nature. Since we know God to be the all-knowing, ultimate Good, then we can trust that the results of His actions will be ultimately good. However, the responsibility for the acts of evil need not be attributed to God since they are committed by created efficient causes. Third, in response to the moral case against God, this argument doesn’t consider the good that results from evil. Finally, in response to the charge that God is not a Good Samaritan, this assumes that we have all the information that God has and are in a position to judge Him. We are not.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-21590052334946213062008-03-06T09:50:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:40.931-07:00'Teleological Atheism' and 'Arguments from Evil'<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb3vDReYg9o13PyLPc-slMMduxCRdmae9pWvfJIfZanaywtHqI8OGSoorjmLexqD2CKisVJuHzhkTKjMTp1zkstpbd0u_Z6wmckIPZ02qaucksz-Tke5GnuBn-PM9_bkFqt0Zh7sGbbKA/s1600-h/Evil.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174689531003617970" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb3vDReYg9o13PyLPc-slMMduxCRdmae9pWvfJIfZanaywtHqI8OGSoorjmLexqD2CKisVJuHzhkTKjMTp1zkstpbd0u_Z6wmckIPZ02qaucksz-Tke5GnuBn-PM9_bkFqt0Zh7sGbbKA/s320/Evil.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>CHAPTERS 13 and 14</strong><br /><br />In Chapter Thirteen, Dr. Martin gives what he believes to be positive teleological evidence for the non-existence of God. In Chapter Fourteen, Martin offers what he believes is positive evidence for the non-existence of God based on an induction from the existence of evil. Because of the nature of these arguments, my agreements section will be very short and my criticisms will be quite extensive. Please believe me when I say that I made a strong effort to find more to agree with, but it just wasn't happening. One more thing to note, the argument from evil will basically carry over into the last three weeks of my critique of 'Atheism,' as Martin has devoted the last four chapters to assessing the popular theodicies argued by theists. Therefore, if my critique seems to be lacking some important points, don't worry. I am addressing the issues as they come. I am sure that all the relevant arguments that are needed to critique Martin will be utilized.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />Martin begins Chapter Thirteen by reminding the readers that the teleological arguments for God's existence have all been shown to be unsound. I would like to remind my readers that I have demonstrated this to be false in my critique of Chapter Five. While Martin did a good job of critiquing most of the arguments, his argument against Paley did not sufficiently succeed. Normally, I would leave such a criticism to my critique section, but I wanted to point this out up front.<br /><br />He proceeds to offer an argument by Salmon that he calls the 'Calculated Improbability of Design.' This argument basically asserts that since most of the things that we know of in the universe (planets, galaxies, atoms, and molecules) are not the result of intelligence, then it follows that it is more likely that there was not an intelligent designer. Martin offers an interlocutor for Salmon in Cartwright who says that Salmon begs the question in stating that planets, galaxies, atoms, and molecules are not the result of intelligence. In reply, Salmon appeals to scientific findings including thermodynamics and quantum mechanics as justification for such a premise. Martin agreed that Salmon did not beg the question and claims that, at worst, Salmon used unjustified premises. But since he supported these with science, the criticism doesn't work.<br /><br />After this, Martin expands on the argument by stating that: given the nature of the universe and the supposed nature of God, we must reject that the two go together based on the non-relation of our experience to the claim. He offers many examples of such incompatibility. First, he appeals to The Argument from Embodiedness. This argument states that all created entities of our experience were created by beings with bodies, so we should infer that the universe, if created, would have been created by an embodied being. Martin claims that it does not beg the question and can be supported by scientific evidence. Next, he appeals to The Argument from Multiple Creators. This argument states that all large and complex entities that we know were created by a multitude, and thus infers that the universe would be no different, if created. Martin claims that the criticisms to this argument and the answers to them are similar to those above. Third, Martin offers The Argument from Apparent Fallibility. This argument states that there are mistakes and errors in the universe, and based on our experience, mistakes and errors in a creation always result from the fallibility of the creator. Thus we should infer that the universe, if created, was created by a fallible creator. As evidence for this claim, he points to functionless organs and genetic deficiencies. Fourth, Martin offers The Argument from Finiteness. This argument states that all created things that we know of were created by a finite power; therefore we should infer that the universe, if created, was also created by a finite power. He follows with the claim that the same objections can be raised and dismissed as in the previous arguments. Fifth, Martin offers The Argument from Pre-Existing Material. This argument states that all created things that we know were created out of pre-existing material; thus if the universe were created, we should infer that it was created out of preexisting material. Again, he claims that the same objections can be raised and dismissed as in the previous arguments. Finally, Martin offers his argument that the universe is not a created object. His argument can be stated as:<br /><br />P-1: All created things have noticeable markings left from the machines that make them.<br />P-2: The universe does not have the markings necessary.<br />Conclusion: Therefore, the universe was not created.<br /><br />In Chapter Fourteen, Martin presents his argument for atheism from the existence of evil. He begins by noting that the most popular deductive form of this argument (stated below) is unsuccessful:<br /><br />P-1: If God is all powerful, He could prevent evil.<br />P-2: If God is all knowing, He would know how to prevent evil.<br />P-3: If God is all good, He would prevent evil.<br />P-4: But evil was not prevented.<br />Conclusion: Therefore, God cannot exist.<br /><br />However, Martin believes that inductive arguments against God from evil are possible and offers two of them. First, he offers a direct inductive argument. This argument offers no refutations of theodicies but rather works simply from the fact of human and animal suffering. It can be stated as follows:<br /><br />P-1: There exist evils that, if they had been prevented, the world would have been a better place.<br />P-2: An all good being would have prevented any preventable thing that would result in a worse world.<br />Conclusion: Therefore, such a being does not exist.<br /><br />Next, Martin offers an indirect argument for the same purpose. This argument states that no theodicy has successfully given a sufficient moral reason for God to allow gratuitous evils. He will defend this assertion in the following chapters apparently, so here he just offers the implications. He offers and critiques one counterargument, namely that evil exists necessarily. He then states that Naturalism can answer the problem of evil by appealing to natural laws. Finally, Martin addresses some popular criticisms of these inductive-style arguments. In this section, Martin critiques Alvin Plantinga's and Bruce Reichenbach's criticisms of the Probabilistic Arguments from Evil.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />As I noted earlier, there was very little for me to agree with in these two chapters. But I will try to give a few things. First, I have learned from Dr. Martin to be very careful of which fallacy that you are attributing to an author. I think he was correct where he noted that some counterarguments were wrong in claiming that a claim begged the question and that a better criticism would be that he lacked sufficient warrant for a premise. He helped me to catch myself doing this. So thank you Dr. Martin. Second, I agree with Martin that the deductive argument from evil for atheism is unsound. Third, I agree with Martin that demonstrating that the world would have been a better place granted some change is a difficult task to say the least. However, he thinks that the difficulty is surmountable where I reject that it is short of being omniscient. Fourth, I think that Martin correctly notes that the indirect argument from evil would not cancel out any positive argument for God. Of course I disagree with his conclusion that there is no such argument, and have demonstrated that his criticisms of the traditional cosmological and teleological arguments fail. Fifth, I agree that the argument claiming that evil exists necessarily is indefensible. Finally, I will accept the rejections of Plantinga and Reichenbach since I reject the whole process of assigning arbitrary probabilities to Bayes Theorem expecting to get objective conclusions.<br /><br /><strong>Critique</strong><br /><br />Chapter 13<br /><br />First, regarding Salmon's argument, while he may not be 'begging the question,' he definitely is unjustified in holding the premises that planets, galaxies, atoms, and molecules are not the result of intelligence, that the order found in mechanical causation and biological generation is not the result of intelligence, and that disembodied intelligence has not produced order in our experience. His appeal to thermodynamics and quantum physics does not help. Thermodynamics demonstrates a need for the beginning of time, and thus space and matter if Einstein was correct. Quantum mechanics is highly speculative and remains unproven. Even if particles in quantum experiments seem to 'come into existence' spontaneously, there is no reason to suppose that they could do so if there were no 'vacuum' present. Thermodynamics has the epistemic authority until quantum mechanics can be better supported.<br /><br />Regarding the expansion of the argument I will critique each point. First, the Argument from Embodiedness can be disproven if we can show that matter had a beginning, as we have with the laws of Thermodynamics, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and the Cosmological Argument. Once these are proved, then a true experience of reality is an experience of an entity created by a disembodied being. Furthermore, there is nothing about being a created entity that requires being made by a being with a body. That the beings that we see make things have bodies is due to a limitation of their being, not due to necessity with regards to being in general. Second, the Argument from Multiple Creators is also disproven. Since time, space and matter had a beginning, there is no individuating principle that we know of by which multiple creators could even be possible. Therefore, our experience of reality actually supports a monotheistic view. Furthermore, there is nothing about being large and complex that demands multiple agents. The demand for multiple agents lies in the finitude of the creators. Third, the Argument from Apparent Fallibility fails since this critique presupposes omniscience. In order to recognize a flaw, you have to know what the creation would look like if it were ideal. But if they are rejecting the current one as real, then they would have to point to another one from their experience that was better. However, there is only one universe. Thus, the example would have to be a product of their mind. But in order for them to make such a judgment, they would have to know all factors involved in the universe so as to know that the thing that they considered to be a mistake really wasn't a good result of something else. Thus, they would be claiming omniscience. What is more, even if there were an imperfection, that fact would not prove that something was a mistake. The creator could have intended for something to be ontologically imperfect without any fault. So this argument as presented seems to be an utter failure. That being said, I think that the 'mistakes' offered are inconclusive anyway. Regarding functionless organs, at one time in the modern period, scientists thought that well over 100 organs (in humans) were vestigial. Today the number stands at six. And there is no reason to suppose that we will not find explanations for those someday. Regarding genetic deficiencies, the theistic account has an explanation for this. It is called sin. The creator did not create man deficient. Man inflicted it on himself. Fourth, the Argument from Finiteness fails as well. The first cause of the universe can not have any potential, since potential can only be put into (metaphysical, not physical) motion by act. Thus there is no power in the first cause that could be unactualized. Whatever is not true of this cause is not ever possible for it. Also, whatever power that it passes down must pre-exist in it. Therefore, there is no power known to man that is not owned by the first cause. Now, one may think that this means that the first cause could lie, cheat, etc. since these are powers. However, these are not powers but limitations in power. Fully actualized power to know things and relate to others necessarily leads to honesty and fairness. A deficiency leads to lies and cheating. Fifth, the Argument from Pre-Existing Material fails since it does not account for the actual evidence from our experience. We know, based on scientific and philosophical proof, that time, space, and matter began to exist. Thus there was no matter existing from which to form the universe. Finally, the argument that the universe was created assumes that the created markings are a necessary condition for being created. The fact that physical objects are used by finite creators is due to their finiteness (i.e. their physicality), not due to the objects having been created. An infinite non-corporeal being would not need such tools. And I have already pointed out that the evidence shows that such a being exists.<br /><br />Chapter 14<br /><br />First, regarding the direct inductive argument from evil, I would like to again point out that the author admits the difficulty in being able to know that premise one is true. We would say that it is not and that one would have to be omniscient to make such judgments. Therefore, any claim to this effect is presumptuous. Further, there seems to be no moral obligation on God to make sure that His creatures understand His ways. Neither does there seem to be a moral obligation on His part to create the best possible world. Even more, there does not seem to be any reason that He should not allow suffering. This whole argument is built on faulty presuppositions. Finally, for the Christian, this problem is addressed in the Book of Job. (A professor of mine had a profound insight by noticing that God's answer to Job was basically, 'You are being inconsistent. Why don't you question my motives where I bless you and the whole creation?')<br /><br />Regarding the indirect inductive argument from evil, I will just remind you that Martin admits that a positive proof for God's existence cancels out this claim. Since I have defended such proofs, the argument is null.<br /><br />Regarding the claim that naturalism can account for evil, I would like to note that Martin's argument is tantamount to taking our argument, 'God knows what He is doing and has an unknown (to us) reason for it,' and applying it to nature, 'Nature knows what it is doing and has an unknown (to us) reason for it.' His doing this demonstrates that the problem is not limited to the theist. In fact, the problem is greater for the atheist. How can the atheist even call something evil or deficient? Atheism does not have available to it a category for 'oughtness.' It only has a category for 'is-ness.' They only have room for descriptions, not prescriptions. C.S. Lewis was right in noting that arguing from evil presupposes an ultimate standard and prescriber of moral goodness.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-89946044928335391162008-02-27T10:51:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:40.947-07:00"The Justification of Positive Atheism" and "Divine Attributes and Incoherence"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQjhhvTn-mYEgbZWsR_ipGAhs0PzWNI_MQ7KoYgAa0rEz8FfeZ3Nzyc_6eI3TelKPoN4BTpDMEk_ud-CjiaBba8pfW8GabryqwsBwStMZ5Fa66RNkioQh99n-tsWTAY4GTe1z5cU9mz6k/s1600-h/Contradiction.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171736716512926802" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQjhhvTn-mYEgbZWsR_ipGAhs0PzWNI_MQ7KoYgAa0rEz8FfeZ3Nzyc_6eI3TelKPoN4BTpDMEk_ud-CjiaBba8pfW8GabryqwsBwStMZ5Fa66RNkioQh99n-tsWTAY4GTe1z5cU9mz6k/s320/Contradiction.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>CHAPTERS 11 and 12</strong><br /><br />In Chapters Eleven and Twelve, Dr. Martin begins presenting his "Positive Case" for atheism. In Chapter Eleven, he addresses some preliminary issues and recaps his purpose for the format that he has used. In Chapter Twelve, he takes a look at some supposed inconsistencies in the traditional concept of God and attempts to show how these work as a demonstration for atheism.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />Chapter Eleven is a very short chapter in which Martin makes three short arguments. First, based on an amended argument of Michael Scriven, he claims that the justification of negative atheism is in itself a premise in the justification for positive atheism. His argument is:<br /><br />P-1: It seems that if an all knowing, all powerful, all good being existed, He would provide adequate evidence for believing in Him.<br />P-2: There is no such evidence<br />Conclusion: Therefore, such a being does not exist<br /><br />Next, Martin argues that refuting the case for God results in the arguments for atheism not needing to be as strong as they would have if the theistic proofs succeeded. Finally, he makes a disclaimer regarding the ensuing chapter, that even if such a priori arguments fail the a posteriori arguments are still sufficient.<br /><br />After these preliminary remarks, Martin proceeds (in Chapter Twelve) to make his case that the traditional attributes of God are incompatible with one another. He begins with the attribute of omniscience (all-knowing-ness). Martin begins this section by noting that knowledge can be classified in three ways: the speculative, the practical, and the relational (these are my terms, not his, but they correspond exactly to his terms). He then goes on to say that it would be inconsistent for God to have all knowledge possible in all three categories. As support for this claim he offers three examples: (1) God does not have all knowledge if he is spirit, since He would need a body to know how to do gymnastics; (2) God could not be said to have all knowledge of all actions, since He would have to be morally imperfect in order to know how it feels to lust; and (3) God cannot be said to have knowledge of all feelings, since He would have to know the experience of fear, frustration, and despair. After stating his examples, Martin notes some possible counterclaims and answers them saying: (1) these cannot be countered by appealing to logical impossibility, since it seems absurd to think that it would be impossible for God to have knowledge that humans can have; (2) to claim that God could know these things if He chose to (i.e. via an incarnation) is likewise absurd and does not solve the moral problem; and (3) Christianity does not allow for a distinction between lust of the heart and lust as acted out anyway, thus prohibiting such a counter.<br /><br />After this, Martin attempts to show how a "weaker" omniscience (the view that omniscience only consists of all propositional knowledge) is also incompatible by critiquing the view held by his favorite target, Richard Swinburne. This view would allow for people to have knowledge that God does not. Martin offers three criticisms of this view: (1) God could not have any knowledge of any propositions beginning with "I" made by another being; (2) it is impossible for God to know all things since it would be impossible to know an infinite in space and time—and even if space and time were not infinite, then there would still be a problem with knowing mathematics, since they too include an infinite number of facts; and (3) it is impossible for there to be a set of all truths.<br /><br />Next, Martin assesses what he believes to be irreconcilable incompatibilities relating to God's freedom. He claims that God's freedom would be incompatible with his omniscience and states the problem as: Because creatures are free, God cannot know His or their future acts (unless they are necessarily causally related to an event that has already happened or is presently happening). He then adds: since He does not know His own future acts, He does not really even know any event since He may choose to do a miracle, thus overcoming the natural necessity. Thus, he concludes, God cannot be both free and omniscient. Martin goes on further to point out that God's morality seems to also be incompatible with this previous conclusion. He notes that God, if He can not know the future, then He can not know the moral-value of His past acts since He does not know the ultimate effects. Thus, God cannot be considered to be essentially morally perfect, since being so would only be accidental if it were true.