1) The skeptic is not committed to viewing the NT authors as being stupid or ignorant at all. Indeed, I think Luke especially was a very impressive historian. Thus, the skeptic would expect his natural facts to be largely correct.
VR: Most skeptics historically, before the accurate detail was discovered, thought that Acts was a late document, perhaps even from the second century.
JG: I simply see no reason why the skeptic cannot allow that something unusual, but completely natural happened which later got exaggerated into supernatural claims. Under such a view, one would expect the "historical" transition between natural and supernatural to be fairly fluid.
VR: We're talking about, among other things, a resurrection from the dead. What "natural" event could have happened that could have morphed into a resurrection claim?
JG: 2. The testaments are clearly NOT cases of multiple and independent attestation. First of all, because the author did not witness anything at all themselves. Second, and more importantly, they are shared sources amongst themselves.
VR: Luke in several places speaks in the first person plural, and these passages are amongst those where the historical accuracy kicks in. I think the evidence that Luke was present as a companion of Paul is quite strong here. As for sharing, these people were leaders in the same Church, so this shouldn't be too surprising.
Sometimes I get the feeling from skeptics that it's heads I win tails you lose. If they say the same thing, they are colluding. If they say different things, they contradict each other.
JG: An unbiased report would be a report which the reporter gains nothing it the report turns out to be true. When the reporter reports something which actually goes against their own interests, that is good historical evidence that some claim is reliable.
VR: Peter, for example put his life at risk by getting out in front of the gate and telling the people who had crucified Jesus that he had been resurrected and vindicated. After all, the people who got rid of Jesus had the power to get rid of him as well. That was why he had been sneaking out the back door making denials before the cock crowed.
JG: What I'm looking for is some person who saw Jesus perform any of his miracles, didn't believe him and then testified of it himself. Considering how many purported accounts of miracles which we have in the NT, this shouldn't be asking too much. Or we could ask to Paul or James' record which they wrote before their conversion.
VR: You expect all sorts of people having their reflections recorded? I mean we could expect to have some letter from C. S. Lewis saying rejecting God and Christianity, but Paul and James?
In any event, I think that the evidence for Christ's resurrection, for various reasons, is substantial. However, other factors decide whether or not it is sufficient, such as the antecedent plausibility of theism and the antecedent plausibility of Christianity. I also maintain that nothing like this historical case can be found on behalf of either Islam or Mormonism, which was the point I was making. I find it sufficient myself, but probably would not find it sufficient if my background beliefs were different.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Two Questions for Clark
Two questions about Mormon epistemology for Clark. First, just to clarify, my objection to the appeal to religious experience is not to say that religious experience claims are always unjustified, or to object to the terms ("burning in the bosom") in which it is expressed. The objection is to the idea that you can deflect criticisms of the Nielsen Hayden variety by saying "None of that really matters. Just take the book of Mormon home and pray over it, and if God gives you a feeling that it is true, then become a Mormon." Is this an appropriate response? It sounds like "Don't Confuse me With the Facts, I have a Testimony." (the title of an article by Steve Cannon on Mormonism). I wouldn't consider that to be an adequate response to questons about the defensibility of Genesis, for example. Some Christians are going to try to defend a literal reading of Genesis, and some will attempt to escape difficulties by backing away from strict literalism, and there is a gamut of ways of dealing with the problems with Genesis. But an appeal to religious experience in this context would be a complete non sequitur.
Second, is it open to the Mormon to accept a non-literalist move in response to NH criticisms which is similar to the nonliteralist move that Christians often make with respect to Genesis?
Second, is it open to the Mormon to accept a non-literalist move in response to NH criticisms which is similar to the nonliteralist move that Christians often make with respect to Genesis?
Response to Jeff G
Jeff G: First of all I should point out that I'm not the one who believes that any supernatural claim are supported by history. Nevertheless, here are a couple of standard criteria:
1) Multiple and independent attestation.
2) Reported by unbiased witnesses
The two criteria of
3) Internally consistency
4) External consistency
are what Vic is focusing on. But my point is that these last two are not criteria for supporting supernatural claims at all, but are instead criteria for disconfirming supernatural claims only. While this may sound a little Popperian, I find it appropriate when we are dealing with historical claims which we expect to be mostly consistent whether they are true or not.
VR: If you look at a lot of the works focused around supernatural claims, it seems as if you do not find the kind of fine-grained accuracy with respect to the non-miraculous detail that you find in the NT. I think this is something a skeptic should not expect to find. Getting all the governmental details right is pretty significant and places Luke close to the events. It renders unlikely the idea that the book of Acts is thr product of extensive legendary development.
It seems to me that you do have mulitple and independent attestation of the Christian miracle claims (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Paul, and others). But I'm not sure what a report by an unbiased witness would look like. There are reports of people becoming believers who had even been opponents or skeptics (Paul, James), but you're probably going ot argue that these people tainted themselves by becoming Christians. So what are we looking for? Someone who says "Yeah, I saw Jesus rise from the dead all right. But even though it looks like Jesus overcame death and said that I could receive eternal life if I followed him, I figured I had better things to do, so I didn't." Should we expect there to be anyone like that, and would someone like that write a biography of Jesus?"
1) Multiple and independent attestation.
2) Reported by unbiased witnesses
The two criteria of
3) Internally consistency
4) External consistency
are what Vic is focusing on. But my point is that these last two are not criteria for supporting supernatural claims at all, but are instead criteria for disconfirming supernatural claims only. While this may sound a little Popperian, I find it appropriate when we are dealing with historical claims which we expect to be mostly consistent whether they are true or not.
VR: If you look at a lot of the works focused around supernatural claims, it seems as if you do not find the kind of fine-grained accuracy with respect to the non-miraculous detail that you find in the NT. I think this is something a skeptic should not expect to find. Getting all the governmental details right is pretty significant and places Luke close to the events. It renders unlikely the idea that the book of Acts is thr product of extensive legendary development.
It seems to me that you do have mulitple and independent attestation of the Christian miracle claims (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Paul, and others). But I'm not sure what a report by an unbiased witness would look like. There are reports of people becoming believers who had even been opponents or skeptics (Paul, James), but you're probably going ot argue that these people tainted themselves by becoming Christians. So what are we looking for? Someone who says "Yeah, I saw Jesus rise from the dead all right. But even though it looks like Jesus overcame death and said that I could receive eternal life if I followed him, I figured I had better things to do, so I didn't." Should we expect there to be anyone like that, and would someone like that write a biography of Jesus?"
Democrat ethical problems
Earlier I posted a link to a piece charging Nancy Pelosi with hypocrisy for marching in a Gay Pride parade with a man-boy love advocate while at the same time condemning the Republican response to the Foley scandal. Dennis Monokroussos wrote me to point out that there isn't adequate reason to believe that Pelosi knew about Mr. Hay's views. In any event, she did not occupy a supervisory position with respect to the parade in which she marched, while her opposite number, Dennis Hastert, had a supervisory role with respect to Mr. Foley's conduct. However, this is rather more serious.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Mormonism and the historical case for Christianity
I should make some clarifications about what I mean when I say that the New Testament has a substantial amount of historical verification that the Book of Mormon lacks. I do not mean to say that it isn’t logically possible that there should have been all those things happening in the Americas for which all of the circumstantial evidence is somehow lost. (Though the DNA disconnect between Jews and Native Americans is a problem I haven’t even discussed). It is also perfectly possible that in spite of the evidence that the authors of the NT were familiar with the details of governments in certain cities and had detailed knowledge of first-century sailing ships from that area, nevertheless the miracles they reported did not take place and that Christianity is false.