<br /><br />Finally, Martin attempts to show how the classical attribute of omnipotence (all-powerful-ness) is incompatible with His other attributes. He notes that the biggest problem with arguing against omnipotence is pinning down how it is being defined. Thus, he critiques four different positions. After stating Swinburne's definition, Martin gives many criticisms including: (1) it is defined as what God can bring about, rather than what He can do; (2) the omnipotence is temporally limited; (3) the omnipotence is limited by contingency; (4) the omnipotence is limited to non-accidents; (5) the omnipotence is limited by potential overriding reasons for any act; and (6) he being is not worthy of worship. Obviously, based on these criticisms, the "omniscience" invoked is too limited to be truly considered as omniscience. Next, he states Mavrodes' definition and notes that, according to this view, omnipotence is still incompatible with many other attributes. Then Martin states Taliaferro's definition and, again, asserts that it does not solve the problem of incompatibility. Finally, he offers Gellman's definition and gives four main criticisms: (1) some features considered true by religious believers would not be considered as perfections; (2) Gellman does not explain how it is determined that a thing is worthy of worship; (3) people do not agree on what constitutes worth; and (4) different attributes constitute perfection for different beings. Regarding this forth criticism, he gives four examples: (a) immateriality would be an imperfection in a body sculpting contest; (b) Sinlessness would be an imperfection for a role-model, since modeling them would be unachievable and thus not worth attempting; (c) omniscience would be an imperfection for an explorer; and (d) omnipotence would be an imperfection since gain is had through struggle.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />There was not much to agree with in this section, but I will try to highlight as much as I think is relevant. First, I agree with Martin's threefold division of knowledge. I think that one would be correct to assert that if God did not possess all knowledge in all three areas, then he could not rightfully be called omniscient (and thus, I agree with his criticisms of all the "weaker" view of Swinburne). I will explain further how my view allows for this in the critique section. Second, I agree with Martin's critique of Swinburne's defense of God's freedom, though I think that he did not take on the strongest theistic position at all. Finally, I agreed with Martin's critique of Swinburne's definition of omnipotence. I also will grant him the criticisms of Mavrodes and Taliaferro, though I am really doing this because I think that the fourth definition is the only one worthy of fighting for.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />My first criticisms are of the brief introductory chapter. First, his section on negative atheism has not accomplished what he said it would. Thus the first syllogism fails. Second, the a posteriori arguments are irrelevant since the Cosmological Argument has not been refuted. Nonetheless, I will have fun assessing them beginning next week. Third, I do not see how he considers Chapter Twelve to be an a priori argument for atheism. At best, it is an a priori argument against traditional theism as interpreted by the contemporary analytic philosophers of the theistic persuasion. This is still "negative atheism," not "positive atheism."<br /><br />Next, I would like to assess Martin's examples regarding God's lacking of certain kinds of knowledge. He claimed that: (1) God does not have all knowledge if he is spirit, since He would need a body to know how to do gymnastics; (2) God could not be said to have all knowledge of all actions, since He would have to be morally imperfect in order to know how it feels to lust; and (3) God cannot be said to have knowledge of all feelings, since He would have to know the experience of fear, frustration, and despair. Regarding (1), there is nothing about lacking a body that keeps one from having knowledge of how to do gymnastics. An engineer does not have a carburetor yet he knows how a car works. Regarding (2), it is true that God does not know what it is like for God to lust, since such an event has never occurred and never could. However, it does not follow that God does not know what it is like for 'person 'x'' to lust. Every relation has a subject and an object. These do not change for God's knowledge of them. Therefore, since it is impossible for God to lust, no person could have such knowledge. So we are not stuck with a position allowing people to have knowledge that God does not have. Regarding (3), experience in itself is a manner of existence, not knowledge. Thus, while God may not have the actual experience of being fearful, He exhaustively knows what it is for any person in any situation to be in fear. Thus, these criticisms regarding God's omniscience fail.<br /><br />Next, regarding Martin's attempt to prove that God does not have all propositional knowledge, I think that it can be shown that all three criticisms fail. The first criticism was that God could not have any knowledge of any statement beginning with "I" made by another being. But this is silly. Every "I" in every such statement is replaceable with a nominative. Like relations, every proposition has a subject, and every pronoun refers to that subject. The second criticism was that it is impossible for God to know all things since it would be impossible to know all things in space and time. But this begs the question. First, space and time are correlative, finite realities. God knows them completely in virtue of knowing Himself perfectly (since they virtually exist in Him as an effect does in its cause). Second, to hold such a position as Martin invokes is to assume that God exists in space and time, thus leaving the possibility open for other beings to be somewhere. But all of these principles of differentiation began to exist so there would not be a "somewhere" at all. Appealing to mathematics will not help either. Doing so as Martin does assumes that numbers and their relations are actually existing entities that exist separate from the being of God. We would reject this. Thus this criticism also fails. The third criticism regarding sets also fails. God does not know all truths as existing in sets. He simply knows all truths.<br /><br />Next, Martin discusses the incompatibility of freedom with the moral nature of God. I reject this whole question by denying that God is subject to any moral categories. Overall, however, I agree with Martin's critique of Swinburne in this section. However, the fact that Martin spends the whole section critiquing him (Swinburne) without even a mention of the classical concept of God as transcendent over time tells me that he (Martin) is really not interested in taking on the strongest theistic positions. All Martin has done here is to show that process theology, finite Godism, and any other form of Neotheism, are weak metaphysical options. This does my side a favor. Further, by demonstrating that God is beyond time (scientifically via Big Bang Cosmology and Einstein's Theory of Relativity and philosophically via the Kalam argument and the nature of change) we have completely evaded any problem here. God is free, we are free, and God knows the results of all future free acts since they are not future to Him. Obviously, much more can be said of this view, and it is very dependable. See Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to make an assessment of Martin's handling of Gellman. First, I would like to say that I like the definition of omnipotence attributed to Gellman and think it is worthy of defense. Martin's first criticism was that some features considered true by religious believers would not be considered as perfections. But this could either be the result of ignorance or the believers may simply be wrong. Now, if an attribute were to be shown to be imperfect, then there would be a real problem (such as the Mormon God being a changing being). The second criticism was that Gellman does not explain how it is determined that a thing is worthy of worship. I think that this worth is clearly related to the being's absolute perfection. The third criticism was that people do not agree on what is worthy. Likewise, this can be attributed to the people's ignorance, rather than a deficiency in the perfect being. The fourth criticism was that different attributes constitute perfection for different beings. He gave four examples that all die the same death. An attribute is perfect when it is wholly good, and it is good when it is desirable for its own sake. None of those activities offered as counters are good for their own sake. Body sculpting is sought for the beauty and order of the result, but these are made perfect in the simplicity of God. A role model's end is to be a good example, thus a sinless role model would be much better example than a sinful one. The end of exploring is to gain knowledge, but this end is fulfilled already in an omniscient being. It is better to rest in a good than to seek it. Finally, struggling is good insofar as it results in strengthening. But an omnipotent being needs no strengthening and, thus, he already owns the end.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-34443280437945013772008-02-20T19:39:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:40.972-07:00"Faith and Foundationalism"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqe3TJ18g8TVLD_7uZ1cb3IKVOqd12EpehAZ8-vOKl3Ohy35q5U3WPNDNb7PfuCwHbsW76ZcGUm43K_zH7gSqhnLhwnMaXhbuau-3K5DrfcR16kkZDJVwDY5kbNDG3ZLb84WKXYIA0j2Q/s1600-h/Faith+and+Reason.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169273612898212930" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqe3TJ18g8TVLD_7uZ1cb3IKVOqd12EpehAZ8-vOKl3Ohy35q5U3WPNDNb7PfuCwHbsW76ZcGUm43K_zH7gSqhnLhwnMaXhbuau-3K5DrfcR16kkZDJVwDY5kbNDG3ZLb84WKXYIA0j2Q/s320/Faith+and+Reason.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>CHAPTER 10</strong><br /><br />In Chapter Ten, Dr. Martin evaluates the different theistic positions regarding the relationship of faith and reason. In doing so, he successfully critiques those that hold to a form of fideism. He also looks at foundationalism, the epistemic system that holds that beliefs ultimately can be shown to rest on improvable foundations. This will be elaborated as we proceed. This is the last chapter in his negative case for atheism.<br /><br /><strong>A Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />Dr. Martin begins this chapter by asserting: "We have seen from the previous chapters that the epistemic and beneficial arguments for the existence of God fail." I would like to remind the readers here that, while Martin has done much to show that (1) many of the arguments fail altogether and (2) most of them are insufficient to demonstrate a particular deity, he has not adequately shown that these arguments all fail. For instance, I have pointed out that his criticisms of Aquinas' and Craig's Cosmological Arguments were unsuccessful. Therefore, the conclusion that God exists has been demonstrated unless a different criticism can be developed and shown to be successful. To this point, I have seen none.<br /><br />Martin then moves in to describe and critique a handful of positions regarding this topic. He begins by looking at Aquinas' traditional concept of faith and reason. Aquinas believed that things can be rationally believed on faith when they are founded on principles of reason. For instance, the existence of God, miracles, prophecies, and the church are rational evidences for the reliability of Scripture. Thus we can trust, by faith, the indemonstrable propositions of Scripture such as the Trinity, the nature of Christ, and the compatibility of freedom and God's sovereignty. Belief in God and other propositions are seen as preconditions for faith. Martin notes that this position has decided advantages over more recent ones (to be elaborated later). Nonetheless, Martin believes that it fails and gives four reasons. (1) He claims to have shown in Chapter Four that the argument for God's existence fails. (2) He claims to have shown in Chapter Seven that the argument regarding miracles is lacking in necessary proof. (3) Other religious traditions have grown in the same way as Christianity. And (4) though some historical evidence can be know with certainty, the New Testament miracle accounts can not be known with any degree of certainty. These reasons will be examined in the Critique section.<br /><br />Next, Martin looks at Kierkegaardian existential faith. He first notes how some believed that faith goes beyond, and sometimes against, the evidence. Soren Kierkegaard held that religious faith was more important than reason. As evidence for this, Kierkegaard pointed out that objective certainty leads to stagnation whereas faith is virtuous and that it is commitment to God that is necessary for salvation, not commitment to propositions. Martin, however, points out that Kierkegaard's faith can be condemned for three reasons. (1) It can be condemned on ethical grounds—why would faith despite negative evidence be virtuous? (2) It leads to fanaticism, which is a vice. And (3) it is inconsistent. His particular God wouldn't want this kind of faith since (a) an all good God wouldn't be all good if he required belief in the face of the actual evidence, and (b) if one should have faith in absurdities, as Kierkegaard claims, there are beliefs that should be more championed than Christianity since they are more absurd. After supporting his critique with a theist's critique (R.M. Adams), Martin concludes this section by claiming that Adams' Critique is strong, but doesn't account for the rationality of belief, especially considering the Christian faith, which is based on revelation that contradicts itself. More will be said on this in the Critique section.<br /><br />Next, Martin takes a look at Wittgensteinian Fideism. Wittgenstein believed that religious belief has its own rules and logic. After a thorough explanation of Wittgenstein's theory, Martin notes that Wittgenstein is correct that it is good to get into the religious system to understand it, but his system still fails. He gives three reasons. (1) The basis for distinguishing between "language games" is unclear. If one were to take it to its extreme, where it seems it must go, then it results in absurdity. (2) This system demolishes the possibility for external criticism, thus resulting in impossibility of distinguishing between truth and falsity. And (3) real discrepancies are called illusions without justification. After presenting this critique, Martin highlights a particular Wittgensteinian fideist's (Norman Malcolm) argument and points out that his correlation between material entities and God fails.<br /><br />After this, Martin critiques J.S. Clegg's argument that religious avowals are neither true nor false and Louis Pojman's argument that faith can be built on hope rather than belief. He makes quick work of these, so I will leave these criticisms unexplained. He then proceeds to evaluate Alvin Plantinga's theory of properly basic beliefs. Plantinga's system is developed as an answer to what he believes are the failures of classical foundationalism. He claims that (1) many of the statements we know to be true cannot be justified on foundationalist terms, and (2) that Foundationalism itself is not justified by senses, nor is it incorrigible, nor is it self evident. Hence, he developed a new kind of foundationalism that allowed for belief in God to be held as a properly basic belief. He claims that it is not universally recognized because sin is responsible for clouding this (but we may realize it while pondering sensory data). He claims that a belief can only be considered to be properly basic if it is arrived at in the right circumstances, though he doesn't give criteria for such situations since he doesn't believe that doing so is necessary. Martin gives three strong criticisms of Plantinga's system. (1) Plantinga has not proved that Classical Foundationalism fails to be self-evident. (2) He has not proved that the Classical Foundationalist model is not an inference or deduction from properly basic beliefs. And (3) He has not provided a defeater of Contemporary Foundationalism. After this, Martin points out five more problems specifically related to Plantinga's proposed model. (1) Plantinga's proposal would ultimately allow any belief to be considered as basic. (2) Plantinga's proposal assumes the truth Reformed theology. (3) Belief in God is a particularly unlikely candidate for a properly basic belief. (4) What one considers to be basic differs between Reformed and Contemporary epistemologists. And (5) Plantinga's foundationalism is radically relativistic and thus undermines the reason for foundationalism in the first place.<br /><br />Martin concludes this chapter by presenting a brief version of BonJour's Position against Foundationalism, but it is underdeveloped to the point that I cannot actually explain or critique it, so I will have to make it a personal project for a later time. It will be important for me to do since I consider myself a Classical Foundationalist.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />I was more split on agreement/disagreement in this chapter than in any chapter up to this point. As for agreements, I agree with Martin's criticisms of Kierkegaard, insofar as Kierkegaard has been represented correctly. However, I do not think that Martin has the luxury of faulting him in these ways, since he is invoking objective ethics and virtues, which are inaccessible for the atheist (if he were to be consistent). Thus, at best, his criticism that Kierkegaard is inconsistent is the strongest objection he can use (though, being a theist, the other two criticisms are acceptable and useful for me).<br /><br />Furthermore, I agreed wholeheartedly with Martin's critique of Wittgensteinian fideism, insofar as it was presented accurately. The idea of "language game theory" seems to presuppose that it has objective explanatory power. I also think that the criticisms of Malcolm, Clegg, and Pojman were all fair based on their views as expounded by Martin. Lastly, I think that Martin brought some excellent points forward regarding Plantinga's Reformed view of properly basic beliefs; in fact I think that his views are devastating to Plantinga's position. I am grateful for reading this section.<br /><br />Most importantly, I agree with Martin's early disclosure that Aquinas' position has decided advantages over more recent ones. However, I think that his rejection of it is wrong, and that should take up a major point of my critique.<br /><br /><strong>Critique</strong><br /><br />The most important criticism of Martin to this point was already stated at the beginning my summary of his arguments for this chapter: he has not sufficiently made the case against theism. Therefore, his "positive evidence" for atheism will have to have more explanatory power than the cumulative case offered by the cumulative cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments offered by theists.<br /><br />Next in line for my critique is the criticism of Aquinas' concept of faith as based on reason. As earlier stated, he believes that Aquinas' view did not hold up four reasons. (1) He claims to have shown in Chapter Four that the argument for God's existence fails. (2) He claims to have shown in Chapter Seven that the argument regarding miracles is lacking in necessary proof. (3) Other religious traditions have grown in the same way as Christianity. And (4) though some historical evidence can be know with certainty, the New Testament miracle accounts can not be known with any degree of certainty. Regarding (1), I have shown this to be false already, and one could return to my critique on this chapter to see why. The same can be said regarding (2). In response to (3), I find it disturbing that he claims that other religions have grown in the same way as Christianity did. What religions? He doesn't even give an example. This is an instance of well-poisoning. I would love to see Martin give one actual example of a religion growing because of the persecution that it received. The cultural climate at the onset of Christianity was extremely hostile for the first three centuries, and grew exponentially in spite of that. Thus the third criticism is at best unsubstantiated and at worst, deceitfully wrong. Regarding the fourth criticism, I have to ask "why?" The only reason I can think of that would lead one to such a position is a presupposition against the miraculous. But can he substantiate such a presupposition? He hasn't yet. Since Martin doesn't explain his criteria this point can be seen as null and void. Furthermore, as counterevidence to his assertion, the fact that early Christianity was known to have treated the miraculous resurrection as the central tenet of the faith can be demonstrated by even hostile, yet contemporary witnesses. Thus, Martin's criticisms of Aquinas' system altogether fail.