It isn’t just that the NT mentions places like Corinth and Malta. It’s the fact that archaeological evidence shows that Luke had detailed knowledge of exactly what kind of governmental systems each of these places had. And these places changed their governmental systems as time went on. This is pretty strong evidence to me that Luke was in pretty close contact with the major parties involved in the missionary journeys. Who would know, for example, the Maltese were headed up by a “First Man.” That is the point of the F. F. Bruce quotation quoted by Riss:
One of the most remarkable tokens of his accuracy is his sure familiarity with the proper titles of all the notable persons who are mentioned in his pages. This was by no means such an easy feat in his days as it is in ours, when it is so simple to consult convenient books of reference. The accuracy of Luke's use of the various titles in the Roman Empire has been compared to the easy and confident way in which an Oxford man in ordinary conversation will refer to the Heads of Oxford colleges by their proper titles--the Provost of Oriel, the Master of Balliol, the Rector of Exeter, the President of Magdalen, and so on. A non-Oxonian like the present writer never feels quite at home with the multiplicity of these Oxford titles. But Luke had a further difficulty in that the titles sometimes did not remain the same for any great length of time; a province might pass from senatorial government to administration by a direct representative of the emperor, and would then be governed no longer by a proconsul but by an imperial legate (legatus pro proetore).
Now, this kind of correct detail is of course compatible with nothing out of the ordinary happening, but it does undermine the idea that the Book of Acts is the product of extensive legendary development, which is what you would expect if the whole thing were made up. For this reason a late date for Acts seems out of the question. We are left wondering, if Christianity is not true and none of these things really happened, then what did? And none of the extant theories (theft theory, hallucination theory, wrong tomb theory, evil twin theory, etc.) is satisfactory enough even for all the skeptics to agree on what might have happened, much less to persuade believers. Now it may be rational for some persons to maintain their skepticism about these accounts based on some version of the Humean principle (something like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence).
With the Book of Mormon, I seem to come pretty easily to the conclusion that the whold darn thing was made up, not even that it was something built on a factual foundation but embellished. There is a positive historical case to me made here, even if that case is overcome, in some minds, by a stronger reason to reject it.
It isn’t just that the NT mentions places like Corinth and Malta. It’s the fact that archaeological evidence shows that Luke had detailed knowledge of exactly what kind of governmental systems each of these places had. And these places changed their governmental systems as time went on. This is pretty strong evidence to me that Luke was in pretty close contact with the major parties involved in the missionary journeys. Who would know, for example, the Maltese were headed up by a “First Man.” That is the point of the F. F. Bruce quotation quoted by Riss:
One of the most remarkable tokens of his accuracy is his sure familiarity with the proper titles of all the notable persons who are mentioned in his pages. This was by no means such an easy feat in his days as it is in ours, when it is so simple to consult convenient books of reference. The accuracy of Luke's use of the various titles in the Roman Empire has been compared to the easy and confident way in which an Oxford man in ordinary conversation will refer to the Heads of Oxford colleges by their proper titles--the Provost of Oriel, the Master of Balliol, the Rector of Exeter, the President of Magdalen, and so on. A non-Oxonian like the present writer never feels quite at home with the multiplicity of these Oxford titles. But Luke had a further difficulty in that the titles sometimes did not remain the same for any great length of time; a province might pass from senatorial government to administration by a direct representative of the emperor, and would then be governed no longer by a proconsul but by an imperial legate (legatus pro proetore).
Now, this kind of correct detail is of course compatible with nothing out of the ordinary happening, but it does undermine the idea that the Book of Acts is the product of extensive legendary development, which is what you would expect if the whole thing were made up. For this reason a late date for Acts seems out of the question. We are left wondering, if Christianity is not true and none of these things really happened, then what did? And none of the extant theories (theft theory, hallucination theory, wrong tomb theory, evil twin theory, etc.) is satisfactory enough even for all the skeptics to agree on what might have happened, much less to persuade believers. Now it may be rational for some persons to maintain their skepticism about these accounts based on some version of the Humean principle (something like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence).
With the Book of Mormon, I seem to come pretty easily to the conclusion that the whold darn thing was made up, not even that it was something built on a factual foundation but embellished. There is a positive historical case to me made here, even if that case is overcome, in some minds, by a stronger reason to reject it.
Was the 2004 election stolen? I'd like to think this is wrong
I'm no fan of Bush, but I am a fan of the American system of government. So I'd just as soon see this refuted.
What case can be made against this report, that came out in Rolling Stone Magazine last summer?
What case can be made against this report, that came out in Rolling Stone Magazine last summer?
Monday, November 13, 2006
Historical evidence for Christianity
Can any other religion claim the kind of historical support that Christianity can claim? Or even come close? Even though it doesn't follow from the fact that some parts of the NT are confirmed by historical evidence that the miraculous part of the NT is so supported, nevetheless to me the historical support for the NT seems remarkable.
In particular, there's nothing like it for Mormonism, or for Scientology, or Islam. People who are trying to argue that Christianity is no better off than Mormonism have some things to think about.
In particular, there's nothing like it for Mormonism, or for Scientology, or Islam. People who are trying to argue that Christianity is no better off than Mormonism have some things to think about.
A criticism of Nancy Pelosi
We're fair and balanced here at Dangerous Idea, so here is a charge of hypocrisy against incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden's critique of Mormonism
I thought I should put Teresa Nielsen Hayden's critique of the book of Mormon up on its own entry. I also linked to her blog.
So there's that venerable (150 years old now) book for you, reduced to a pureed caricature of itself for your easy consumption. But remember Joe Sheffer? We left him sitting in the Howard Johnson's in Tempe several pages ago, drinking coffee and waiting to deliver his clinching argument. Actually, all he said was that Lehi & Co. would have had to forget the use of the wheel somewhere on the voyage from the Middle East to America, since the invention was widely in use at the time of their departure from Jerusalem but was never used in the Americas until the European conquests. I thought about that for a moment. Joe was dead right, of course. Then I considered it for a couple of minutes more while I waited for the tremors to die down (no doubt the serpent at the foundations of the earth stirring), and then plunged into an orgy of dissection.
For instance, the book is written in very bad King James English that sounds like the language spoken in Mighty Thor comic books (I say thee, nope!). This is a little hard to swallow in a manuscript that was theoretically translated by an upstate New York farmboy in the nineteenth century; harder to swallow is the notion that God really talks like that. It reads as though someone very familiar with the Bible (in an unscholarly way) were trying to write in imitation of the King James Version's style--say, the son of a devout Protestant Fundamentalist family, where reading the Bible would have been the order of the day, where more sophisticated Biblical scholarship would have been unknown, and where the most commonly available version of the Bible would have been one in a distinct and peculiar style that included things like verse breaks.
Then there's the archaeological side of the question. In the nineteenth century the science hadn't really been invented yet; there was still the possibility that the Amerinds were the Ten Lost Tribes, or something equally fabulous. Of course, the truth (current version, who knows?) turned out to be just as strange, in a wildly different way, and I'd no more give up on Olmec heads, the Mound Builders of the eastern United States, and the trek across the Siberian land-bridge, than I would have given up on dinosaurs as a kid. Moreover, the Amerinds are manifestly not just dark-skinned Semites; there are some distinct physiological differences besides skin color, the blood type is all wrong, and the indigenous American languages, all God-knows-how-many-dozens of them, are nothing like any known Semitic language.