<br /><br />Later, Martin makes a quick comment regarding the "contradictory nature" of the Resurrection accounts in the Gospels. It is interesting, however, that he fails to give a specific instance of contradiction, but rather simply asserts that the different Resurrection accounts are incompatible. This is a textbook case of either poisoning the well. If you are going to make a claim, support it.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-45650416774224367522008-02-14T06:16:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:40.989-07:00"The Beneficial Arguments for God"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3evbxCg_cgTwMp4oNKY_BiB_Qe_BeYhQcojnlFlajkHle8KSSy9BxmQcRvAvWJorlSY7OPY5Eu-9LJvsMtUFSbDu9YEFq2wiFhYH7L6tBbyuIbwPZYxCCsg_0pK3kYHJ9MlEhsuogs_Y/s1600-h/Pascal's+Wager.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166840269111893042" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3evbxCg_cgTwMp4oNKY_BiB_Qe_BeYhQcojnlFlajkHle8KSSy9BxmQcRvAvWJorlSY7OPY5Eu-9LJvsMtUFSbDu9YEFq2wiFhYH7L6tBbyuIbwPZYxCCsg_0pK3kYHJ9MlEhsuogs_Y/s320/Pascal's+Wager.gif" border="0" /></a><strong>CHAPTER 9</strong><br /><br />Chapter 9 is the last in a series of chapters analyzing and criticizing the popular arguments for the existence of God. Unlike the previous chapters which dealt with evidential arguments, or better, arguments based on some kind of potential knowledge, this chapter is focused at analyzing arguments based on the practical benefits of belief regardless of the truth-status of the particular claims. As with some of the other non-empirically motivated arguments, I tend towards agreement with Martin on his assessments here, perhaps more than in any other chapter that I have read thus far. So, once again, I fear that I will have very little substantial criticism to offer and will have to resort to some smaller matters. Nonetheless, I will proceed.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />Dr. Martin begins Chapter Nine by defining "beneficial arguments" as "arguments based on the so called practical benefits of belief rather than on evidence." After defining them this way, he tells us that he will focus primarily on the two most popular such arguments, those of Blaise Pascal (Pascal's Wager) and William James (from Will to Believe). He begins with Pascal's Wager.<br /><br />Blaise Pascal was the antithesis of Rene Descartes who believed that all certain knowledge, including that of God's existence, was found by way of reason. Pascal believed that the existence of God was indemonstrable and that only by acceptance of revelation and submission to God can we achieve any true knowledge of God. However, as a result of this Pascal recognized that it was necessary to give a reason that one should place such faith in the existence of God. Therefore, he developed what is now known as Pascal's Wager (*Note: This argument actually purports to provide beneficial reasons to act in religious ways that would indirectly result in religious belief. Pascal recognized that to turn the will apart from habit would require intellectual assent. But since intellectual assent was not available then habit was the proper route.). Briefly stated it says:<br /><br />P-1: If one believes in God and God exists, then one gains infinite bliss after life<br />P-2: If one believes in God and God does not exist, one has lost little<br />P-3: If one does not believe in God and God exists, one suffers infinite torment in hell after death<br />P-4: But if He does not exist and one has not believed in Him, he has gained little<br />Conclusion: If one has little to lose and infinity to gain by believing or little to gain and infinity to lose by not believing, then one should believe that God exists<br /><br />Martin offers one specific criticism of this argument and then takes on objections to that criticism. His criticism is that the Wager doesn't take into account the other possibilities regarding a possible transcendent being. He offers four alternatives: 1) a being exists that punishes believers and rewards unbelievers; 2) a being that rewards only for belief in a being that rewards unbelievers and punishes believers; 3) a being that punishes everyone regardless of belief; and 4) A being that rewards everyone regardless of belief. Martin proposes that, in logically possible situations such as these, unbelief may be more beneficial than belief.<br /><br />Next, Martin offers some possible objections to his view and answers them. The first objection is that these views presuppose that people would even believe in such beings, which is a dubious assumption. They argue that the Wager presupposes only "real possibilities," such as the Christian God. Martin answers that the claim that the Christian God is a better logical option is an arbitrary and culturally motivated assumption at best and an irrational one at worst. He adds that, only by demonstrating that such beings have inconsistent properties could one rule them out a priori. The next possible objection formulated by Martin is that this criticism assumes that it would be better to believe that no supernatural being exists even if one did, in fact, not exist. Supporting this, the objector may offer the idea that hope, even if misplaced, may be beneficial. Martin answers this critique by postulating that the negative value of religious worship (tithing, asceticism, and time consummation) must be weighed against the moment of hope—at which point the hope may have cost too much. Furthermore, there could be great practical value in not believing such as: 1) non-belief gives reason to take responsibility for own problems; 2) there are psychological benefits such as not being naïve; 3) there is epistemic value in not believing a falsehood; and 4) the comfort of believers is actually short lived and ultimately leads to despair. After these criticisms he offers one more that deals with probabilities and succinctly answers it. He then concludes the discussion if Pascal's Wager by stating: "Beneficial arguments should only be used when there are inadequate epistemic arguments to believe one ay or the other, and should be allowed to override epistemic arguments only in very special circumstances."<br /><br />Next, Pascal takes on a beneficial argument offered by William James. James begins his argument by making distinctions between live options and dead options as well as between genuine options and forced options. He then claims that, when a decision is real, forced, and momentous and not decidable on intellectual grounds then we should resort to our passionate nature (the will). From here, he points out that sometimes the possible gain of a belief being true outweighs the risk of it being an error. Therefore, he concludes teaching skepticism to someone who would benefit from belief is to ask them to be unwise, even if the belief is actually misplaced (since the better things are the more eternal things). In addition, James claims that we would be better able with this belief in a God than without it to confirm epistemically whether or not God exists.<br /><br />Dr. Martin offers five main arguments against James. 1) James' "live option" is subjective and relativistic and doesn't take into account all facts. Martin asserts that James should change the definition of "live option" to one that is non improbable. Doing so would make the "religious" question incapable of receiving an intellectual resolution, making it a real "live option." 2) James' language is at best ambiguous and at worst nonsense. Martin points out that there is no reason to believe that eternal things (numbers for Platonists) are better than non-eternal things. Nonetheless, even if one were to admit this, it says nothing of the actual existence of a perfect and eternal being. 3) There is no reason to suppose that theists live healthier happier lives than non-theists as a result of believing in such a being. In fact, religious belief is tied to poverty, sickness, and lack of education according to Martin. Further, even if a religious believer could experience more tranquility and serenity, there is no reason to suppose that these are better than the job, health, and education benefits received by the unbeliever (especially considering the fact that drugs can cause tranquility and serenity and are not considered more valuable than a job, health, and education). 4) The undifferentiated theism supposed by James' is not really a regular option ("live"). Bringing in these other options (Islam vs. Roman Catholicism) complicates James' formulations. And, 5) the supposition that being theistic provides better opportunities to weigh the epistemic evidence is unfounded. Differing beliefs may result in the "confirmation" of incompatible options. Further, James' doesn't consider the possibility that religious belief may block one from accepting dis-confirmatory evidence.<br /><br />Finally, Martin claims that James' argument is even weaker than Pascal's, since it deals with the here and now advantages only, as opposed to Pascal's dealing with the advantages of the afterlife. Also, James does not consider the probabilities as Pascal does. However, if James were to fix these problems then his view would be reducible to Pascal's and subject to the same criticisms as the Wager.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />Well, overall I agree with Martin. Beneficial arguments, in my opinion either beg the question in favor of a particular God or are completely unfounded. In fact, I think that Martin was charitable regarding the criticism of Pascal. Granting that the God Pascal speaks of is the Christian God; I think that one loses more by believing in God if He doesn't exist than in disbelieving in Him if He does exist. Think about it, if I disbelieve God and He does exist, I lose out on an eternal communion with Him, but I still have my existence as I chose to have it. However, if I believe in Him and He doesn't exist, I have offered to a non-existent being the only existence that I had, and thus lost the chance to truly live as I desired (of course one may say that I desired to live believing in this God, but I say that no one knowingly desires to falsely believe in any God). This, to me, is a more devastating criticism of Pascal. Nonetheless, Martin did the job without being overly simplistic or mocking Pascal. He was correct to point out that the open-ended 'God' of Pascal's argument left it too ambiguous. I think that his proposed objections and answers were fair and especially appreciated his claim that only by demonstrating that such beings have inconsistent properties could one rule them out a priori. I wholeheartedly agree here. Finally, I loved his final comments on this section where he stated "beneficial arguments should only be used when there are inadequate epistemic arguments to believe one ay or the other, and should be allowed to override epistemic arguments only in very special circumstances."<br /><br />I also agreed with his conclusion regarding the section on James' argument.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />As for the critique, I will offer three minor criticisms based on the text and one more major criticism regarding Martin's assumptions. All three of my minor criticisms come from Martin's critique of William James. First, when Martin was discussing whether or not theism or unbelief leads one to a happier life I think that he was heading down a meaningless path. Such claims are not testable by comparing groups as he does. Only by evaluating individuals who have experienced both states of affairs can anything be concluded. And even then the claims are not really testable. Such evidence is really only subjectively relevant. Second, Martin talked for a while about happiness being related to having a good job. But I challenge this. A job may or may not be fulfilling, and to the degree that it is fulfilling, to that degree it makes one happy. Thus it is not the job but the fulfillment that can be linked with happiness. Different people may have identical jobs and not experience the same level of happiness, so there must be something more. I propose that happiness isn't found in specific things or actions, but in progressing towards some desired goal. It is in approaching this goal that results in a greater happiness. The fact that non-religious people may seem to have more happiness can be attributed to the fact that their goals are lower and, thus, they are closer to it. Third, Martin suggests that, if one were to start with their belief in God while evaluating the evidence, then incompatible belief systems, in light of the "evidence," would seem to both be true. But this is plainly false. It would only result in the confirmation of the characteristics in which they were similar. Where they differed, the Law of Non-Contradiction would still apply.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to challenge one large assumption made by Martin in this chapter. He assumes that speaking of "better" or "valuable" is even meaningful in an atheistic universe. But is this so? How does one decide these things? Why is it better to take responsibility for one's own problems? Why is it better not to be naive? Why shouldn't we believe falsehoods? By what standard of goodness (ontological, not moral) is he comparing these things to? I am convinced that the atheist cannot sufficiently answer these questions.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-30862016056427934332008-02-07T06:47:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.005-07:00"The Argument from Miracles" and "Some Minor Evidential Arguments for God"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizoZu0iYh-xW3JQoYhwpJ6uoLymP6ml7EyFTUJmCuPCmgUeu8IAyhtwh0nvMRX1WNh2xw3a8wTlj9glmLANaPCSynBvrVLM1cb0PqshbBqPsdmvBBTnEsYQ1BNzM2CexE_m9EDFcSTroM/s1600-h/Walking+on+Water.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5164251125715666274" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizoZu0iYh-xW3JQoYhwpJ6uoLymP6ml7EyFTUJmCuPCmgUeu8IAyhtwh0nvMRX1WNh2xw3a8wTlj9glmLANaPCSynBvrVLM1cb0PqshbBqPsdmvBBTnEsYQ1BNzM2CexE_m9EDFcSTroM/s320/Walking+on+Water.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>CHAPTER 7</strong><br /><br />This week I chose to do both Chapters Seven and Eight since they were both a little shorter than most chapters. I will start here with Chapter Seven and do Chapter Eight after my critique of Chapter Seven.<br /><br />Chapter Seven of 'Atheism' is Dr. Martin's critique of the argument for the existence of God from the occurrence of miracles. The argument from miracles is a historical/ empirical argument and is therefore different from the traditional arguments. As with the previous article, I am split with my evaluation of this Chapter. There were many strong points made by Dr. Martin, but there were also many misunderstandings and mistakes. Overall, I believe that Martin is correct that 'miracles' themselves may not be sufficient to prove theism, but given a theistic worldview (as proven by the Cosmological Argument which was left standing after Martin's criticisms) miracles could be very informative.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />Martin begins this chapter by presenting what he believes to be the generic argument for God by way of miracles. Simply stated:<br /><br />P-1: There have been many miracle claims (in the Bible, church history, and in other traditions)<br />P-2: Given that such accounts cannot be explained naturalistically, the best explanation is God<br />Conclusion: God's exists<br /><br />After briefly noting that some theists do not use this argument for God's existence but rather for the affirmation of a particular theological scheme, Martin goes on to define what he means by 'miracle.' For Martin, a 'miracle' is not simply an unusual or unexplainable (or unrepeatable) event nor is it necessarily a violation of a natural law. Instead, a 'miracle' is considered to be an event brought about by the exercise of a supernatural power. Before going forward, Martin clarifies that, by 'supernatural,' he means going beyond 'nature,' i.e. those beings or powers that are measurable in the material world.<br /><br />After this introduction, Martin makes the claim that even if miracles actually occurred, they aren't necessarily the acts of God, but could be brought on by other supernatural beings besides God. After this brief assertion he goes on to critique Swinburne's claims as well as some claims of the Bible. Regarding Swinburne, Martin faults him for not taking into consideration other possibilities besides theism and naturalism in his handling of the 'miraculous.' Regarding the biblical claims, Martin says that some are contrary to specific Christian doctrines. He adds that others are impediments, cause confusion, or mislead, which contradicts God's omnipotence. Still others, he claims, are capricious or trivial which contradicts God's justice. More will be said of these assertions in the Critique section.<br /><br />Next, Dr. Martin takes on an argument presented by famous Christian apologist C.S. Lewis. Martin frames C.S. Lewis' argument as follows:<br /><br />P-1: If naturalism is true then miracles are a priori impossible<br />P-2: But if miracles are held to be a priori possible, then supernaturalism must be assumed<br />Conclusion: Therefore, one must determine between naturalism and supernaturalism before he can truly investigate the possibility of miracles.<br /><br />Martin rejects that one needs to prove naturalism or supernaturalism before evaluating miracle claims. He then goes on to say that Lewis' attempt to prove supernaturalism fails anyway (Lewis attempted to do so by arguing that naturalism leaves no room for logical inference and no room for justifying morality). He claims that the first part fails because it assumes that naturalists need to explain things in terms of cause and effect. Then he claims that the second part fails because naturalists do have a justification for morality.<br /><br />In the next section, Martin attempts to show the difficulty in even recognizing a miracle. He begins by presenting David Hume's a priori argument against miracles and then critiquing it at many points, concluding that there are no a priori reasons to reject the miraculous. He then defends the idea that there are a posteriori reasons to reject the miraculous. He offers three reasons in defense of this cl.. 1) Not all natural laws have been discovered; hence it cannot be shown that the event wasn't naturally occurring. 2) Not all miracles can be shown to conflict with natural laws (some mysterious events can actually be the result of trickery, deceit, or magic; he offers two examples of this regarding Christianity: a) Jesus' purported miracles may have been fraudulent and b) the witnesses of Jesus may have seen what they wanted to see). And 3) the scientific laws may be statistical rather than deterministic. Thus the events may be uncaused—not naturally or supernaturally determined.<br /><br />Finally Martin assesses what he claims are the best documented reports of miracles, a collection of claims from a town called Lourdes. If these are suspect—he claims—then there is good reason to believe that all others are suspect. After review, he believes that these "miracles" are naturally explainable in some cases and that others have been shown to have been questionably recorded. To conclude the chapter, he assesses those that believe that indirect miracles occur (those that are miraculous because of their timing). He claims that there is no reason to assume that these are not merely coincidental and, nevertheless, if one were to accept these as genuine he must do so at the expense of free will.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />First, I would like to point out that I appreciate Dr. Martin mentioning that some theists believe that miracles are better suited for demonstrating the proof of a particular religion rather than demonstrating the existence of God. I hold this position, and I would like to view his arguments against the Christian claims someday. Second, I love that he took time to define miracles in such a way as to allow for the timing of events to be considered miraculous. I also think that his rejection of Hume's a priori argument is correct in its conclusion and I appreciate his a posteriori reasons, though I do not believe that they successfully undermine any Christian claims. Finally, I think that he has fairly treated the accounts at Lourdes, though I disagree that disproving those claims has any relevance to all other claims.