Another thing, a small thing that peculiarly caught my eye, is that in the Book of Mormon there are many large battles fought with swords. Now, there are two kinds of swords that could be used in these conflicts. They could have the all-metal one- or two-edged sort that comes in a hundred shapes and sizes in Old World literature, or they could be using the best New World equivalent, a sort of large club or paddle edged on both sides with inset rows of sharpened obsidian chunks--a fearsome weapon. Whichever; take your pick. Many men with swords go out to the field of combat and die there, their swords and armor decomposing somewhat more slowly than their bodies. Now, if they were using metal swords, there ought to be some trace of that much metal left--its rust in the ground in wetter climates, the artifacts themselves further west. (In some parts of the Southwest, corncobs and broken sandals are found in caves thousands of years after they were abandoned there, still in perfect shape.) In either case there'd be metalworking sites near sources of ore. There's nothing of the sort. So, okay, they were using the Aztec-style wooden paddle with obsidian edges. In that case there should be, around the old battle sites, innumerable shaped obsidian pieces lying where they came to rest after their wooden cores rotted out. These should occur frequently at sites extending from Old Mexico to New York. They don't, of course; there was a remarkably widespread trade in Central American obsidian across North America, but the stuff was used for things like ritual implements and jewelry.
So there's that venerable (150 years old now) book for you, reduced to a pureed caricature of itself for your easy consumption. But remember Joe Sheffer? We left him sitting in the Howard Johnson's in Tempe several pages ago, drinking coffee and waiting to deliver his clinching argument. Actually, all he said was that Lehi & Co. would have had to forget the use of the wheel somewhere on the voyage from the Middle East to America, since the invention was widely in use at the time of their departure from Jerusalem but was never used in the Americas until the European conquests. I thought about that for a moment. Joe was dead right, of course. Then I considered it for a couple of minutes more while I waited for the tremors to die down (no doubt the serpent at the foundations of the earth stirring), and then plunged into an orgy of dissection.
For instance, the book is written in very bad King James English that sounds like the language spoken in Mighty Thor comic books (I say thee, nope!). This is a little hard to swallow in a manuscript that was theoretically translated by an upstate New York farmboy in the nineteenth century; harder to swallow is the notion that God really talks like that. It reads as though someone very familiar with the Bible (in an unscholarly way) were trying to write in imitation of the King James Version's style--say, the son of a devout Protestant Fundamentalist family, where reading the Bible would have been the order of the day, where more sophisticated Biblical scholarship would have been unknown, and where the most commonly available version of the Bible would have been one in a distinct and peculiar style that included things like verse breaks.
Then there's the archaeological side of the question. In the nineteenth century the science hadn't really been invented yet; there was still the possibility that the Amerinds were the Ten Lost Tribes, or something equally fabulous. Of course, the truth (current version, who knows?) turned out to be just as strange, in a wildly different way, and I'd no more give up on Olmec heads, the Mound Builders of the eastern United States, and the trek across the Siberian land-bridge, than I would have given up on dinosaurs as a kid. Moreover, the Amerinds are manifestly not just dark-skinned Semites; there are some distinct physiological differences besides skin color, the blood type is all wrong, and the indigenous American languages, all God-knows-how-many-dozens of them, are nothing like any known Semitic language.
Another thing, a small thing that peculiarly caught my eye, is that in the Book of Mormon there are many large battles fought with swords. Now, there are two kinds of swords that could be used in these conflicts. They could have the all-metal one- or two-edged sort that comes in a hundred shapes and sizes in Old World literature, or they could be using the best New World equivalent, a sort of large club or paddle edged on both sides with inset rows of sharpened obsidian chunks--a fearsome weapon. Whichever; take your pick. Many men with swords go out to the field of combat and die there, their swords and armor decomposing somewhat more slowly than their bodies. Now, if they were using metal swords, there ought to be some trace of that much metal left--its rust in the ground in wetter climates, the artifacts themselves further west. (In some parts of the Southwest, corncobs and broken sandals are found in caves thousands of years after they were abandoned there, still in perfect shape.) In either case there'd be metalworking sites near sources of ore. There's nothing of the sort. So, okay, they were using the Aztec-style wooden paddle with obsidian edges. In that case there should be, around the old battle sites, innumerable shaped obsidian pieces lying where they came to rest after their wooden cores rotted out. These should occur frequently at sites extending from Old Mexico to New York. They don't, of course; there was a remarkably widespread trade in Central American obsidian across North America, but the stuff was used for things like ritual implements and jewelry.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Elections, Arrogance, and Accountability
Well, the elections are over, and the result, from the point of view of us Democrats, is something like Frodo Baggins completing the Ringbearer's quest and the fall of Mordor.
Actually it reflected the population's frustration with the sheer stubbornness of the Bush administration with respect to its "Captain Ahab" policy in Iraq, the complete control of all branches of government by a single party, and corruption and hypocrisy on the part of people in the seats of power. You can have one party be predominant in government if it is constantly vigilant to hold its fellow party members accountable. As an Arizonan, I am proud of the moment when Barry Goldwater and John Rhodes were among the Republicans in Congress who went to the White House to tell Richard Nixon that they could no longer oppose impeachment, and the he would do well to resign. The public would have accepted the Foley scandal better if the party had held its own members accountable. They didn't. Corruption of the Democrat-controlled congress in 1994 (Rostenkowski et al) resulted the the "Contract with America" Republican congress, but that Congress failed to keep its promises and hold its own party accountable for its actions (not to mention its own members).
It's a little like the televangelist scandals of the late 1980s. Too much power and money in the hands of a few people resulted in those whose mission it is to preach the gospel falling into corruption. Christian leaders after those scandals broke concluded that accountability was the key. Anyone interested in the exercise of political power, Republican or Democrat, needs to learn that same lesson.
Actually it reflected the population's frustration with the sheer stubbornness of the Bush administration with respect to its "Captain Ahab" policy in Iraq, the complete control of all branches of government by a single party, and corruption and hypocrisy on the part of people in the seats of power. You can have one party be predominant in government if it is constantly vigilant to hold its fellow party members accountable. As an Arizonan, I am proud of the moment when Barry Goldwater and John Rhodes were among the Republicans in Congress who went to the White House to tell Richard Nixon that they could no longer oppose impeachment, and the he would do well to resign. The public would have accepted the Foley scandal better if the party had held its own members accountable. They didn't. Corruption of the Democrat-controlled congress in 1994 (Rostenkowski et al) resulted the the "Contract with America" Republican congress, but that Congress failed to keep its promises and hold its own party accountable for its actions (not to mention its own members).
It's a little like the televangelist scandals of the late 1980s. Too much power and money in the hands of a few people resulted in those whose mission it is to preach the gospel falling into corruption. Christian leaders after those scandals broke concluded that accountability was the key. Anyone interested in the exercise of political power, Republican or Democrat, needs to learn that same lesson.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Tom Cruise on psychiatry
This is a redated post that I did a year ago when the Brooke Shields-Tom Cruise business was coming out. See the linked paper by Jeff Jacobsen.