<br /><br /><strong>Critique</strong><br /><br />There are a few areas that I think are well-deserving of a critique in Chapter Seven. First, he criticizes Christian miracles in three ways. Regarding the first criticism, that some are contrary to specific Christian doctrines, he cites that Jesus is not merciful because He allowed demons to enter a group of pigs when they were going to run of a cliff and because He caused the fig tree to whither. Now, I am not sure why either of these criticisms should be taken seriously. However, granted that Martin does take them seriously I will answer simply, God is also just (regarding the fig tree) and God has created free creatures that have the ability to choose to harm others (regarding the pigs). The second criticism of Christian miracle claims is that some are impediments, cause confusion, or mislead, which contradicts God's omnipotence. But this misunderstands the source of the confusion, since it is the deficiency in the hearer that causes this rather than the miracle itself. This can be shown by pointing out that some understand the significance of the events. Further, the idea that miracles 'impede' science falsely assumes that physical science is the Holy Grail of wisdom. This is false; theology is queen of the sciences (used loosely here). Finally, Martin criticizes Christian miracles as being capricious or trivial which contradicts God's justice. However, the 'capricious' claim assumes that the own seeing the miracle knows more about the situation than does the one doing the miracle and the 'trivial' claim assumes that the events classified as such are true miracles. I would reject both.<br /><br />Next, I would like to critique Martin's criticism of Lewis' arguments against atheism. First, Martin has misunderstood Lewis' claim regarding the ability to make inferences in a materialistic world. Lewis is pointing out that if all reality is natural, i.e. governed by nature, then all inferences are governed by nature, and thus they are not actually inferred from the data but determined by prior conditions. Secondly, he has also misunderstood Lewis' claim about there being a justification for moral judgments in a materialistic world. Following the prior point, if there is nothing beyond nature, then all is determined. If all is determined then one cannot choose between moral alternatives and, thus, there is not actual moral choice since there is no choice. But where there is no choice there is no condemnation. Thus Lewis' arguments still stand.<br /><br />Next, I would like to comment on his a priori reasons for rejecting miracles. His first criticism can be countered by noting that miracles are not events in a vacuum, they may be scientifically explainable but miraculous insofar as their timing. The second criticism assumes that a miracle must conflict with natural laws, something he supposedly ruled out earlier in his definition. In his first example of theological trickery he asserts that Jesus' purported miracles may have been fraudulent, but this is unbelievable based on what we know of His character. In his second example of deception, he claims that the disciples fooled themselves into believing what they wanted to, and he cites the instance of the calming of the storm as such an example. Now, this is a terrible example for Martin to use since the disciples were frightened when they saw it—who wants to be scared? Further, we have evidence that Jesus' followers were constantly rebuked for not seeing what they should have been seeing. Finally, such examples do not account for the signs that converted James and Paul.<br /><br />Though I have some other criticisms throughout the chapter, I will skip over them and end with my criticism of Martin's handling of indirect miracle claims. First, he asks why we shouldn't just chalk such events up to coincidence. But if this is a theistic (proven by the Cosmological Argument) world and the event accompanies a religious message, then is it more rational to believe it is a coincidence or accept the truth claim in accompaniment? Second, he claims that such occurrences would negate free will. But this is just false. God is not in time, thus an event can be determined (in that it will surely happen, not that God is causing it) to occur based on free choices.<br /><br /><strong>CHAPTER 8<br /></strong><br />In Chapter Eight, Martin takes on a collection of what he believes are some of the more 'minor' arguments for God's existence. I will try to be very brief on this section seeing as I have already created such a large post. Off the bat, I would like to note again that I agree with Martin that these arguments aren't demonstrative, but I do believe that, given the fact that the Cosmological Argument succeeds, these arguments all have some value.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />Martin begins this chapter by critiquing the argument from consent for the existence of God in three forms: 1) that God is demonstrated based on innate ideas, 2) that God is demonstrated based on an innate yearning, and 3) that God is demonstrable based on sound reasoning. On the first two he points out that there is no such evidence to support these claims and even counterevidence when one notices that atheists don't believe and don't yearn for God. On the third point, Martin answers that most believers don't believe by reason but by indoctrination and that those who are most reasonable, the scientists, are more likely to be unbelievers.<br /><br />Next, Martin critiques four forms of the moral argument for God's existence. The main arguments he challenges are: 1) disbelief in a theistic God would result in a drop in morality; 2) no one has shown that morality can be objective without God; 3) conscious can not be explained naturalistically; and 4) Kant's deontological argument. For time's sake, I will further address these in my critique.<br /><br />Next, Martin critiques the argument from reward which claims that believers are happier than unbelievers. Hoe points out that this argument is not demonstrable, does not prove theism, and can be explained naturalistically. Then he critiques the argument from justice which claims that our sense of justice tells us that all evil should be repaid or balanced out. But it isn't here. Thus there must be a place/time where that occurs. He likewise points out that this argument also is not demonstrable nor does it prove theism. After this he critiques arguments from scripture, which appeal to reliability of a historic document and then to miracles and self-claims at divine authority. He notes that some Holy Books do not make such claims, others contradict one another, and some such as the Bible, are internally inconsistent and not confirmed by independent sources. Next, he critiques the argument from consciousness which claims that the interaction between the mind and brain demands a theistic explanation. He answers this by claiming that this interaction can be explained naturalistically and, nonetheless it doesn't prove theism. After this, he critiques the argument from providence which states that after an analysis of possible worlds, it can be seen that this world has an extremely friendly environment that is best explained by appeal to a heavenly organizer. In response he points out that there are many unfriendly elements and also appeals to the Problem of Evil, which will be dealt with in a later chapter. Finally, Martin critiques the argument from cumulative evidence, which states that theism is supremely explanatory among all hypotheses. He responds that Kuhn's approach has problems, points out that there is no agreed upon paradigm for comparison, and appeals to the second half of his book for evidence that atheism would have better explanatory power.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />Again, I would like to note that I see a lot in this chapter that is very true. Particularly regarding the facts that these arguments, taken by themselves, do not prove that theism is true. Nor are most of them demonstrable outside of a theistic context. This agreement applies to almost all of the arguments offered by Martin in this chapter.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />I would like to focus my critique on just a few points. As noted earlier, I think that each of these arguments has value, but I agree with Martin that the value is not in demonstrating theism. That said, I think that the first two criticisms of the argument from common consent are valid, but the third I think is not. I do believe that God can be demonstrated by reason. Though most people today believe because of 'indoctrination,' Martin neglects to point out that the Christian faith was founded on evidential appeals and rational inference. So when the chain is traced back it ends with reason. Second, the fact that most scientists disbelieve (which I doubt seriously but will grant for the argument) proves nothing. If anything, these are not the champions of reason but observation. Philosophers are the champions of reason per se and most of these believe that there is some ultimate reality behind the physical world.<br /><br />Next, regarding the moral argument, I think each criticism is flawed in some way. First, the claim that many believe that disbelief in a theistic God would result in a drop in morality may be true, but that is not by any means the intellectual argument offered by theists. We claim that disbelief in a theistic God results in a lack of justification for moral standards. Second, the claim that no one has shown that morality cannot be objective without God is just false. I did earlier by pointing out that naturalism entails determinism thus negating morality. Third, the claim that conscious can be explained naturalistically is also false. It cannot be explained unless without invoking free choice, which is unavailable for the naturalist. Finally, Martin's critique of Kant's deontological argument still doesn't explain why the good is to be considered good.<br /><br />Next, in Martin's critique of the argument from consciousness he claimed that the 'apparent' interaction between the mind and the brain could actually be explained naturalistically. But this is only true up to a certain point. Eventually, there must be a first originating cause for every act/choice.<br /><br />Finally, in his criticism of the argument for God based on cumulative evidence, Martin asserts that there is no agreed upon paradigm by which we could judge the value of the evidence. But this assumes that all evidence is merely scientific (in the strict physicalistic sense). The truth is that there is a paradigm by which we can judge the evidence, logic. And there has never been a paradigm shift regarding the acceptance of the laws of logic rational inference. They are universally used and undeniable.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-72671580486333960322008-01-31T07:32:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.024-07:00"Religious Experience"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxkSiOdjfG6cCcmYwp0xiIDqYebHCdydAqcjQcP_HS-R2NO14ebw_f7cKYabUKr0XR9y9ibrYs3NCCOqqlIUqGnL6AA509y1bKv0xxh0vqDIS0iXUq_YPGcHc59wzr1eioaehc9kMpwNo/s1600-h/Sigmund+Freud.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161673144610685906" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxkSiOdjfG6cCcmYwp0xiIDqYebHCdydAqcjQcP_HS-R2NO14ebw_f7cKYabUKr0XR9y9ibrYs3NCCOqqlIUqGnL6AA509y1bKv0xxh0vqDIS0iXUq_YPGcHc59wzr1eioaehc9kMpwNo/s320/Sigmund+Freud.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>CHAPTER 6 </strong><br /><div><div><div><br /><div>Chapter Six of 'Atheism' takes on the problem of religious experience as it relates to the problem of God's existence. This argument, unlike the others, is not syllogistic, i.e. moving from premises to a conclusion. For this reason it is a very difficult argument to either affirm or deny. Since propositions cannot be valid or invalid, the only way to test them is to see whether they are true or false. But how can you prove that someone had or has not had a particular experience? Thus, the stickiness of this problem is apparent. I would like to admit at the outset that I have been dreading this chapter. The reason I had been dreading it is because I thought that I would have been in full agreement with Dr. Martin and, thus, would have had very little to say. Surprisingly, I have come to find out that, while I agree with some major points put forth by Dr. Martin, I actually had a much higher proportion of disagreement. Unfortunately, though, I am now faced with the problem of having very little to agree with, since what I actually learned from him was that I am actually unconvinced as to either position being correct. Thus, I will proceed from here to follow my regular pattern though without holding a position on the outcome.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />Dr. Martin begins this chapter by defining religious experience as: "an experience in which one senses the immediate presence of some supernatural entity." He further qualifies his definition by asserting that by 'senses' he is in no way admitting that such an entity as is sensed exists, only that the 'sensor' believes or is inclined to believe that such an entity exists. Thus a religious experience is a subjective experience of something that may or may not exist. After defining what a religious experience is, Martin goes on to give what he believes to be the five types of religious experience: 1) an ordinary object being perceived as a supernatural being; 2) a supernatural entity being perceived as it would appear publically; 3) a supernatural entity being perceived as it would normally appear, yet privately; 4) a non-describable sensation or feeling (mystical experience); and 5) a non-sensory consciousness of the presence of another.<br /><br />After listing the types of 'religious experiences,' Martin notes how most experts admit that such arguments are not actually arguments but, rather, propositions. After doing so, he points out that, while one cannot make an argument for the experience, one must argue for the justifiability of trusting such experiences. Thus, Martin goes on to formulate what he believes to be an accurate representation of the argument for the justifiability of religious experience in logical form. It can be stated as follows:<br /><br />P-1: Under certain conditions 'C', religious beliefs of type 'K'-that is, beliefs generated by religious experience- are likely to be true.<br />P-2: Condition 'C' obtains<br />P-3: My religious belief that God exists is a type of 'K'<br />C: Hence, my religious belief that God exists is likely to be true<br /><br />Based on this formulation, Martin correctly notes that the first premise is the key to the argument. He asks what type of reasons we have for accepting this premise. He is correct in his estimation that most experiences are private, thus compounding the problem. He also points out that there is an alternate (psychological) hypothesis, namely that the mind is the cause of the experience rather than an external object. He cites the effect of drugs as evidence that the mind often causes delusion. Finally, he notes that such experiences tell no uniform or coherent story and claims that there is no plausible theory to account for discrepancies. In light of these problems, he rejects the argument. After this, Martin gives an account of some traditional approaches used to 'judge' the reliability of particular religious experiences. The two he cites are: 1) an experience is not reliable if in conflict with Scripture; and 2) an experience is not reliable if it produces bad effects. He notes that the first attempt begs the question for a particular God and gives us reasons to believe that such agreements with Scripture could be produced by the mind simply in virtue of one being reared in a Christian culture. Regarding the second attempt, he claims that it too has a major assumption—that one could a priori know that an experience with God could only result in morally good responses. He asks why one couldn't denigrate morally because of a particular experience of God, and thus claims to have ruled out these 'tests.'<br /><br />After ruling out such private experiences, Martin assesses the claim that public experiences could count as evidence for God's existence. He begins by admitting that such a task is possible in principle, but claims that the necessary ingredients needed to prove such a claim are missing. Regarding the first type of religious experience (listed above) He notes that there is no way to discern between the natural object and the spiritual being since all who see the physical reality will agree on it while few will see the spiritual reality. Regarding the second type (above) he claims that there are no uncontroversial cases of such experiences, but admits that if there were, this evidence would be significant. He then, recognizing that many would point to the supposed public appearances of Jesus after the resurrection and gives three criticisms of it: 1) the accounts of Jesus' resurrection contradictory in Gospels; 2) the accounts are not supported by the earlier writings of Paul; and 3) the accounts are not supported by contemporary Jewish and Roman sources. Finally, he points out that even if it did occur, it would not prove the existence of the theistic God since there are many other possible explanations.<br /><br />Next, Martin turns his attention to mystical experiences. He notes that some say that these experiences when evaluated are much more similar to each other and even all seem to describe some experience of a 'nonsensuous' unity. Martin, however, claims that this argument fails stating that: either the similarity is not really present and the argument fails or the similarity is present and, seeing as the recipients interpret such experiences as exclusive realities (pantheistically vs. theistically), such similarities are better explained as being psychological rather than supernatural. Finally, he makes the keen observation that comparing these experiences is actually useless anyway, for one would have to have a description of the ineffable to do so. And that is a contradiction.<br /><br />Finally, Martin ends this chapter by evaluating the argument proposed by Richard Swinburne. As has been his mantra, Mantra claims that Swinburne's argument is the most sophisticated and extended defense and, if false, it is likely that any other defenses will have serious problems as well. After this complimentary opening, Dr. Martin lays out Swinburne's case which centers on 'The Principle of Credulity.' This principle can be stated: "If it seems (epistemically) to the subject 'S' that 'x' is present, then probably 'x' is present." He (Swinburne) goes on to note some limitations to such a principle and claims that they do not actually apply to the argument from religious experience. In response to this, Martin proposes many supposed defeaters including: 1) The Negative Credulity Principle (where he asks "Are not experiences of the absence of God good grounds for the non-existence of God?); and 2) a hypothetical situation involving a dead aunt. Finally he ends by stating that Swinburne's hypothesis doesn't account for 'contradictory experiences' nor does it demonstrate that 'lesser beings' could be the cause of such experiences (finite, but very powerful mini gods). In the end, Martin claims that arguments from religious experience are un-definable and accepting them is for the gullible.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned<br /></strong><br />As I noted earlier, this chapter was extremely hard for me to go through. First, I have never had a strong 'mystical experience' as defined. At most, I would claim to have had the fifth type of experience, where there is a non-sensory consciousness of the presence of another. However, such an experience seems to have no objective power for proving the existence of God, and thus on the main argument of Dr. Martin, I have to agree. However, I do think that in principle such experiences can be more than sufficient as evidence for God's existence on a subjective level. But since these experiences are not testable, I don't know if they are even worth talking about on the issue at hand (which is building a rational argument for or against theism; by definition experiences are non-rational—though not necessarily irrational).<br /><br />I also agree with Martin that Swinburne's system is in disarray as it has been set up. If Swinburne's entire argument relies on the credulity principle as Martin has portrayed it, then I do not think that it is strong enough to convince a reasoned person that God exists. However, I do think that such a principle, given the theistic worldview proved by the cosmological argument, can be useful for some things. Nonetheless, its purpose here seems to have failed.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />Finally, we move to the critique. I actually am surprised at some of my own thoughts in critiquing this, mostly regarding the final portion where Martin proposes objections to the Credulity Principle. However, there were a few criticisms that I have from the preceding section. First, when Martin denies the effectiveness of experiential evidence because there is no plausible theory to account for discrepancies, I think he is getting ahead of himself. It is theoretically possible that such a unifying theory could be discovered, and thus the evidential discrepancies could be explained. Now if contradictories were somehow affirmed with perfect accuracy then he could disprove the evidential value. But, seeing as such evidence would be impossible to put forth since one is only working with interpretations of experiences, which could be false, rather than the experiences themselves, such a result is highly unlikely, if not impossible. Second, Martin postulated that it was possible that one could be moved to be immoral if they had an experience of God. However, given the system of Thomas Aquinas, which stands on his yet to be disproved cosmological synthesis, this would be impossible because God is identical to goodness. Thus, one who experienced God could never turn immoral as a result of it. Third, many times throughout the arguments, Martin affirms that making distinctions between the experiences and the interpretations of them could help the problems that arise. However, he never attempts to discredit such arguments that would use this distinction because Swinburne doesn't allow for it. But Swinburne's argument isn't the end all and it would be interesting to see how Martin would react to the position if held.