I'm glad to see that Tom Cruise is so knowledgeable about the science of psychiatry and has just the right diagnosis for Brooke Shields. I'm looking forward to his comments when he weighs in on the Intelligent Design issue, or maybe his critical analysis of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea.
Apparently this is not his first foray into this discussion.
http://www.lisamcpherson.org/cchr.htm
The Church of Scientology seems to have a sweetheart relationship with certain Hollywood celebrities, but a far darker side in dealing with common folk like you and me.
I'm glad to see that Tom Cruise is so knowledgeable about the science of psychiatry and has just the right diagnosis for Brooke Shields. I'm looking forward to his comments when he weighs in on the Intelligent Design issue, or maybe his critical analysis of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea.
Apparently this is not his first foray into this discussion.
http://www.lisamcpherson.org/cchr.htm
The Church of Scientology seems to have a sweetheart relationship with certain Hollywood celebrities, but a far darker side in dealing with common folk like you and me.
Richard Carrier and Aristotle
Now that Richard Carrier is blogging, maybe this might be a good time to ask him to clear up that business of him comparing himself to Aristotle. I suspect he was misunderstood.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Mormonism and history
I don't know if there are any Mormon apologists out there, but I'm going to raise some questions about their religious beliefs, using the following piece by ex-Mormon Teresa Nielsen Hayden here. In my course on world religions every semester we watch a video of a debate between evangelical Christian William Lane Craig and my former housemate and sometime philosophical sparring partner Keith Parsons. A good deal of the discussion in the debate surrounds Craig's claim that we have good reason to believe that Jesus' resurrection occurred, while Parsons maintains that in view of the antecedent improbability of the miraculous, the extraordinary claim of a resurrection a requires extraordinary evidence that cannot be provided by defenders of the resurrection. In view of this, Parsons maintains that it is more reasonable to accept the claim that the disciples resurrected the risen Jesus than to accept the claim that Jesus rose from the dead.
Without attempting to adjudicate this interesting debate, I would just argue that at the very least the Christian miracle stories are consistent with what we know historically. However, it appears to me that Mormonism does ask you to believe things that are contrary to what we know historically. The Israelites had wheels and the Native Americans did not, so how did they forget how to use the wheel? When did the wheels fall off? There are no linguistic similarities between Native languages and Hebrew, which we should expect if the descendants of the Hebrews lived in the America. Etc. Etc.
I once had a long discussion one evening with a Mormon missionary, who every time he was cornered in a discussion, said that regardless of the evidence, all I needed to do was take the book of Mormon home, pray over it, and see if I felt a "burning in the bosom" telling me that God wanted me to become a Mormon. But even if I tested positive for Mormonism, I would still be expected to accept a religion's claims when my best reasoning tells me that the weight of the evidence is against it. This is something I won't do, or more precisely, I cannot do.
On a personal note, the Nielsen-Hayden piece mentions Joe Sheffer, a close personal friend of mine in the 70s and 80s who, in spite of a getting only a baccalaureate education, could stand up in a philosophical debate with the most brilliant philosophers I ever met. He was a great lover of C. S. Lewis and Thomas Aquinas, and I wish I could have his input on my Unmoved Mover discussion. He had an idea to employ Thomistic philosophy to solve fundamental problems in artificial intelligence, but his life was cut short by a heart attack in February of 1989 at the age of 36.
Without attempting to adjudicate this interesting debate, I would just argue that at the very least the Christian miracle stories are consistent with what we know historically. However, it appears to me that Mormonism does ask you to believe things that are contrary to what we know historically. The Israelites had wheels and the Native Americans did not, so how did they forget how to use the wheel? When did the wheels fall off? There are no linguistic similarities between Native languages and Hebrew, which we should expect if the descendants of the Hebrews lived in the America. Etc. Etc.
I once had a long discussion one evening with a Mormon missionary, who every time he was cornered in a discussion, said that regardless of the evidence, all I needed to do was take the book of Mormon home, pray over it, and see if I felt a "burning in the bosom" telling me that God wanted me to become a Mormon. But even if I tested positive for Mormonism, I would still be expected to accept a religion's claims when my best reasoning tells me that the weight of the evidence is against it. This is something I won't do, or more precisely, I cannot do.
On a personal note, the Nielsen-Hayden piece mentions Joe Sheffer, a close personal friend of mine in the 70s and 80s who, in spite of a getting only a baccalaureate education, could stand up in a philosophical debate with the most brilliant philosophers I ever met. He was a great lover of C. S. Lewis and Thomas Aquinas, and I wish I could have his input on my Unmoved Mover discussion. He had an idea to employ Thomistic philosophy to solve fundamental problems in artificial intelligence, but his life was cut short by a heart attack in February of 1989 at the age of 36.
Monday, November 06, 2006
More dialogue with Loftus
JL: If the AFR is successful, it doesn't necessarily lead to the Christian God. This you'll grant me. Maybe the argument leads us to rethink materialism, as you've indicated. Maybe matter is much different and more bizzare then we think? After all, to my knowledge no one yet had found the smallest particle in the universe. It must exist, or does it?
VR: The argument from reason is an argument against naturalism defined by three theses. 1) The physical world at the basic level of analysis is mechanistic. It is free of purpose and meaning. 2) The physical world is causally closed, and 3) whatever else is real, in particular at the “mental” level, is determined by the state of the physical. Our ordinary conception of “matter” makes it mechanistic and purpose and meaning-free. If that basic level isn’t mechanistic, then in essence we aren’t really talking about matter anymore. There are other “mentalistic” world-views which are not traditional theism which would not be targeted by the AFR, including the world-view Lewis himself converted to when he accepted Owen Barfield’s AFR, namely, absolute idealism.
JL: Furthermore, you do realize that some, if not all of the same problems that we have accounting for rationality and consciousness if God does not exist(or a non-material spirit), applies in similar ways to God himself, if he does. Surely you've seen the essays out there questioning whether God can think, and questioning whether God is a metaphysically free being. I think these are the problems one has wherever the buck stops, correct? You press the Euthyphro dilemna against me, and I press it against you.
VR: I’m unimpressed by these arguments, and I am equally unimpressed by the Euthryphro argument.
JL: The whole issue of consciousness, rationality and the mind/brain problem hasn't been satisfactorily solved in my opinion, on either side of the fence. But one thing seems crystal clear to me: there can be no causation from body to soul or soul to body unless they share some "point of contact."
VR: The mind has a special relationship to the brain, of course. The mind, in the ordinary course of things, doesn’t move my hand without electrical impulses from the brain. But there are good dualist theories out there that deal with these matters, see especially Hasker.
JL: But the main problem I see here, is that we are biological human beings, not merely matter, if this distinction can be made, and I think it can. As biological systems we have developed the rationality to know how to survive in this world. For instance, as we observe the drinking patterns of a deer we can hunt it down while it is drinking. Human beings who didn't draw such connections didn't survive, based on the theory of evolution. We also had to deal with other human beings in social relationships, and so in order to do so we had to draw conclusions about human behavior and learn to argue our cases to get our way. VR: There isn’t supposed to be any different kind of causation going on in biological systems than there is in other physical systems. If there is, then this is a fact that cries out for explanation and can be used in a case for theism.
JL: Compare the standards of acceptable reasoning in the ancient world, especially in the Bible with how the NT writers used the OT, then you know we have developed stricter standards for the acceptance of arguments. Socrates, for instance, could not get away with saying that if we know the good, we'll do the good, nor could Plato get away with his statements on the soul, since we would ask him to define what he meant.
VR: Socrates was very good at asking people what they meant. People today get away with all sorts of BS today in the academic community. It’s important not to underestimate the intellectual skills of our ancestors. They were not stupid. There are different styles of reasoning with respect to interpreting the OT text which were accepted then but would not be accepted today.
VR: The argument from reason is an argument against naturalism defined by three theses. 1) The physical world at the basic level of analysis is mechanistic. It is free of purpose and meaning. 2) The physical world is causally closed, and 3) whatever else is real, in particular at the “mental” level, is determined by the state of the physical. Our ordinary conception of “matter” makes it mechanistic and purpose and meaning-free. If that basic level isn’t mechanistic, then in essence we aren’t really talking about matter anymore. There are other “mentalistic” world-views which are not traditional theism which would not be targeted by the AFR, including the world-view Lewis himself converted to when he accepted Owen Barfield’s AFR, namely, absolute idealism.
JL: Furthermore, you do realize that some, if not all of the same problems that we have accounting for rationality and consciousness if God does not exist(or a non-material spirit), applies in similar ways to God himself, if he does. Surely you've seen the essays out there questioning whether God can think, and questioning whether God is a metaphysically free being. I think these are the problems one has wherever the buck stops, correct? You press the Euthyphro dilemna against me, and I press it against you.
VR: I’m unimpressed by these arguments, and I am equally unimpressed by the Euthryphro argument.
JL: The whole issue of consciousness, rationality and the mind/brain problem hasn't been satisfactorily solved in my opinion, on either side of the fence. But one thing seems crystal clear to me: there can be no causation from body to soul or soul to body unless they share some "point of contact."
VR: The mind has a special relationship to the brain, of course. The mind, in the ordinary course of things, doesn’t move my hand without electrical impulses from the brain. But there are good dualist theories out there that deal with these matters, see especially Hasker.
JL: But the main problem I see here, is that we are biological human beings, not merely matter, if this distinction can be made, and I think it can. As biological systems we have developed the rationality to know how to survive in this world. For instance, as we observe the drinking patterns of a deer we can hunt it down while it is drinking. Human beings who didn't draw such connections didn't survive, based on the theory of evolution. We also had to deal with other human beings in social relationships, and so in order to do so we had to draw conclusions about human behavior and learn to argue our cases to get our way. VR: There isn’t supposed to be any different kind of causation going on in biological systems than there is in other physical systems. If there is, then this is a fact that cries out for explanation and can be used in a case for theism.
JL: Compare the standards of acceptable reasoning in the ancient world, especially in the Bible with how the NT writers used the OT, then you know we have developed stricter standards for the acceptance of arguments. Socrates, for instance, could not get away with saying that if we know the good, we'll do the good, nor could Plato get away with his statements on the soul, since we would ask him to define what he meant.
VR: Socrates was very good at asking people what they meant. People today get away with all sorts of BS today in the academic community. It’s important not to underestimate the intellectual skills of our ancestors. They were not stupid. There are different styles of reasoning with respect to interpreting the OT text which were accepted then but would not be accepted today.
Scare Tactics
A Democratic victory tomorrow will result in the end of civilization as we know it. We survived Hitler, Stalin, the Cold War, the Bubonic Plague, the Wars of Religion, the Dark Ages, etc. but this will bring down the house of family values, and hence civilization itself. At least that's what the Republican congressional committe is telling us.
Reply to John Loftus on the AFR
John Loftus wrote: Anyway, Vic, I believe the Euthyphro dilemna applies to Logic as well as Goodness. Did God create the rules of logic, or must he follow them? Do you have anything to add to this latter dilemna that you haven't said about the former dilemna?
It's probably not unlike Godel's theorem when it comes to math. We can use math effectively, but it cannot yield information concerning both the completeness and consistency of the mathematical system itself. So we must refer to metamathematical statements to explain the system. Now, either there are such things as metamathematical statements which explain the whole system, or there are not, but whether they exist is left undecided by the system itself.
I reply:
John: I need to go over the structure of the AFR again to help understand how it is supposed to go. The argument begins by examining the necessary conditions of rational inference: such things as the intentionality required for propositional attitudes, truth and falsity, mental causation in virtue of content, logical laws and their psychological relevance, personal identity throughout the rational inference, and the reliability of our rational faculties. My claim is that if any of these is missing, then we do not make rational inferences. We then look at what kinds of properties and causes there can be if naturalism is true. We look at the natural world, as understood by physics, and ask whether these necessary conditions can occur in a universe in which all there is is, at bottom, physical. The “physical” is defined in such a way that the basic stuff of the universe is not rational, not intentional, etc. and all causation is supposed to by physical causation. The laws governing that stuff are not the laws of logic, they are the laws of physics, and if the physical stuff comes into a “rational” configuration it happens to be that way because of what physical configurations obtain. What we call “rational thought” has to be a systemic byproduct of an essentially non-rational nature, and on my view there is something very, very, paradoxical about asserting something like this.
Now if someone wanted to define materialism widely enough so that something whose essence it was to perceive logical truths could be a material thing, then I guess I could even qualify as a materialist. But if we did that we would be straying big-time from our ordinary conception of “matter.” However, so long as we are not trying to call something “matter,” then it is perfectly possible for non-material things to be able to perceive logical relations as part of their essence. So God can be an essentially rational being, who knows all the logical truths in all possible worlds. Whereas we cannot say of a piece of matter that it is essentially rational without stretching the concept of matter beyond all recognition, we can say of God that God is essentially rational, and it fits perfectly with our ordinary understanding of God.
It's probably not unlike Godel's theorem when it comes to math. We can use math effectively, but it cannot yield information concerning both the completeness and consistency of the mathematical system itself. So we must refer to metamathematical statements to explain the system. Now, either there are such things as metamathematical statements which explain the whole system, or there are not, but whether they exist is left undecided by the system itself.
I reply:
John: I need to go over the structure of the AFR again to help understand how it is supposed to go. The argument begins by examining the necessary conditions of rational inference: such things as the intentionality required for propositional attitudes, truth and falsity, mental causation in virtue of content, logical laws and their psychological relevance, personal identity throughout the rational inference, and the reliability of our rational faculties. My claim is that if any of these is missing, then we do not make rational inferences. We then look at what kinds of properties and causes there can be if naturalism is true. We look at the natural world, as understood by physics, and ask whether these necessary conditions can occur in a universe in which all there is is, at bottom, physical. The “physical” is defined in such a way that the basic stuff of the universe is not rational, not intentional, etc. and all causation is supposed to by physical causation. The laws governing that stuff are not the laws of logic, they are the laws of physics, and if the physical stuff comes into a “rational” configuration it happens to be that way because of what physical configurations obtain. What we call “rational thought” has to be a systemic byproduct of an essentially non-rational nature, and on my view there is something very, very, paradoxical about asserting something like this.