<br /><br />Finally, my major criticisms have to do with the so-called Negative Principle of Credulity. First, what is an experience of 'something' not there but an experience of 'nothing'? But an experience of 'nothing' cannot prove that 'something' is non-existent. Second, I do not think his chair example works. Our 'non-experience' of the chair is limited to a particular space; thus we cannot say that a chair doesn't exist but that there is no chair 'right there'. Now Martin may respond that since God is omnipresent, such an argument would seem to be valid. However, when one experiences God it is not a spatial relationship that is being conveyed but a spiritual relationship. To illustrate using the chair, even if one wants to see the chair really badly he will not experience it if he is not properly related to the chair, e.g. he has his back to it rather than his face. Likewise, if one is not in a correct spiritual relation with God, it is likely that he will not perceive Him. Thus this portion of Martin's claim is faulted. Third, I think that the 'Dead-Aunt' analogy is faulty. If we do know something of the exploits of the dead, we could judge whether or not the experience is valid. Hence, if Christianity is true and the general resurrection has not occurred and we knew that the aunt was dead, or if there was no religious significance such as a prediction of such a resurrection based in a theistic context, then there would be good reason to doubt the experience based on conditions. Of course this may seem to be begging the question, but I am not trying to make an argument, only give a counterexample to Martin. Thus, this portion of his argument fails as well. Lastly, Christianity has an answer for the fact of discrepancy between different religious experiences which actually invokes Martin's proposal of 'lesser beings.' Christianity claims that there are evil/deceiving spirits. Thus, these can account for misinformation. Again, this is a counterexample, not a proof. All in all, Martin's arguments, while they may be right about the worth of subjective religious experience as it relates to demonstrating God's existence to another, ultimately fail in trying to prove that such experiences are nothing but psychological manifestations. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone could ever make such an argument without begging the question.<br /><br />One more thing (and this is something I plan to do a blog on later, so I will keep it brief). Martin made some claims about the Resurrection accounts of Jesus in the Bible that I would like to say something about. 1) He asserts that the Gospel accounts are contradictory and never gives an example. This is poisoning the well. If they are, tell us how. If you can't give an example, don't claim it. Because he gives no example, I will have no recourse but to say "Nuh uh!" 2) He claims that the Resurrection experiences cannot be corroborated by Paul, who wrote earlier. But this is just false. 1 Corinthians 15 is as clear as any passage of Paul's that the Resurrection was experienced by many, including a group of 500. What's more is that this account, which takes the form of a creed, can and has actually been dated to within five years of the event itself, and thus is very reliable historically. Finally, 3) Martin claims that the events surrounding the resurrection are not supported by Jewish and Roman sources. Again, this is an unfair criticism. First, it is documented by these sources that the believers held the Resurrection to be true. Of course they may not comply, but if they did then they would be considered Christian sources rather than Jewish and Roman. It is a catch twenty-two! And if one were to say that this wouldn't be the case then fine, the Apostle Paul is my Jewish and Roman source. Thus the criticisms of Martin are unsubstantiated and the public experiences of the supernatural are indeed significant.</div></div></div></div>Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-17227007679298547142008-01-24T09:40:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.040-07:00"The Teleological Argument"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih0EC5yEohRSrGFHBPzP_6vbvXtTrwmXipprWC1mBAH6jupqRXBWtOGK25A0AhvvmWK1XXTDU6n9STOshiMqug8x83_e5z73k2UzN0bpDKmvPz_cRxddfgyphP50ERYsaP2bxfBKawaF4/s1600-h/Paley's+Watch.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161674209762575330" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih0EC5yEohRSrGFHBPzP_6vbvXtTrwmXipprWC1mBAH6jupqRXBWtOGK25A0AhvvmWK1XXTDU6n9STOshiMqug8x83_e5z73k2UzN0bpDKmvPz_cRxddfgyphP50ERYsaP2bxfBKawaF4/s320/Paley's+Watch.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>CHAPTER 5</strong><br /><br />Chapter Five is the third in a series of chapters critiquing the traditional arguments for the existence of God. To recap, the first of these chapters critiqued the Ontological Argument in a variety of forms. For the most part, I believe that Martin did a decent job in doing so. In the end, I agreed with him that the Ontological Argument is invalid. Next, he critiqued the Cosmological Argument in many forms. While I agreed with his criticisms of the inductive proofs (as presented; I cannot be sure of the accuracy since I am not as familiar with the inductive proofs), I pointed out that his criticisms of the deductive proofs of Craig and Aquinas were at best unfounded. Hence, those arguments, after his critiques, still seem to be valid. That brings us to the present argument, the Teleological Argument. The Teleological Argument is the argument from design. It is commonly quoted as:<br /><br />P-1: Whatever is designed had a designer<br />P-2: The universe has the appearance of having been designed<br />C: Therefore, the universe has the appearance of having had a designer<br /><br />This argument is a deductive argument based on premises known inductively. Therefore, the most that one could hope to receive from such an argument is probability. Nonetheless, a high probability would at least count against atheism. That being said, as will be brought out later, this argument, taken by itself, fails to be an adequate demonstration of theism. Of course, I do not think that it is entirely worthless. I do think that, when combined with the conclusion of the Cosmological Argument (which does prove theism); the Teleological Argument demonstrates that the Uncaused Cause of the Universe is intelligent and, thus, it is a person (if one follows Aquinas' Five Ways to the Fifth Way I think that one can more adequately understand this). However, this argument is not evaluated by Martin and, thus, I will just leave it here as a statement of my position and proceed to Dr. Martin's arguments.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />Dr. Martin begins this chapter by pointing out that the Teleological Argument is an argument based on empirical facts, much like the Cosmological Argument. He then makes the interesting claim that these two arguments are really without distinction—more will be said of this later.<br /><br />After his short introduction, Martin gives a very short background of the Teleological Argument. He points out that it is usually construed as an argument from analogy, and then gives an example of such a formulation, that of William Paley, as well as a criticism of such a formulation, that of David Hume. In short, Paley introduced what has been famously called the Watchmaker argument. Basically, it is an argument from analogy via contrivance: if one were to come across a watch in nature, the fact that its parts are arranged in such a way as to appear contrived is evidence that the watch had a watchmaker. Likewise, if an object in nature appeared to have such contrivance, that evidence would support the idea of a nature-maker. Before going into the criticisms of this argument given by Hume, which Martin seems to take as authoritative, he points out that the argument from analogy is not the only way to make a Teleological Argument. Thus, he informs us that the rest of this chapter will take on four arguments that will not suffer the same fate as that from analogy (supposedly). After this brief intro, he proceeds with David Hume's criticism of the analogical Teleological Argument found in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.<br /><br />Hume's argument generally attacks the Teleological argument based on its analogical character. He points out that, if analogies were taken to the extreme, the conclusions would not actually be acceptable to theist. For instance, machines often have many makers, and thus the creative force would more closely resemble polytheism. Further, machine makers have bodies so God(s) would have one (each) as well. Finally, machines have imperfections so machine makers must too. Besides this argument by Hume, Martin presents an argument given by Wallace Matson who argues against the analogy of the universe with that of anthropological excavation. Matson maintains that artifacts are judged not according to purpose but according to 'marks' left by tools rather than weather and thus the analogy to anthropological study based on design is unfounded.<br /><br />After critiquing the analogical argument, Martin proceeds to look at what he claims are the stronger Teleological Arguments, the inductive ones of F.R. Tennant (the chief proponent of theistic evolution), George Schlesinger, Richard Swinburne, and Richard Taylor. In a nutshell, Tennant's argument is one that doesn't rely on particular facts of nature but rather claims to be a sort of cumulative case argument based on probabilities for six kinds of adaption that naturally occur. He basically claims that theism is rationally justifiable, but not deductively proven by his argument. Martin makes many very strong criticisms of Tennant's argument including: 1) it is compatible with polytheism; 2) it comes to non-inductive conclusions; and 3) the evidence used is at times inconclusive. More will be said of these criticisms in the agreements section.<br /><br />The next two arguments taken on by Martin are those of George Schlesinger and Richard Swinburne. Schlesinger's argument claims that, if one follows the inductive practice of the scientific method, theism is inductively supported. Martin's criticisms of this view included: 1) if the concept of God is inconsistent then the argument fails; 2) judging the credibility based on chosen factors is unjustified (all the evidence need be assessed); 3) the argument doesn't disclude the possibility of polytheism, deism, or another variety of theism; and 4) natural events would cause humans to respond to danger rather than God, but these are controlled by God, so there seems to be a conflict of purposes. Swinburne's argument claims to use considerations derived from induction and confirmation theory. When the evidence is combined, according to Swinburne, theism is more probable. What makes this argument unique is that it argues based on a temporal order, which is supposed to be easier to defend than a spatial order. Martin's critiques of this view include: 1) the argument is based on an assumption that does not fairly take into consideration the other possibilities; 2) this a priori argument is not supported by analogy (ex. Ford manufacturer; cabinet maker; music production); and 3) a world that is more conducive to moral development is easily imagined (even given Swinburne's theory of how morality is developed).<br /><br />Finally, Dr. Martin critiques Richard Taylor's argument which states that when confronted with an entity of apparent design, if we accept the possibility that it was formed by chance then we should not trust any message that it conveys. Thus, if we accept the idea that our senses were formed by chance then we should not trust them. Taylor admits that this has no theological import, so he seems to be challenging the opponents of design with the fact that, if there is no design then there is no science. Martin critiques this view by stating that: 1) there seems to be a possible equivocation on "meaning"; and 2) a reformulation ultimately would result in profound epistemological skepticism.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned<br /></strong><br />So far, I think that this has been the best chapter by Dr. Martin. Besides the introductory criticisms of the analogical argument I agreed with most of his criticisms. In his critique of Tennant, his section titled "Non-inductive Conclusions" had many great insights. For instance, he noticed that the argument, if true, only brings us to admit to a cosmic architect rather than a creator. In the next section of that chapter he rightly points out that Tennant simply rejects the chance hypothesis even though he maintains the possibility. He also comes to what I think is the correct conclusion regarding judgments about a priori probabilities, namely that they are based on arbitrary values. In his critique of Schlesinger's argument, Martin justly appeals for a cumulative approach to the evidence, rather than allowing him to pick and choose his relevant information. Against Swinburne his examples using analogy were brilliant (Ford manufacturer; cabinet maker; music production). Against Taylor, I think his assessments were fair, but I think he missed a great point, namely that the example given to support Taylor's can be answered by showing the distinction between the data received by the arranged rocks and that received by the eye, namely that one is informative and that the other natural. Thus there is no reason to reject the senses if there is no design. Overall, I think that, besides a couple of instances of lacking charity, Martin's arguments against the proponents he invoked are sound. Thus in my critique, I will primarily focus on the first argument, that against the analogical Teleological Argument.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />My main critiques have to do with Martin's introductory section. First, the claim that there is no distinction between the cosmological and teleological arguments seems to be absurd. The cosmological arguments argue for a timeless, immaterial, non-extended cause whereas the teleological argues for an intelligent, i.e. personal, cause. That is a pretty major, and non-arbitrary I might add, distinction. Nonetheless, this is a minor semantical point that I don't need to dwell on, but it does show me that Martin may have a tendency to be uncharitable with the views that he is trying to critique.<br /><br />Regarding the section on Paley's Watchmaker argument I have a few criticisms. The first is over the use of rhetoric. When introducing the arguments of Paley and Hume, Dr. Martin structures his remark in such a way as to make it sound as if David Hume's argument was a response to William Paley's. Now, this is not problematic for the person familiar with the history of philosophy, but for the average reader they would just accept the claim implied idea that Hume refuted Paley. But this didn't happen! Hume made his argument first (1776). Paley's didn't come until (1802). Thus, it is most likely that Paley was at least aware of Hume's criticisms and that his argument was free from the criticisms. The second criticism I have is with the application of Hume's critique to the argument. First, the fact that it is called an argument from analogy prohibits it from being subject to the "extreme conclusions" criticism. It was never intended to be a univocity. Second, the argument as formulated was not one meant to demonstrate some quantitative relation between the design and the designer, but rather a qualitative one. The argument says that what has the appearance of contrivance was in fact contrived. To ask that such an argument give an exact description of the monotheistic God is asking it to accomplish a task it had no intentions of doing. Finally, Hume argued that imperfections in the design imply an imperfect designer. Why? What principle is there in perfection that requires one who is perfect to only make things perfect? Is this even possible anyway? If a perfect being could only create perfection then it could only create itself, which is absurd. There is no reason that the designer could not have freedom to design as he wishes, as long as the result is good (not morally but ontologically). Thus, Hume's criticisms applied to the argument fail and Paley's Watchmaker does not end in the historical trash heap of bad ideas based on it.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to make a quick comment about Matson's comment about anthropological excavation. He argued that relics are not judged as the products of intelligence because they have purpose but because they have markings indicating that they were made by tools. I think this only pushes the problem back one step. Why do the markings show intelligence? Because there is order to them that could only have been left behind by something made by an intelligent agent, rather than by natural phenomena. So the criteria are the same. Something is judged design based on some complexity attributed to the object that defies nature. In the end, Matson's argument paves the way for the I.D. folks.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-38385913132028903582008-01-17T05:48:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.056-07:00"The Cosmological Argument"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqkki5Jxl9vcdU1r1fd-rVwhoAed5bDD2TpF-ueS20igjSqbKqIeqI5UvBJCCOZ5Xazcotuaj7IekdvvMfh0T543PJkaCXFIN5MJMEzSYvKRpJ_iQeyF7V4zYWQlyck-Z-hbSR4Z5ZQ3E/s1600-h/Universe.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161675017216426994" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqkki5Jxl9vcdU1r1fd-rVwhoAed5bDD2TpF-ueS20igjSqbKqIeqI5UvBJCCOZ5Xazcotuaj7IekdvvMfh0T543PJkaCXFIN5MJMEzSYvKRpJ_iQeyF7V4zYWQlyck-Z-hbSR4Z5ZQ3E/s320/Universe.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>CHAPTER 4</strong><br /><br />Chapter Four is a continuation of Dr. Martin's section which contains his arguments against the traditional arguments for the existence of God. Whereas in the last chapter I agreed wholeheartedly in the conclusion arrived at by Dr. Martin (regarding the ontological argument), in this chapter I will be on the other end of the spectrum and wholeheartedly in disagreement with his supposition that his refutation of the arguments here should provide good grounds for discrediting all the cosmological arguments. In fact, I believe that the Cosmological Argument, when formulated correctly is the foundational argument for God's existence. Without it, I think that the other arguments are found wanting. For the sake of readers not familiar with the cosmological argument, I will give a generic example of one. However, there are many versions that have significant differences and, thus, this should not be assumed to be the extent of cosmological proofs. That being said, the generic form can be stated as:<br /><br />P1- All things that begin to exist must have had a cause.<br />P2- The universe began to exist<br />Conclusion- Therefore, the universe must have had a cause<br /><br />The Cosmological Argument is an argument based on causality. The many forms (which include both deductive and inductive forms) take into account different possibilities such as an infinite universe, a finite universe, a priori evidence, and a posteriori evidence. One should put further study into all these to grasp the nuances. That said; let us turn to the arguments.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />In this chapter, Martin presents five versions of the cosmological argument by five very reputable scholars. The arguments presented by Martin include Thomas Aquinas' Second and Third Ways, William Lane Craig's Kalam Argument, Richard Swinburne's Inductive Argument, and Bruce Reichenbach's Cosmological Argument. However, before beginning with these, he presents a very simple version that is stated as:<br /><br />Everything we know has a cause, but there cannot be an infinite regress of causes, so their must be a first cause. The cause is God.<br /><br />He makes two criticisms of this argument. First, he points out that, even if this argument were true, the cause need not be an all good, all knowing God. Secondly, he says that it simply assumes that an infinite series is impossible. He points out that those who make such claims believe in infinite series in the field of mathematics and wonders why such series are not allowed in reality. After posing these questions, he moves on.