Now if someone wanted to define materialism widely enough so that something whose essence it was to perceive logical truths could be a material thing, then I guess I could even qualify as a materialist. But if we did that we would be straying big-time from our ordinary conception of “matter.” However, so long as we are not trying to call something “matter,” then it is perfectly possible for non-material things to be able to perceive logical relations as part of their essence. So God can be an essentially rational being, who knows all the logical truths in all possible worlds. Whereas we cannot say of a piece of matter that it is essentially rational without stretching the concept of matter beyond all recognition, we can say of God that God is essentially rational, and it fits perfectly with our ordinary understanding of God.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Friday, November 03, 2006
An Inquiry from Johnny-Dee on the AFR
Johnny-Dee wrote: Hey Vic, I'm currently taking a grad seminar on Descartes, and I've been grappling with the "problem of the circle." This has led me to consider whether AFR arguments have a similar circularity. For Descartes, the circle goes something like this:
(1) I am certain that God exists only because I am certain of whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive.
(2) I am certain of whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive only because God exists.
How do AFR arguments avoid a similar problem of circularity. Of course, the AFR circle (if one exists) would be different, perhaps it would go something like this:
(1*) I am justified in believing my cognitive faculties function rationally only because God exists.
(2*) I am justified in believing God exists only because my cognitive faculties function rationally.
With all of this stuff on Descartes, this gave me a perfect opportunity to raise this question, which I've been meaning to ask you.
An excellent question, and one that I have come to terms with in my own work. I think I handle this issue better in my essay, “The Lewis-Anscombe Controversy: A Discussion of the Issues,” from Christian Scholar’s Review in 1989 than I do in my book. Or at least I shortened the discussion when I wrote my book. I cover it on pp. 58-60 of CSLDI. It has to do with the distinction between Skeptical Threat Arguments and Best Explanation Arguments. The idea is this: If we begin by raising skeptical questions about reasoning and argue from there to the conclusion that theism can refute skepticism but atheistic views cannot, then we run into trouble. If we, for example, raise skeptical questions about whether the law of noncontradiction is really a sound logical principle, and then we argue that if there is a God then God’s agency can justify the status of the principle of noncontradiction, then all we have to do is look at the fact that we are presenting an argument that is at the same time using the law on noncontradiction to see that we are caught in a circle.
A Best Explanation argument takes it as a fact that we do reach truths through inferences. Only if our opponent, say an eliminative materialist, says “Well, of course, there’s no such thing as rational inference, but so what,” then we point out the disastrous epistemological consequences of denying that there are rational inferences. The AFR as I construe it does not justify our confidence in rational inference with an appeal to anti-materialist metaphysics. What it does is insist that both sides in the dispute agree that there is rational inference, but while one side is trying to explain the rational in terms of the non-rational, our side is not. So I would never answer the question “Why do you believe that modus ponens is good logic?” by saying that God has created me and therefore that belief is true. If, on the other hand, I am asked why I think I am able to recognize that modus ponens is good logic, then I might give a theistic explanation at that point.
Steve Lovell's account in the linked paper on naturalism is very helpful as well.
Johnny-Dee's comment is here.
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2006/11/outline-of-descartes-meditations.html#comments
(1) I am certain that God exists only because I am certain of whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive.
(2) I am certain of whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive only because God exists.
How do AFR arguments avoid a similar problem of circularity. Of course, the AFR circle (if one exists) would be different, perhaps it would go something like this:
(1*) I am justified in believing my cognitive faculties function rationally only because God exists.
(2*) I am justified in believing God exists only because my cognitive faculties function rationally.
With all of this stuff on Descartes, this gave me a perfect opportunity to raise this question, which I've been meaning to ask you.
An excellent question, and one that I have come to terms with in my own work. I think I handle this issue better in my essay, “The Lewis-Anscombe Controversy: A Discussion of the Issues,” from Christian Scholar’s Review in 1989 than I do in my book. Or at least I shortened the discussion when I wrote my book. I cover it on pp. 58-60 of CSLDI. It has to do with the distinction between Skeptical Threat Arguments and Best Explanation Arguments. The idea is this: If we begin by raising skeptical questions about reasoning and argue from there to the conclusion that theism can refute skepticism but atheistic views cannot, then we run into trouble. If we, for example, raise skeptical questions about whether the law of noncontradiction is really a sound logical principle, and then we argue that if there is a God then God’s agency can justify the status of the principle of noncontradiction, then all we have to do is look at the fact that we are presenting an argument that is at the same time using the law on noncontradiction to see that we are caught in a circle.
A Best Explanation argument takes it as a fact that we do reach truths through inferences. Only if our opponent, say an eliminative materialist, says “Well, of course, there’s no such thing as rational inference, but so what,” then we point out the disastrous epistemological consequences of denying that there are rational inferences. The AFR as I construe it does not justify our confidence in rational inference with an appeal to anti-materialist metaphysics. What it does is insist that both sides in the dispute agree that there is rational inference, but while one side is trying to explain the rational in terms of the non-rational, our side is not. So I would never answer the question “Why do you believe that modus ponens is good logic?” by saying that God has created me and therefore that belief is true. If, on the other hand, I am asked why I think I am able to recognize that modus ponens is good logic, then I might give a theistic explanation at that point.
Steve Lovell's account in the linked paper on naturalism is very helpful as well.
Johnny-Dee's comment is here.
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2006/11/outline-of-descartes-meditations.html#comments
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Fundamentalism is a set of theological doctrines, a term of abuse, and an intellectual vice
Hasker responds to Chandler on the space-time analogy
Greetings, Hugh and Vic,
I’ll pass on the issue of spatiality, since timelessness doesn’t directly affect this anyway. As for temporality, I think “temporal parts” is a bogus issue. My life can be divided into segments, if you want to talk that way, but there isn’t a “temporal part” of me in each such segment, there is just me. And the same, I should say, for God.
Incidentally, the move to analogize from space to time and back again is one to be resisted; it represents an attempt to treat time as simply another “dimension” analogous to space, an attempt we presentists should resist.
Bill Hasker
I’ll pass on the issue of spatiality, since timelessness doesn’t directly affect this anyway. As for temporality, I think “temporal parts” is a bogus issue. My life can be divided into segments, if you want to talk that way, but there isn’t a “temporal part” of me in each such segment, there is just me. And the same, I should say, for God.
Incidentally, the move to analogize from space to time and back again is one to be resisted; it represents an attempt to treat time as simply another “dimension” analogous to space, an attempt we presentists should resist.
Bill Hasker
Bergson's Creative Evolution
This is a link to an online text of Bergson's Creative Evolution. When you read Lewis, you have to remember that Lewis's philosophical community included some viewpoints that have sort of dropped out of sight in more recent times. One is Creative Evolution, the other is Absolute Idealism.
Where is God? Where is Alan Rhoda? An inquiry from Hugh Chandler
In response to the link to Alan's post MikeD wrote: I find the proposition of God's timelessness to be unncecessary. It is beyond any Scriptural basis and causes a myriad of contradictions resulting only in distancing an understanding of a personal God.
Hugh Chandler responds: Anselm, as you probably know, treats God's relationship to time in a way analogous to his relationship to space. This seems to me, a good way to go (and nicely connects up with present-day thinking about space/time.)
In regard to space: Anselm in effect [Monologium ch. xxi] asks whether we ought to think that God is a spacial being. If so, is all of God in each region of space, r1, r2, etc. or is only a PART of God in each region. Both options seem absurd. (Do we really want to say that there is more of God in a big church than in a little church? If 'all' of God is in each of those places, doesn't it follow that there are lots of him?)