<br /><br />The first scholarly version of the cosmological argument that Martin takes on is Aquinas' Second Way, which is his argument from efficient causality. Martin presents this argument as Aquinas' attempt to show the impossibility of an infinite series of efficient causes. After further explaining the argument, Martin makes two criticisms. The first is that, even if Aquinas' argument were true, it does not necessarily prove that God is the cause. Secondly, Martin claims that there is no reason that there cannot be a non-temporal infinite regress of causes. He goes on to say that, unless a relevant difference is shown between temporal and non-temporal infinite series Aquinas seems to contradict his own claim, since his arguments presuppose (for the sake of argument) an eternally existing universe. In short, it seems that Martin is asking Aquinas why he allows for the logical possibility of an infinite regress of moments while rejecting the logical possibility for an infinite series of causes.<br /><br />The next argument that Dr. Martin critiques is Thomas Aquinas' Third Way, the Argument from the need for a necessary being. Martin claims that Aquinas tries to show that, if everything has the potential not to exist, then at one time there was nothing. After attempting to reformulate Aquinas' argument, he makes several criticisms. First, like the other arguments, he points out that even if this argument is granted, it does not prove God, but only a necessary being. Second, he accuses it of committing the fallacy of composition. Third, he challenges the idea that something cannot come from nothing and states that Aquinas' own biblical worldview contradicts this since the universe is said to be caused from nothing. In light of these criticisms, Martin claims that Aquinas' argument has failed.<br /><br />Next, Dr. Martin takes on a different form of the Cosmological Argument. Whereas Thomas Aquinas arguments allowed for an eternally existing universe, William Lane Craig's version, the Kalam Cosmological Argument, argues for the impossibility of an infinite universe. Craig's argument is formulated exactly as my generic one above. As support for the first premise, Craig offers the possibility of an a priori category a la Kant. Further, he claims that the first premise fits our everyday experience of the world. As support for premise two, Craig notes that denying that the universe began to exist presupposes the possibility of an actual infinite number of things. In argument against this, Craig gives examples to the contrary such as the absurdities that result from considering infinite collections by successive addition (such as time) as well as positive evidence from science (cosmology, entropy). Finally, Craig offers support for the idea that his argument also supports the idea that the cause is personal by what he calls the principle of determination. Martin makes many criticisms of this view including: 1) He claims that Craig's conclusion doesn't justify creation ex nihilo, 2) Craig never offers support for his principle of determination, 3) Craig's arguments against the possibility of an actual infinity are unsound or show at most that actual infinities have odd properties, 4) Craig fails to show how the idea of an actual infinity is impossible in reality and even fails to show a non-logical absurdity, 5) Craig's argument from successive addition begs the question for a beginning to the addition, 6) To say that the universe had an absolute beginning is not scientific, since science always leaves open the possibility of explaining an event, and 7) Craig doesn't consider the possibility that the beginning may be uncaused.<br /><br />After critiquing Craig's Kalam argument, Martin takes on Swinburne's inductive argument. I have to admit that I have never seen Swinburne's argument before and don't understand it as Martin has reported it. Nonetheless, it seems to me that, granting the assumption that it has been represented correctly, Martin seems to have given a scathing and justified critique of it. Since I agree, I won't continue here with a summary. This was a very long and technical section, so if anyone wants to read it, go for it.<br /><br />Finally, Dr. Martin considers Reichenbach's argument. This argument is an a priori argument from the idea of a necessary being. Again, I am not familiar with this argument, and many of the criticisms have been leveled against the other arguments, so I do not wish to rehash them. I think that I need to understand this view more before I can accept or deny Martin's critique. Therefore, I will pass over this one here.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />There are a few things that I have gained insight on regarding this chapter. First, I commend Dr. Martin for choosing what I think are the strongest cosmological arguments for the existence of God, particularly, the first three. Secondly, I was very impressed with some of his insights on the Thomistic arguments, and even came to realize that there are some aspects of Aquinas' proofs that I did not quite understand, and thus I had to do some extra study. I was also happy to see that Martin recognized that Thomas' arguments weren't arguing for an originating cause but, rather, a present cause. Third, I am so happy that he didn't ask the mindless question: "If everything needs a cause, then what caused God?" Typically, at least with the New Atheists, this question is one of the most common criticisms and does little more than show the lack of understanding on the part of the question askers. Such a question reminds me of a saying by one of my professors: "There are no stupid questions, only stupid people who ask them." However uncharitable that may sound, it seems to be true. Fourth, I appreciate that Martin points out that Craig never justifies his principle of determination. In fact, I propose that Craig's principle is incoherent since it supposes a time before time. Nonetheless, this is not a critique of Kalam's argument, only a critique of this supposed result. I still thin the cause is proven, though not necessarily a personal one (via this argument alone). Fifth, as I said before, I agree with most of what I understood regarding Martin's critique of Swinburne.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />Now for my criticisms; primarily I will defend the first three arguments in light of Martin's critique. But before working with each individual one, I would like to address the criticism thrown at each argument. After each critique, Martin offered the criticism that none of these arguments prove God. Well, this is a vague claim and needs to be clarified. If by prove one means each argument doesn't, taken by itself, give a complete presentation of the entire nature of God then, yes, I agree. However, I do think that each argument, if correct, does tell us something about God. Namely, that he is a cause. Regarding the generic proof, I think that there are many implications such as the cause will be extremely powerful, unchanging, eternal, pure act, actually necessary, transcendent, omnipresent, spirit, and one (I will do a blog on this after I finish this series. If you are interested in how I arrive at this conclusion then please e-mail me and I would be happy to discuss it). Nonetheless, I agree that this argument is limited and has nothing to say about the personhood or intelligence of God. Still, I think that this argument presents a pattern of which all claims about God must be filtered through. If they don't fit then the God proposed does not correspond to reason and reality. That said; let us analyze Martin's particular criticisms of Aquinas and Craig.<br /><br />Regarding the second way, Martin charged Aquinas' with being inconsistent. He basically said that unless a relevant difference is shown between temporal and non-temporal infinite series Aquinas seems to contradict his own claim regarding the potential of having an infinite number of events. Remember, Aquinas' proof accepts the logical possibility of an infinitely existing universe. But Martin asks why there can be an infinite number of moments but not an infinite series of efficient causes. Because of the academic nature of this question I consulted my philosophy professor and here was his reply (in my representation of his words): Martin is confusing the relation of proper causes to their effects versus the relation of accidental causes to their effects. A per se ordered series of causes is where the each cause depends upon the preceding cause in order to cause (such as a hand using a hammer). A per accidens ordered series is where each cause in the series has their causality independent from the preceding cause (such as the generation of children). Thus the per accidens series, for Aquinas, go back indefinitely while the per se series do not. Thus the criticism is misguided. The distinction need not be between a temporal and non-temporal series but rather between the different modes of causality. Thus Martin's criticism of the Second Way fails.<br /><br />Regarding Martin's critique of the Third Way I have a couple of things to say. First, I think that Martin's reformulation does injustice to Aquinas' argument and thus some of the criticisms based on that formulation don't necessarily apply. Both are included in Martin's text, so I will let anyone who is willing to look for themselves be the judge. Secondly, Martin charges Aquinas with committing the fallacy of composition. But I would like for him, or anyone, to explain to me what the whole universe is without its parts. It would be nothing. Hence it had to receive its existence from something. Nothing in the universe is a thing which has an essence that guarantees its existence. Finally, Martin questions whether the claim that there could not be something brought into being by nothing is not self evident. In doing so he points out that Aquinas' own worldview has an occurrence of something coming from nothing, in the ex nihilo creation of Genesis. To answer this I would first like to point out that something did not come from nothing in Genesis, it came from God. It came 'out of' nothing, but not 'from' nothing. Secondly, I would like to argue that it is self-evident. As soon as we know what 'something' means and what 'nothing' means it is obvious that 'something' cannot come from 'nothing.' If one wants to reject such a concept I think that they would have the burden of proof since they are going against all intuition. So a simple assertion will not do.<br /><br />Lastly, I would like to look at the seven criticisms leveled at Craig. 1) He claims that Craig's conclusion doesn't justify creation ex nihilo. Actually, it does. If there is a beginning to time then, according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity which has been proven to the 5th or 6th decimal place, there was also a beginning to space and matter. Thus there is no known substance out of which creation could have been derived. 2) Craig never offers support for his principle of determination. I agree with this criticism. 3) Craig's arguments against the possibility of an actual infinity are unsound or show at most that actual infinities have odd properties. Martin simply asserts this. I find it disheartening that Martin offers the idea that Craig's argument is unsound as one end of a disjunction. Take the claim alone. Either it is or it isn't. If it is, give proof. Otherwise, don't even bring it up. 4) Craig fails to show how the idea of an actual infinity is impossible in reality and even fails to show a non-logical absurdity. This is false. I don't see why an actual absurdity must be non-logical. Sure, it may be non-logical, but why must it be? That said, the library example, while working with logical argumentation also has an element that seems to relate to reality. That is the whole point. 5) Craig's argument from successive addition begs the question for a beginning to the addition. This is true only as Martin has formulated the claim. But I think that this seems to be a straw man formulation. It is not about a beginning point but an ending point. Craig is not concerned with where it started but how the moments are traversed. 6) To say that the universe had an absolute beginning is not scientific, since science always leaves open the possibility of explaining an event. Of course it is not 'scientific' if by 'scientific' one means 'measurable' or 'testable in a laboratory.' What would there be to measure since time, space, and matter do not exist? Further, who gives the monopoly on truth to the physical sciences? Why do away with metaphysics? 7) Craig doesn't consider the possibility that the beginning may be uncaused. As said earlier, I thing the onus is on Martin to explain why we should deny this intuition.<br /><br />Therefore, Martin's criticisms do not effectually discredit the cosmological arguments, particularly those of Aquinas and those of Craig. Since this is the case, I will appeal back to them when defending against other criticisms if need be.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-40416870888023399852008-01-17T05:47:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.072-07:00"The Ontological Argument"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyTidwooVuTKqf9OfW3Byd9DGDGvLXbCfaI7ophb75ecv9fo1T6W5VFJna0iet2z-5bQdAp7_Jt0Adj6mE0u6VC8-FQfHZTnEHggVWALDp1h4Md5X1EC8qjEYw55dLxma2eHOfo5LQYPY/s1600-h/Descartes.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161675536907469826" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyTidwooVuTKqf9OfW3Byd9DGDGvLXbCfaI7ophb75ecv9fo1T6W5VFJna0iet2z-5bQdAp7_Jt0Adj6mE0u6VC8-FQfHZTnEHggVWALDp1h4Md5X1EC8qjEYw55dLxma2eHOfo5LQYPY/s320/Descartes.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>CHAPTER 3<br /></strong><br />Chapter Three is the first of eight chapters critiquing the traditional arguments for the existence of God. Dr. Martin has begun this portion of his book by challenging the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. While there are many different forms of this argument, I will give Anselm's so that anyone not familiar with it can understand what we are talking about. The argument can be framed as follows:<br /><br />P-1: That than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in the understanding.<br />P-2: But a greater conceived being would exist in reality as well.<br />Conclusion: Hence the greatest conceived being exists in reality.<br /><br />The Ontological Argument is an argument based on the idea of a perfect being, and its originating point is said to be in the mind. Many famous scholars have supported Ontological Arguments including Anselm, Descartes, Hartshorne, and Plantinga. This Chapter is one of the shortest in the book, so this post will likewise be a bit short. I could have combined this chapter with the next, but I think that the Cosmological Argument deserves a week of its own.<br /><br />*Note- I agree with Martin's conclusions in this chapter, yet I do have some disagreements regarding his arguments. I just wanted to make sure that anyone who decides not to read the rest of my post doesn't think I am going to defend this argument.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims</strong><br /><br />As I said a moment ago, this chapter was very short. In addition to its total brevity, it also contains many repetitions in its critiques. Therefore it will be easy to summarize. Dr. Martin has taken five different versions of the ontological argument in this chapter and critiqued them. He began with Anselm's argument listed above. He points out that this argument makes two major assumptions. The first is that "a being is greater if it exists in reality than it would be if it existed only in the understanding." He invokes Kant's criticism that questioned whether existence can be a property of an object. If it could not, then existence would not make a thing greater. Hence, if defenders of this argument want to support it, they would have to demonstrate that existence is a property. Anselm did not accomplish this. The second assumption is that "even if existence is a property, this argument assumes that existence adds greatness to a being." Martin postulates that existence could actually detract from a being's greatness. He also points out that the existence of a being may not have any relation to its ontological greatness but rather to its value to other beings. He then goes on to point out how the existence of a being such as this may actually be of negative value for individuals by bringing loss of freedom and guilt into the world. He then parodies this argument by replacing the idea of a perfect being with a perfect island and then with a most evil being.<br /><br />Next, Martin critiques Norman Malcolm's Ontological Argument. Malcolm accepts the premise that existence does not add to the greatness of an entity. In short, Malcolm argues that God's existence is either impossible or necessary. Since it is not impossible, it is necessary. Martin asserts that this proves nothing since God's existence may actually be logically impossible. He follows his argument with another island parody and another evil being parody.<br /><br />Martin then critiques Charles Hartshorne's Ontological Argument. Hartshorne's is similar to the one above but is represented in a very strict, though logically valid argument. Unfortunately, premises one and seven are at best unjustified and at worst false. Martin again parodies this argument with the perfect island and most evil being.<br /><br />Then Martin critiques Carl Kordig's Ontological Argument. This argument is a two step argument that claims that since God's existence is possible then it actually is necessary. After critiquing this argument, Martin continues with his parodies.<br /><br />Finally, Martin critiques Alvin Plantinga's version of the Ontological Argument. Plantinga's is based on possible world semantics and is admittedly not a proof for God but rather it is a proof for the logical possibility of God. Martin criticizes the use of possible world semantics and points out that it is possible that such an idea of a perfect being that exists may be illogical. He then gives examples of possible entities that could work against his argument such as unicorns and fairies. He finishes with the same parodies that he used on the others, though adapted to Plantinga's argument.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned</strong><br /><br />For starters, I unequivocally agree with Martin's conclusion here. The Ontological arguments fail to demonstrate the existence of God. In fact, I am convinced that arguments for anything that begin in the mind rather than from empirical data usually end up begging the question. That's right, I am an empiricist (but so was Aristotle and Aquinas, so don't get too excited). Throughout his criticisms, I found many points of agreement with Dr. Martin. There was one reoccurring problem that I picked up on that I think is the heart of this issue. Though Martin did not clearly mention this problem, he made many allusions to it. This problem is the idea of attaching the property of necessity to an idea (*Note- I don't think that it is impossible for a thing to have necessary existence, however, I think it must be demonstrated, not simply asserted). Every time that one of these proponents did this they seemed to do so without justification. Then, when someone would parody their arguments with a "perfect and necessary island" they would get upset and assert that such a move was unjustified and absurd. I recognize that there are some weaknesses with the island parody, but I do think it helps to illuminate the fact that necessity is just being asserted in the arguments that rely on it, it is not being proven.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />Finally, I would like to point out some areas of disagreement that I have with Dr. Martin's critique. First, regarding his invocation of Kant against the idea that a being is greater if it exists in reality than it would be if it existed only in the understanding, I want to point out that Kant's criticism is only valid if his system is valid. You see, it is obvious that Kant would reject the idea that existence can be predicated as a property of an entity because for Kant the entity is actually only a formulation of qualities filtered through the categories of one's mind. What we perceive is not what is. Hence it is not surprising that Kant would reject the existence of our idea in the real world. Since Kant's system is suspect this criticism is not necessarily strong. I imagine that Martin recognized this and guess that that is why he allowed for the assumption that existence could be a property.<br /><br />Second, and still in his section on Anselm, Martin postulates that existence could detract from an entity's greatness. But what does this even mean? I think that this is a category mistake. When comparing an existing entity to "something" that doesn't exist you are really not comparing it to anything, and hence you lack a comparison.<br /><br />Third, regarding Malcolm's argument, I think that there is something missing in the critique. Malcolm stated that "God's existence is either impossible or necessary. Since it is not impossible, it is necessary." I think that this is actually true but logically false. If God, who is said to be the cause of the world, does not now exist, then it would be impossible for Him to come into existence as God, the cause of the world, after the world has already been. However, if God does exist then He must exist necessarily (of course I do not mean that the idea of God must be necessary but that given the fact that all contingent things need a cause something must necessarily exist. This is a Cosmological proof and I am sure it will come up next week. Remember, there is a distinction to be made between necessity as it applies in Ontological Arguments and necessity as it applies in Cosmological Arguments). However, since Malcolm is trying to make an Ontological Argument, I agree with the conclusion offered by Martin.