Of course Anselm, as usual, thinks that God has no parts. God isn't that kind of thing.
On Anselm's view, in some sense, God is everywhere at all times; but God is not a temporal or spacial being - doesn't have spacial or temporal parts, and is not totally at each time and place.
Perhaps you have some way of dealing with this matter that avoids the kinds of problems confronting Anselm? Or do you think we just shouldn't worry about this sort of thing?
Hugh
A good question. Christian theology doesn't want to say that God has a particular spatial location. Though we used to say in Sunday School that God is everywhere! Still, last I heard pantheism and panentheism were incompatible with Christianity. Of course space and time differ in that space is not an ordered succession, but time is: "going back in space" creates no paradoxes, but going back in time does.
Hugh Chandler responds: Anselm, as you probably know, treats God's relationship to time in a way analogous to his relationship to space. This seems to me, a good way to go (and nicely connects up with present-day thinking about space/time.)
In regard to space: Anselm in effect [Monologium ch. xxi] asks whether we ought to think that God is a spacial being. If so, is all of God in each region of space, r1, r2, etc. or is only a PART of God in each region. Both options seem absurd. (Do we really want to say that there is more of God in a big church than in a little church? If 'all' of God is in each of those places, doesn't it follow that there are lots of him?)
Of course Anselm, as usual, thinks that God has no parts. God isn't that kind of thing.
On Anselm's view, in some sense, God is everywhere at all times; but God is not a temporal or spacial being - doesn't have spacial or temporal parts, and is not totally at each time and place.
Perhaps you have some way of dealing with this matter that avoids the kinds of problems confronting Anselm? Or do you think we just shouldn't worry about this sort of thing?
Hugh
A good question. Christian theology doesn't want to say that God has a particular spatial location. Though we used to say in Sunday School that God is everywhere! Still, last I heard pantheism and panentheism were incompatible with Christianity. Of course space and time differ in that space is not an ordered succession, but time is: "going back in space" creates no paradoxes, but going back in time does.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Two Lewis quotes on evolution
From Lewis's Essay "Is Theology Poetry?" Read to the Oxford Socratic Club in November 1944.
After that it is hardly worth noticing minor difficulties. Yet these are many and serious. The Bergsonian critique of orthodox Darwinism is not easy to answer. More disquieting still is Professor D. M. S. Watson's defence. "Evolution itself," he wrote, "is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or... can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Has it come to that? Does the whole vast structure of modern naturalism depend not on positive evidence but simply on an a priori metaphysical prejudice. Was it devised not to get in facts but to keep out God .Even, however, if Evolution in the strict biological sense has some better grounds than Professor Watson suggests--and I can't help thinking it must--we should distinguish Evolution in this strict sense from what may be called the universal evolutionism of modern thought.
In "The Funeral of a Great Myth" Lewis wrote "But I do not think it has really come to that. Most biologists have a more robust belief in Evolution than Professor Watson."
But it is interesting to compare Watson's quote to Lewontin's here:
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community of unsubstantiated just-so stories [in evolutionary biology] because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material causes, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who believes in God can believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen.
What were Bergson's objections to evolution?
After that it is hardly worth noticing minor difficulties. Yet these are many and serious. The Bergsonian critique of orthodox Darwinism is not easy to answer. More disquieting still is Professor D. M. S. Watson's defence. "Evolution itself," he wrote, "is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or... can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Has it come to that? Does the whole vast structure of modern naturalism depend not on positive evidence but simply on an a priori metaphysical prejudice. Was it devised not to get in facts but to keep out God .Even, however, if Evolution in the strict biological sense has some better grounds than Professor Watson suggests--and I can't help thinking it must--we should distinguish Evolution in this strict sense from what may be called the universal evolutionism of modern thought.
In "The Funeral of a Great Myth" Lewis wrote "But I do not think it has really come to that. Most biologists have a more robust belief in Evolution than Professor Watson."
But it is interesting to compare Watson's quote to Lewontin's here:
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community of unsubstantiated just-so stories [in evolutionary biology] because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material causes, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who believes in God can believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen.
What were Bergson's objections to evolution?
C. S. Lewis and the theory of evolution
This is a very nice essay on Lewis and Evolution by Gary Ferngren.
Dead Voters' Society
Dennis Monokroussos has, at last, hung up his Chess Mind blog. This is unforunate, surely, for all of us chess fans. He did send me a link that he thought might balance the political content of this blog, especially as it concerns voter fraud. I thought getting the graveyard to vote was the old-fashioned way to steal an election. I think that probably, had only the living been permitted to vote, Richard Nixon would have become President eight years earlier than he did. In any even, apparently dead people tend to vote Democratic.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
A deity's right to choose
I wonder if there really is a problem of evil. Isn't the pro-choice slogan "A woman has the right to do as she pleases with her own body?" Well, how about "God has the right to do as He pleases with his own universe." But I suppose it's a bad idea to try to pull good theology out of bad rhetoric.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Getting bashed in good company
From Internet Infidels Discussion Board
Johan wrote: The problem is that the plausible-sounding-ness of this line of thought is dependent on selective omission of evidence (or, if you are a professional apologist like Plantinga or Reppert, willful ignorance of evidence coupled with the intent to withhold this fact from the flock).
Being put in the same sentence with Al Plantinga more than makes up for getting bashed!
Johan wrote: The problem is that the plausible-sounding-ness of this line of thought is dependent on selective omission of evidence (or, if you are a professional apologist like Plantinga or Reppert, willful ignorance of evidence coupled with the intent to withhold this fact from the flock).
Being put in the same sentence with Al Plantinga more than makes up for getting bashed!
Against Divine Timelessness from Alan Rhoda
Can a timeless God freely create? Alan Rhoda thinks not.
This is the material on integrative dualism
I think when I tried to put a link in explaining integrative dualism it didn't work, so I provide it here.
From "Transposition" on the mind-body relation
I am not going to maintain that what I call Transposition is the only possible mode whereby a poorer medium can respond to a richer, but I claim that it is very hard to imagine any other. It is therefore, at the very least, not improbable that Transposition occurs whenever the higher reproduces itself in the lower. Thus, to digress for a moment, it seems to me very likely that the real relation between the mind and body is one of Transposition. We are certain that, in this like at any rate, thought is intimately connected with the brain. The theory that thought therefore is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense, for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction, but of which it would be meaningless to use the words “true” or “false.” We are driven then to some kind of correspondence. But if we assume a one-for-one correspondence, this means that we have to attribute an almost unbelievable complexity and variety to events in the brain. But I submit that a one-for-one relation is probably quite unnecessary. All our examples suggest that the brain can respond—in a sense, adequately and exquisitely respond—to the seemingly infinite variety of consciousness without providing one singly physical modification for each single modification of consciousness.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, Transposition, pp. 63-4.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, Transposition, pp. 63-4.