<br /><br />Finally, I want to point out that Martin's evil being parody is a complete failure. In the theistic framework evil is not a thing but a privation in things. Hence an absolutely evil thing is a contradiction, since it would be an absolutely privated thing or, in other words, a nothing thing. Therefore, existence would not make a completely evil thing more evil.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-89852905608618116022008-01-06T11:35:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.088-07:00"The Meaningfulness of Religious Language"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpuMBW5w6WwiRnS6sB00ygVB4WEOzAlO7bNryHV4NJ2HEwQGNyBgwCV6SFHfMUQV_u_n2YyRi-bZNbybz9JkqGgFHqJyHr5y0c4LGilbypaTeA_7D__NLI_LNyst1hbstCcl6jIklMqsE/s1600-h/Ayer.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161677542657197074" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpuMBW5w6WwiRnS6sB00ygVB4WEOzAlO7bNryHV4NJ2HEwQGNyBgwCV6SFHfMUQV_u_n2YyRi-bZNbybz9JkqGgFHqJyHr5y0c4LGilbypaTeA_7D__NLI_LNyst1hbstCcl6jIklMqsE/s320/Ayer.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>CHAPTER 2<br /></strong><br />In Chapter Two of 'Atheism' Dr. Martin discusses the topic of 'God Talk' and whether it is defensible that human language can even discuss God—whether it be regarding His attributes or His actions. It seems to me that this is a great starting point for discussing the warrant of agnosticism vs. revelational theism; however I do not see that such a discussion could, of itself, support atheism at all. In fairness, it seems that Dr. Martin does recognize this—as indicated by his conclusion that losing 'God talk' diminishes the positive argument for atheism as much as it diminishes the positive argument for theism. I commend him for this honesty. Nonetheless, he felt it necessary to discuss in his philosophical justification of atheism, so I will evaluate it here.<br /><br />Martin begins this chapter by giving an overview of the problem of using language to describe God (which I will flush out in the next section). He continues by giving a description of logical positivism, the philosophical system by which he intends to derive his answer for the problem. Then he makes a distinction between meaninglessness (no syntactical structure or express a true or false idea) and incoherence (expressed statements that entail a contradiction). He correctly notes that a statement cannot be both incoherent and meaningless at the same time. He then proceeds to give an account of what he believes to be a strong critique of 'God Talk,' that of Kai Nielson. Next, he outlines and critiques the defense made by theist Richard Swinburne. Next he briefly discusses two theories of observation, a physicalist theory and a phenomenological theory. After that he gives an account of several 'theistic' attempts to show the confirmability of theological statements, followed by his critique of each position. Finally he concludes his chapter by admitting that the court is still out regarding the possibility for God talk and because of this he vows to write the rest of this book as if it were potentially feasible. However, he does believe that, in light of current evidence, the only position that is currently justifiable is negative atheism (which seems to be a form of agnosticism). Though he does not mention so, I believe that his position—if it were correct—would also allow for an existentialistic fideistic theism to be considered justifiable as well. Of course, I don't think he is correct.<br /><br />*Note: I will assume that his assessments of other people's theories are correct and I will evaluate on this assumption. If there are mistakes, I do not wish to be held responsible.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims<br /></strong><br />Martin begins this chapter by asking "Is God talk meaningful?" He correctly notes that language, when used of God, seems to have an entirely different application than it does when applied to temporal entities. Things predicated of God are essential, unchangeable, and non-retractable; whereas the same things predicated of temporal entities are not so. He seems to argue that since we do not know things in such a way that we cannot correctly say such things of God. What is more, according to Martin, is that the very notion of God itself is ambiguous because of its "varied and inconsistent uses." He then argues that the classical understanding of God as a non-spatio-temporal being negates the meaningfulness of 'God Talk' since referring to something requires a spatio-<br />temporal scheme.<br /><br />After these preliminary criticisms of 'God Talk,' Martin makes his case against it. He cites as a jumping off point David Hume's argument that "only synthetic a posteriori (matters of fact) and analytic a priori (relation of ideas) statements are legitimate propositions." He then defers to the more detailed working out of this formula presented by logical positivism which is (albeit briefly):<br /><br />A statement has factual meaning if and only if it is empirically verifiable<br />A statement has formal meaning if it is analytic or self-contradictory<br />A statement has cognitive or literal meaning if and only if it has either formal meaning or factual meaning.<br />A statement has cognitive or factual meaning if and only if it is either true or false<br /><div><br />Martin admits his belief that disavowing the meaningfulness of 'God Talk' based on positivism is defensible since statements about God are not verifiable, analytic, or self contradictory and hence meaningless. He then critiques some common theistic attempts to defend itself against positivism including: 1) arguments for the empirical verifiability of the faith, 2) arguments for a non-cognitive interpretation of belief, and 3) arguments against the verifiability theory of meaning.<br /><br />Next, Martin presents Nielson's argument. Nielson holds that all God talk is not meaningless, since some is just factually false. However, he does hold that 'God Talk' about the classical theistic God is meaningless, since the idea of a transcendent being acting in time is nonsensical. He continues to argue that we should count such statements as meaningless since they are not confirmable or infirmable. He cites as evidence the facts that believers often have doubts. He claims that since we can support the verifiability theory with some statements then we can use it to judge other more controversial ones. He then proceeds to argue that a statement can only be considered meaningful if it can be proven wrong.<br /><br />After this, he begins critiquing different theistic positions. He begins by assessing the analytic arguments of Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, which I will not summarize here since they are not relevant to my position. He then goes on to critique several confirmability theories, which are also irrelevant to my position (though I think that Crombie's position may be defensible as far as it is portrayed).<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned<br /></strong><br />To begin, I couldn't agree more with Dr. Martin that talk about God has an entirely different way of being predicated to its object than the same language would have of a temporal entity. I think that this fact would be very useful to modern theologians who tend to look over it so non-chalantly. I actually think that flushing this out a bit more is a stronger argument against God Talk than that of logical positivism, though I believe that it is so on a false presupposition, which I will address in my critique. I definitely appreciate his distinction between meaninglessness and incoherence, and I will try to remember it forever. I agree that Nielson's formulation of positivism is more sophisticated than other forms, though I still think it is unsubstantiated. I appreciate that Nielson rejects Wittgensteinian fideism, but I think that this rejection logically results in a difficulty for the atheist position as it relates to teleology. Finally, I agree with his final assessment that IF his conclusion were true that it only eliminates positive theism and positive atheism. I also appreciate that he has admitted that there is still a jury out.<br /><br /><strong>Critique<br /></strong><br />First, I don't see how it is an epistemological problem that things are predicated of God in a unique way. All that such a fact tells me is that I don't understand exactly how the subject and the predicate are related; but I see no reason why I couldn't correctly tell that they are related. Second, I think that he begs the question when he states that "referring to something requires a spatio-temporal scheme." He never explains why, but I would be interested in hearing an explanation. Third (and I think this is the greatest criticism of this whole section), it seems that Hume and the logical positivists are working from self-defeating arguments. Hume states that "only synthetic a posteriori (matters of fact) and analytic a priori (relation of ideas) statements are legitimate propositions." But this statement doesn't pass its own test since it is neither scientifically demonstrable (synthetic a posteriori) nor logically necessary (analytic a priori). Likewise the positivist claims are not: 1) factually meaningful since they are not empirically verifiable, 2) formally meaningful since they are not analytic or self-contradictory, or 3) cognitively or literally meaningful since they are not formally or factually meaningful.<br /><br />Now, I do not discredit the usefulness of verifiability theories, I think that verification is a tremendous tool. However, I do not believe that it is necessary to be able to verify something for it to be meaningful. Thus the statement "God loves us," while not directly verifiable can still be meaningful and, in fact, true. Finally, I would like to say something about testability. I think that I would agree with anyone who claimed that we should not accept a non-testable system as true. This would be tantamount to blindly jumping into an open elevator shaft hoping that the elevator is at your floor. However, there seems to be nothing wrong with accepting non-testable facts as true within the context of a rationally defendable system. For instance, I am not rationally justified in believing that God loves me because I feel good about that idea. The ground for my belief is not testable since my feelings can not be tested. However, if I believe that God loves me because Jesus said that He does and proved that what He said was true by predicting His death and resurrection and then accomplishing that feat then I have believed something based on information that can be tested. The grounds are the historically verifiable events of the life of Christ.</div>Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-75172407273082248252008-01-06T11:34:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.109-07:00"Introduction" and "The Justification of Negative Atheism"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgvcxUfeHojw7xfVF9vLgVppJoIVQS_kgpdLmWoIFEmohGgWGEKLZGbXQQMlYK829HqKyu1txSsUhz6BAT4BjKIlpTCNAiT7ssd8hGN2yUPSyXAqybpIAiDCVCTtoK_oDFhX7XuiDrh4A/s1600-h/Atheist+Girl.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161678749543007282" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgvcxUfeHojw7xfVF9vLgVppJoIVQS_kgpdLmWoIFEmohGgWGEKLZGbXQQMlYK829HqKyu1txSsUhz6BAT4BjKIlpTCNAiT7ssd8hGN2yUPSyXAqybpIAiDCVCTtoK_oDFhX7XuiDrh4A/s320/Atheist+Girl.bmp" border="0" /></a><strong>INTRODUCTION AND CHAPTER 1</strong><br /><br />Dr. Martin begins his philosophical justification of atheism by making an appeal to atheism as being a much more prominently held belief than is often admitted. He also notes that atheists are often looked down on while its proponents are nearly invisible in America. He offers these as reasons for writing this book. Of course the climate has changed a bit since 1990 when this book was published, and today atheism is much more "in," but I think that his claims still hold some truth, and I think that it is a noble cause on his part to attempt to make this justification. In the Introduction Martin attempts to defend atheism against some common criticisms leveled against it—that atheism is false, that atheists are immoral, and that atheism leads to meaninglessness. The first of these he passes on discussing here since this is the purpose of this book. The second and third he makes his arguments against here since he will not address them further in the rest of this work. In concluding the introduction, Martin spells out his overall purpose for the book. He wishes to: 1) provide good reasons for being an atheist; 2) show that atheism is justifiable and belief in God is not; and 3) make counterarguments to the new analytical arguments for God. I will come back to these three purposes when I conclude my series. In Chapter 1, Martin sets forth some preliminary considerations prior to making his case for negative atheism—the argument for atheism from the failure of the reasons for theism. In the second part of his book he will try to make a positive case for atheism.<br /><br />*Note: Because of the introductory nature of this section of the book the presentation was quite choppy and incomplete. I do not find fault with the author, I realize that he was probably just bringing attention to the fact that he recognizes that such problems are present and wanted to swiftly address them. Whole volumes could be written on these topics. Therefore, I will do my best to summarize, but in doing so I must leave some information out. For those of you reading with me, if you think that I have erred in my analysis, please let me know where and in what way. My hope is that the rest of the book and my appraisal will be able to be clearer.<br /><br /><strong>Summary of Martin's Claims<br /></strong><br />Martin's first defense of atheism in the Introduction is the defense against the claim that "atheists are immoral." He points out how people who were atheists were automatically considered to be criminals in past times and that such unwarranted beliefs are often held by believers today. He proceeds to ask the question: "Is there any reason to suppose that religious belief and morality are intimately related?" According to Martin, some theists say that belief in God is necessary for having a high moral character. Other theists weaken the claim a bit and claim that belief in God makes it more probable that one will have a high moral character. In light of these claims, Martin offers as counterexamples: 1) that there are moral atheists; and 2) that there is evidence that seems to show that religious belief has little effect on criminal record. In doing so Martin claims to show that religious belief and morality are not intimately related. Martin next attempts to answer the objection that "atheists do not have any justification for being moral." He proposes that an act for an atheist can be considered moral according to one of many different, though possible, methods. Some of these are the "no-egocentric-term-analysis," the "unique justification analysis," and "methodological ethical absolutism." Of course, Martin is sure to point out that these methods don't necessarily result in absolute agreement since human beings have limited factual knowledge. After explaining the systems by which an atheist is supposed to be able to justify objective moral statements, Martin proceeds to critique a theistic position regarding morality, Divine Command Theory. He points out that there are "modal problems" regarding this theory where God may command one moral act in one possible world and the opposite in another. He also acknowledges many epistemological problems such as: 1) how to determine which commands are from God considering the fact that there are many conflicting "sources" of commands (Bible, Koran, etc…); 2) how to determine the meaning of conflicting interpretations of commands (thou shall not kill or murder?); and 3) how to deal with questionable commands (divorce). Finally, Martin notes some conceptual problems such as the dilemma of a non-spatial, non-temporal being being involved in a speech act. Thus, at the conclusion of this section on morality and atheism, Martin concludes that a theist will have to explain how the theories that he puts forward for ethical absolutism fail as well as answer the problems with their system.<br /><br />The next "misconception" that Martin attempts to clear up is that atheism leads to meaninglessness. He begins by pointing out that terms such as "purpose" and "meaning" are ambiguous, and hence it is difficult to even understand what is mean by "meaningless." If meaning relates to duration, Martin points out that atheism doesn't necessarily count out the immortality of the soul or a "cosmic plan of salvation." Nonetheless, even if these conclusions are rejected by a naturalistic atheist, Martin says that undesirable conclusions don't determine that the premise of atheism is false. After pointing this out, Martin goes back to the ambiguity of the word "purpose." He admits that if this is taken to signify some "creative purpose" then it is true that life according to atheism is purposeless. However, if "purpose" signifies "having a reason" then atheism can allow for many purposes in life. In fact, these purposes may actually be somewhat objective since they can be compared and evaluated regarding which may be more justifiable. Next, Martin critiques arguments from prominent atheists Camus and Nagel asserting that life is absurd. Finally, he attempts to defend the idea that atheism can allow for "value" in life by asserting that "value" is based on desire. He then points out the flaw in the idea that value be evaluated according to duration. Finally, he critiques Bertrand Russell's transitory argument.<br /><br />In Chapter One, Dr. Martin proceeds to lay down some preliminary considerations before entering his critique of theistic arguments. First, he points out how he does not begin with the "presumption of atheism or agnosticism" as some atheists believe is the correct way of treating the issue of God's existence. He then continues to discuss the "epistemic duty" of all truth seekers. He claims that a person should not believe anything without a sufficient reason. Then, he orders "reasons," claiming that "epistemic reasons" are supreme whereas "beneficial reasons" are supplementary. He does this after pointing out how belief based on "beneficial reasons" often tends to be problematic. Finally, he critiques any Cartesian-like view of epistemology invoking "deceiving spirits" since such views lead to total skepticism and are unfalsifiable.<br /><br /><strong>Agreements and What I Have Learned<br /></strong><br />I agree with much of what Martin puts forth in the Introduction and Chapter One. First, atheists should be treated with as much respect socially as anyone else. Second, atheists can be as moral as or even more moral than many, or maybe even most, believers in God. Of course, there may be other aspects to this where I may disagree, but regarding the blanket statement made by Dr. Martin I am in agreement. Third, I believe that atheists can have a high moral character if by "moral" one limits the application to earthly matters. Fourth, I agree with Martin that atheism does not directly lead to moral anarchy and that atheists can make objective moral statements. Further, I appreciate that he has offered methods for determining which statements are in fact morally true. Fifth, I think that he is right to critique divine command theory. Sixth, I agree that "purpose" and "meaning" are very ambiguous, and I also agree with his assessment of "purpose" when used to describe either a creative plan or a specific reason. Seventh, I agree that value should be determined by quality, rather than duration. Eighth, I commend him for not working from the assumption that atheism should be presumed. Ninth, I agree with his assessment of belief—it should be based on epistemic reasons first and supported with beneficial reasons since being based on beneficial reasons alone would be problematic. And finally, tenth, I agree that Cartesian doubt is misplaced and that unfalsifiable views should not be invoked as counterarguments.<br /><br /><strong>Critique</strong><br /><br />Finally, I will critique this section where I think it falls short of proving its claims. I want to be sure to note that this is a critique of his arguments, not a justification for mine. If there are any places where I think he has attacked a view that is not representative of the theistic position I will merely mention so and define the stronger theistic position. First, I think that Martin is correct in noting that atheists can make absolute statements about morality and is also correct in claiming that it is at least possible to have a methodology that correctly interprets all facts in such a way as to determine what the best moral decision may be. However, these assertions are completely overlooking the actual issue that theists bring up. He never actually defines what morality is and gives a reason that one should act in a way in accordance with it. He seems to treat it as a transcendent standard without justifying this. Second, his critique of the theistic position of morality left as it is is nothing more than a straw man. Surely Dr. Martin doesn't believe that Divine Command Theory is the only theistic position regarding the justification for morality. A stronger theistic position is that which grounds morality in the nature of God, rather than in an arbitrary command or in an object that transcends God (i.e. Euthephro's dilemma). Third, the supposed epistemological problems aren't unanswerable. We can determine which commands are from God negatively by rational appraisal and positively by miraculous confirmation. We can determine which source may be from God negatively by its full correspondence to reality and positively by miraculous confirmation. Conflicting interpretations can be judged according to the evidence available. Any important disagreement that I have ever seen, such as the kill/ murder disagreement, seems to have a preferable understanding. Finally, questionable commands, such as those against divorce, are not questionable if God is all knowing and sovereign. Fourth, the conceptual problem offered by Martin doesn't consider the theory that God acts from eternity with effects in time. Fifth, and finally, at the end of the Introduction, Dr. Martin seems to be implying that he is taking some kind of high ground by not subscribing to a particular epistemological system (Correspondence, Coherence, etc.) but in doing this he just leaves us in ambiguity as to what he means when he claims that something is "true" or "false."<br /><br />Of course there may be some other disagreements that I have had throughout this section of the book, but these are the most important criticisms. Again, because of the introductory nature here it is hard to fully critique his position since I don't fully have it made available to me. I look forward to the weeks to come where I will have a greater presentation of his position.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-20699298409303837202008-01-06T11:33:00.001-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.138-07:00"There is a God" by Antony Flew<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDAb3HHfXPHUiZkLZPi8MYWsT-HcvhDwRiyp863DJv2FqYGJHNpvE6mxfRL1_N1LjjdWIK26mGIn_v8rdK7kKK9SF3_vFGPZsQHO5_DRdhCRR7Zqbucly7HxWY6Qp_HCvvluTj29AKpA/s1600-h/Flew-+There+Is.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161679591356597330" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDAb3HHfXPHUiZkLZPi8MYWsT-HcvhDwRiyp863DJv2FqYGJHNpvE6mxfRL1_N1LjjdWIK26mGIn_v8rdK7kKK9SF3_vFGPZsQHO5_DRdhCRR7Zqbucly7HxWY6Qp_HCvvluTj29AKpA/s320/Flew-+There+Is.jpg" border="0" /></a>I just finished reading "There is a God" by Antony Flew, the most renowned atheistic philosopher in the second half of the twentieth century, and have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. Not long ago, I had watched his debate with William Lane Craig from the mid-80s, and had misguidedly come to the conclusion that he was over the proverbial hill, both physically and intellectually. When I picked up the book, I did so with this mindset expecting a train wreck. I am happy to admit my blunder. It never occurred to me that Flew could simply be a terrible public speaker/debater while still being articulate and extremely intelligent.<br /><br />He dispels the mythical tales told by the atheistic fringe regarding his conversion here (to theism, not Christianity; he is not currently a Christian though he does not count out the possibility of being convinced anymore). For the most part, the book is biographical, tracing his descent into atheism and his subsequent change of mind. It is a very readable, yet still presents challenging ideas. Overall, I think that he has presented a good counter argument to the "new atheists" and should be taken seriously.<br /><br />I am interested to hear what some of you who have read this book think. If you haven't read it, please do not bother commenting here. If so, I am interested in any rebuttals.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-55930669826702662262008-01-06T11:33:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.125-07:00New Series! Evaluating Michael Martin’s ’Atheism’<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivMgbCAA_fVBAx5IqPAC7WblKzMZW8m3zBcWClAYICW3LAZ0GivW433Qb2yjQGENrc5CL2RlDNrX1xOZWiWLXZcFuWHz68-LsWZKlHt_N70NbD-GzHdx93ZPlTRU_sXJLmd0ratrcB0k/s1600-h/Martin's+Atheism.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161679282118952002" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivMgbCAA_fVBAx5IqPAC7WblKzMZW8m3zBcWClAYICW3LAZ0GivW433Qb2yjQGENrc5CL2RlDNrX1xOZWiWLXZcFuWHz68-LsWZKlHt_N70NbD-GzHdx93ZPlTRU_sXJLmd0ratrcB0k/s320/Martin's+Atheism.jpg" border="0" /></a>Over the last six months my blogs have been primarily directed at making a case for the existence of God and making a case against atheism. In doing this I have, for the most part, primarily taken on the popular level arguments. I have done this with little rhyme or reason . . . being driven basically by what I would like to talk about at any given time (hence being true to the general nature of blogging). However, in making my arguments I have not really spent much time evaluating the primary texts of atheistic scholars. Therefore, I am beginning a new series of blogs where I will evaluate Michael Martin's "Atheism: A Philosophical Justification" chapter by chapter. I will be doing this weekly (and I hope not weakly!) for the next 15 weeks. I would like to invite anyone who is interested to join me in my quest to come to a better understanding of the atheistic mindset and to charitably consider the arguments given by Dr. Martin.<br /><br />In introduction I would like to note that I fully recognize that I am hardly qualified to intellectually look down on someone like Dr. Martin—who has an earned PhD from Harvard. Nonetheless, even the most brilliant scholars are prone to mistakes—even some mistakes recognizable to the normal reader. So if and when I attempt to point out these mistakes I am not doing so with a turned up nose but rather with an eagerness to discover the truth.<br /><br />That said I earnestly hope that many of you will join me in my pursuit. The primary format that I intend to follow with each chapter will be:<br /><br />(1) To accurately summarize what seem to be Martin's arguments.<br /><br />(2) To give an account of what I agree with and of what I have learned from Dr. Martin (I have been told that a good philosopher will always try to learn something from others before critiquing them. Of course, I hardly consider myself a philosopher—let alone a good one!—though I hope to become one someday.)<br /><br />(3) To critique Dr. Martin's arguments where it seems to fail in its intended purpose.<br /><br />I INVITE ALL COMMENTS. HOWEVER, I WILL ONLY ANSWER THOSE RELATIVE TO THE CHAPTER AND MY CRITIQUE. I WILL BE MUCH MORE PICKY WITH WHICH COMMENTS I WILL ENTERTAIN FOR THIS PROJECT.<br /><br />Hopefully, we will all learn something from this series! My tentative schedule will be:<br /><br />December 19, 2007: Announcement and Schedule<br />December 26, 2007: 'Introduction' and 'The Justification of Negative Atheism'<br />pp. 3-39<br />January 2, 2008: 'The Meaningfulness of Religious Language' pp. 40-78<br />January 9, 2008: 'The Ontological Argument' pp. 79-95<br />January 16, 2008: 'The Cosmological Argument' pp. 96-124<br />January 23, 2008: 'The Teleological Argument' pp. 125-153<br />January 30, 2008: 'The Argument from Religious Experience' pp. 154-187<br />February 6, 2008: 'The Argument from Miracles' and 'Some Minor Evidential<br />Arguments for God' pp. 188-228<br />February 13, 2008: 'Beneficial Arguments for God' pp. 229-248<br />February 20, 2008: 'Faith and Foundationalism' pp. 249-280<br />February 27, 2008: 'The Justification of Positive Atheism: Some Preliminaries'<br />and 'Divine Attributes and Incoherence' pp. 281-316<br />March 5, 2008: 'Atheistic Teleological Arguments' and 'The Argument from<br />Evil' pp. 317-362<br />March 12, 2008: 'The Free Will Defense' pp. 363-392<br />March 19, 2008: 'Natural Evil' and 'Soul Making Theodicy' pp. 393-435<br />March 26, 2008: 'Some Minor Theodicies' and 'Conclusion' and 'Appendix'<br />pp. 436-478Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-4135481537516190782008-01-06T11:32:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.151-07:00Irony, Oh Irony!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHn_oXNIPGPFCUduDd28094GNjOmG1UzNZgLK5ByS719IV4WMVa-RZ_ct3q2lUMIszmQKPZJKAUmsxew2xJRydUQAoVqdoiHAfZyfuTP6Llq29L_NdgHbKot6_FxwZRBT6pGxH35eraaU/s1600-h/Dawkins.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161681562746586242" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHn_oXNIPGPFCUduDd28094GNjOmG1UzNZgLK5ByS719IV4WMVa-RZ_ct3q2lUMIszmQKPZJKAUmsxew2xJRydUQAoVqdoiHAfZyfuTP6Llq29L_NdgHbKot6_FxwZRBT6pGxH35eraaU/s320/Dawkins.jpg" border="0" /></a>This blog is a step away from the norm. I am not making an argument and I am not going to respond to comments. I just want to make an observation.<br /><br />As a Christian I have submitted my life to the study of God. I have made a conscious effort to dedicate my life to him. I gladly admit to the idea that God has control over my life.<br /><br />But my point here is not really about my life. I am only using it as a lead in. It seems to me that most Christians, including myself, are totally outdone in the ammount of control we allow God to have over our lives. Thats right. I have observed that the more millitant of the MySpace atheists seem to have allowed the concept of God to have ultimate control in their lives, at least in their Myspace lives. They seem to be controlled both intellectually and emotionally. So Christians out there, what do we have to say for ourselves. LOL.<br /><br />Don't believe me, spend some time viewing the pages of the people in the atheistic MySpace groups.<br /><br />Pretty ironic.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-52158058517845750192008-01-06T11:31:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.165-07:00Atheism and Morality<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqIZJhCdd4U1BPgUak-e05OiGIhfTG-twWIYEpZXVLdUELQUDE5z_BQoksWOTEuYyquqZWNgzzUAYFDg84qoiPkpjYpoqKS_MEC7ihqaKr_OKVDdcoHsTClVtGbtd1RaWBWjdi31UKZHY/s1600-h/Morality.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161681807559722130" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqIZJhCdd4U1BPgUak-e05OiGIhfTG-twWIYEpZXVLdUELQUDE5z_BQoksWOTEuYyquqZWNgzzUAYFDg84qoiPkpjYpoqKS_MEC7ihqaKr_OKVDdcoHsTClVtGbtd1RaWBWjdi31UKZHY/s320/Morality.jpg" border="0" /></a>OK, this blog will be a bit shorter and more casual than the others. I have been really busy with school lately, but I want to keep writing, and this is the first opportunity I have had for quite some time. So sorry if it isn't really developed.<br /><br />That being said, I am learning that every blog probably needs to begin with a disclaimer. So here it is. **DISCLAIMER**: First, please read what I am writing and please do not put words in my mouth. I am not claiming that atheists are bad people. I am not claiming that they cannot be generally moral. In fact, I am not even claiming that they cannot be at least as moral, or even more moral, than most Christians. Secondly, I am not here to defend the actions of the Crusaders nor am I here to assert that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were the epitome of atheism. No, this blog is about the foundations of morality. I am confident that someone will bring these issues, or others like them, up anyway. If they do, I will not answer them.<br /><br />OK, now that I have explained what this blog is not, I guess its time to make my claim. My point here will be to attempt to show that atheism is insufficient when it comes to explaining morality. I will try my best to support my argument with neutral language and appeal to intuition.<br /><br />Can an act be right or wrong? Based on my experience, I would have to say that there seems to be at least some things that appear to be wrong. For instance, torturing babies would seem to be a terrible act for anyone to commit, something worthy of some form of punishment (or removal from society). On the contrary, it seems that there are other actions that seem to be worthy of praise, such as rescuing an elderly widow from a burning building. Now, what is it that makes actions such as these right or wrong? It seems like a simple question, but is really much more profound than it at first appears. Most people would simply say that the torture of the baby is wrong because it hurts a human and the rescue is right because it helps a human. But have you ever wondered why this is so. Why is it that I can dismember a live tree without (justified) feelings of guilt or a fear of punishment but cannot do the same with an infant? Why am I a hero if I save the old woman but a fool if I go in only for my chia pet? What is it about a human life that makes it worthy of such respect? As a Christian (and an Aristotelian), I would answer that humans are higher order beings than vegetation and worthy of such honor. Now, I think most people, including atheists, would agree to this point.<br /><br />The question I would like to ask is "what justifies such a belief?" Why should humans be considered greater than vegetation? Obviously, I would answer that it has something to do with being created in the image of God. But how would the atheist justify such a position? I don't think that they can do so objectively. You see, atheism works from a materialistic view of the universe. There are no such immaterial entities as souls (or forms or what have you) available to differentiate one thing from another thing. All is simply matter. But if all is matter, what makes one chunk of matter any more valuable than another chunk? Is there even a difference between the chunks, other than location and possibly chemical makeup? Is a difference by location actually even a difference? What about an objects chemical makeup could make it worthy and deserving of respect? I am interested to see how the atheist would handle these questions. I don't think that they could give any justification for morality because of their materialistic limitations.<br /><br />Again, sorry if this is not as well put together as previous posts. However, I am kind of expecting the conversations that follow from it to be much more interesting this time.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713288931010686412.post-86904047321199805782008-01-06T11:30:00.000-08:002010-07-18T01:54:41.183-07:00The Irrationality of Atheism and Agnosticism?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2CMqgum5nZ8-GTOWgI2CZKUqxWIECesIzMFZD1q6haTBZR5q0fLkkGtOSXsl0SfjB4vWciuZf6Qvq1DXQY7v4Q6-qYajqmbVMVnTTwS_WHZpLaZXVcQ-E7bR7Hm4BPxEO-gzbbta9CbQ/s1600-h/Squared+Circle.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161683074575074466" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2CMqgum5nZ8-GTOWgI2CZKUqxWIECesIzMFZD1q6haTBZR5q0fLkkGtOSXsl0SfjB4vWciuZf6Qvq1DXQY7v4Q6-qYajqmbVMVnTTwS_WHZpLaZXVcQ-E7bR7Hm4BPxEO-gzbbta9CbQ/s320/Squared+Circle.gif" border="0" /></a>These days it seems to be en vogue to consider one's self an atheist or an agnostic. Many of those who latch on to one of these two titles claim that they do so because belief in God is irrational. I have already written defending the rationality for theism (see Aquinas' Five Proofs blog), so that is not my intent here. Rather, there is a looming question that I have for these folks regarding their chosen worldviews. Are atheism or agnosticism even rational positions to hold?<br /><br />Before it can be evaluated whether or not either of these is itself rational, it is necessary to define what I mean when I use these terms. When I refer to an atheist, I am referring to one who believes that God does not exist. Regarding agnostics, I am going to make a distinction at the onset. Some agnostics claim that we can't know anything about God, including whether or not He exists. I will hereafter refer to these as "hard agnostics." Others claim that there is not enough evidence to come to a conclusion on the question of God's existence. These I will hereafter refer to as "soft agnostics." Now that I have defined my terms, it's time to evaluate each of these positions.<br /><br />Is it logical to call one's self an atheist? I actually think that this is the most unreasonable worldview that any person can hold. In fact, I will jump out on a limb and assert that most people who call themselves atheists actually mean that they believe one of the forms of agnosticism. Why? In order to say that God does not exist, a person would basically have to be omniscient. First, they would have to have searched "every corner" of the universe and found that "God was not there." Now, if that were not enough, they would not only have to search every place, but before they left each place they would have to set up surveillance, just in case that wily God was pulling a fast one them and following behind the whole time. Now, even if this were done, and the cameras were all monitored and God was not anywhere found at any moment, even this would not be enough to prove that God does not exist. All it would prove is that a corporeal God does not exist. And even that couldn't really be proved because you would have to assume that none of the corporeal things that are seen could be God being discreet. Of course this borders on the ridiculous, but that is exactly the point. An atheist has to beg the question and "know" that a non-corporeal God does not exist while searching/monitoring every inch of the universe in order to prove such a thing. Though I believe that this insight absolutely destroys an atheistic position, I would like to make two other points here that really have no additional weight but are issues that I constantly see brought up. (1) Evolution: Even if macro-evolutionary theory as presented in Darwin's Descent of Man were true, it does not prove that God does not exist, it only invalidates the biblical creation story (of course, I do reject that Darwin was correct, but that is a separate debate altogether that I do not wish to engage here). (2) Even if one could show that the traditional proofs for God were invalid (again a conclusion I reject, but I have another blog where they can be challenged), this would not prove that God does not exist; only that the proofs were inconclusive. That about covers atheism. Will there be any atheists left?<br /><br />Next, I would like to cover hard-agnosticism. Remember that hard-agnosticism claims that one cannot know anything about God, including whether he exists. Is this a reasonable position to hold? Again, I think this suffers a death similar to that of atheism. However, before I address why I would like to make a disclaimer. The reason that I made the distinction between hard and soft agnosticism was so as to avoid setting up a straw man. Most agnostics probably won't toe a line this hard, but some do so I saw it reasonable to mention it. That being said let me show why this position dies a quick death. Like atheism, it proves too much. Just look at the claim. "We can't know anything about God..." This is what we call a self-defeating statement. It is a claim to know something about God, namely that you can't know anything about God. Again, if you knew that you couldn't know anything about God you would have to know something about what he is like to realize that your knowledge couldn't even approach Him. It is completely irrational, much like if I typed: "I cannot type a word in English." The hard agnostic stultifies himself.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to look at soft-agnosticism. Now, it is probably the case that most people who lack a belief in God are of this variety in regards to their worldview. I admit that of all the positions, it would clearly be the most reasonable to hold. But is it really rational? I was one of these until I was twenty-one. I would bet that most people who hold this position were much like me too. They would make the claim that there is not enough evidence without ever really having looked at the evidence that has been offered. It was not until I was offered evidence (I first was shown evidence of fulfilled prophecy) that I actually took to evaluate any. Now, here I am five years later after reviewing all of the evidence that I could get my hands on and have been completely convinced that the Judeo-Christian God does exist. I would like to make it clear that I am not convinced simply because of a personal encounter, a good feeling, or desired results. No, the evidence that convinced me is philosophical, historical, and scientific. That is enough about me, this post wasn't purposed to be a life story, only to show that I understand the claims made by each position.<br /><br />I would like to hear any rebuttals (if there even are any) to my claim that atheism and hard agnosticism are completely ridiculous beliefs to hold. For those of you who may be soft-agnostics, I have a question for each of you. What kind of evidence would you require in order to believe in God?Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06126989897635452902noreply@blogger.com0