The doglike mind
I have tried to stress throughout the inevitableness of the error made about every transposition by one who approaches it from the lower medium only. The strength of the critic lies in the words "merely" or "nothing but. He sees all the facts but not the meaning. Quite truly, therefore, he claims to have seen all the facts. there is nothing else there, except the meaning. He is therefore, as regards the matter at hand, in the position of an animal. You will have noticed that most dogs cannot understand pointing. You point to a bit of food on the floor; the dog, instead of looking at the floor, sniffs at your finger. A finger is a finger to him, and that is all. His world is all afct and no meaning. And in a period in when factual realism is dominant we shall find people deliberately inducing upon themselves this doglike mind. A man who has experienced love from within will deliberately go about to inspect in analytically from outside and regard the results of this analysis as truer than his experience. The extreme limits of this self-binding is seen in those who, like the rest of us, have consciousness, yet go about the study of the human organism as if they did not know it was conscious. As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible, continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism. The critique of every experience from below, the voluntary ignoring of meaning and concentration on fact, will always have the same plausibility. There will always be evidence, and every month fresh evidence, to show that religion is only psychological, justice only self-protection, politics only economics, love only lust, and thought itself only cerebral bio-chemistry.
From "Transposition" in The Weight of Glory, pp. 71-72.
From "Transposition" in The Weight of Glory, pp. 71-72.
A Jim Lazarus paper on atheist arguments
Jim Lazarus put a draft of an interesting paper on the Infidels discussion board. And, someone wondered if he was a real atheist. Kind of reminds me of what happens in some Christian circles when you doubt the Archbishop Ussher chronology, or the literal truth of the Balaam's ass story.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Friday, October 27, 2006
Why even conservatives need a Democratic victory in Congress this year
The Republican majority in congress has to go. (The fact that Republicans exploit my religion for their own political ends does not endear me to them. Quite the reverse). I don't even think it's a liberal versus conservative issue anymore. I think it's a question of what happens when one group of people gets too much power and there is no oversight. If you really think that the government that governs least governs best, then, paradoxically, you want Democrats to win the 2006 congressional election.
Ed Babinski on the Argument from Evil
The whole defensive operation against the argument from evil is an attempt to who the limits of a philosophical argument and the difficulty it faces in proving the nonexistence of God. Whenever the people you don't like are making arguments, you love to point out our cognitive limitations. When we try to do it to the argument from evil, you object.
Atheists are attempting to prove that God does not exist using the argument from evil. So which is it Ed? Can atheists prove that the tri-omni God does not exist, or not? Does the argument from evil, a philosophical argument if there ever was one, really prove that God does not exist? If it does, then you must maintain that philosophy is not just one big IF, and that it really can prove a significant philosophical result. If, on the other hand, you maintain that the argument doesn't prove the non-existence of God, then you agree with me about the argument from evil. There's no middle ground Ed. It's yes or no. Please resist the temptation to elaborate.
Atheists are attempting to prove that God does not exist using the argument from evil. So which is it Ed? Can atheists prove that the tri-omni God does not exist, or not? Does the argument from evil, a philosophical argument if there ever was one, really prove that God does not exist? If it does, then you must maintain that philosophy is not just one big IF, and that it really can prove a significant philosophical result. If, on the other hand, you maintain that the argument doesn't prove the non-existence of God, then you agree with me about the argument from evil. There's no middle ground Ed. It's yes or no. Please resist the temptation to elaborate.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Gale, Adams, and universal salvation
This is Gale's critique of Adams' response to the problem of evil.
Gale writes:
With this concept of middle knowledge in mind, a dilemma argument can be constructed to show that that God cannot bestow salvific grace in advance.
Either God has middle knowledge or he does not.
If God does not have middle knowledge, then God cannot grant salvific grace in advance. first horn
If God does have middle knowledge, then God cannot bestow salvific grace in advance. second horn
God cannot bestow salvific grace in advance. From 1-3
On either horn, Adams's theodicy of grace does not work. Each horn will now be argued for separately.
Argument for the First Horn
In "Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil," Adams argued at length that it is impossible that God create free persons and also have middle knowledge of what they will freely do. Thus, Adams is personally committed to attacking the first horn of the dilemma argument. This, of course, is only of ad hominem interest since it concerns internal consistency within Adams's philosophy. Unfortunately, it looks very much like God must have middle knowledge in order to be able to bestow salvific grace in advance upon the free people he creates. For God cannot bestow salvific grace in advance unless he knows at the time of his creative act that he is doing so. But he cannot know that he is doing so unless he knows that the free persons he creates will prove themselves morally unmeritorius by their subsequent free actions. This requires that God have middle knowledge prior to his act of actualizing a possible free person, that is, he must know that if he were to actualize this possible free person's diminished possible free person, the instantiator would freely perform at least one morally wrong action. In other words, he must know the relevant F-conditionals predicting how the instantiator of this diminished possible free person would freely act if it were to be created. Without the requisite middle knowledge, God's creation of free persons is a gamble, since he cannot have any prior assurance that these persons will come through for him and freely do the morally right thing. This makes availble (sic) to God the morally exonerating excuse for permitting moral evil of unavoidable ignorance. But whatever merit this might have in providing a theodicy for God's permitting moral evil, it precludes his granting salvific grace in his very act of creating free persons.
VR: But since Adams is a card-carrying universalist, it looks like he can dodge this objection. Everyone gets saving grace.
Gale writes:
With this concept of middle knowledge in mind, a dilemma argument can be constructed to show that that God cannot bestow salvific grace in advance.
Either God has middle knowledge or he does not.
If God does not have middle knowledge, then God cannot grant salvific grace in advance. first horn
If God does have middle knowledge, then God cannot bestow salvific grace in advance. second horn
God cannot bestow salvific grace in advance. From 1-3
On either horn, Adams's theodicy of grace does not work. Each horn will now be argued for separately.
Argument for the First Horn
In "Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil," Adams argued at length that it is impossible that God create free persons and also have middle knowledge of what they will freely do. Thus, Adams is personally committed to attacking the first horn of the dilemma argument. This, of course, is only of ad hominem interest since it concerns internal consistency within Adams's philosophy. Unfortunately, it looks very much like God must have middle knowledge in order to be able to bestow salvific grace in advance upon the free people he creates. For God cannot bestow salvific grace in advance unless he knows at the time of his creative act that he is doing so. But he cannot know that he is doing so unless he knows that the free persons he creates will prove themselves morally unmeritorius by their subsequent free actions. This requires that God have middle knowledge prior to his act of actualizing a possible free person, that is, he must know that if he were to actualize this possible free person's diminished possible free person, the instantiator would freely perform at least one morally wrong action. In other words, he must know the relevant F-conditionals predicting how the instantiator of this diminished possible free person would freely act if it were to be created. Without the requisite middle knowledge, God's creation of free persons is a gamble, since he cannot have any prior assurance that these persons will come through for him and freely do the morally right thing. This makes availble (sic) to God the morally exonerating excuse for permitting moral evil of unavoidable ignorance. But whatever merit this might have in providing a theodicy for God's permitting moral evil, it precludes his granting salvific grace in his very act of creating free persons.
VR: But since Adams is a card-carrying universalist, it looks like he can dodge this objection. Everyone gets saving grace.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
An atheist critical of fundy atheism
A breath of fresh air from Jim Lazarus. Atheists, like Christians, vary in maturity.
Reply to an anonymous commentator
Anonymous has commented on the presentation of the argument from evil that Jason was kind enough to post, from The Problem of Pain.
Anon: Sounds like the typical Christian portrayal of what an atheistic outlook leads to. Supposedly, all is doom and gloom unless one buys into the idea of a supernatural being in the heavens.
VR: Where does he say this?
Anon: It's hard not to giggle when seeing how much Lewis anthropomorphized nature.
VR: Even Daniel Dennett talks about Mother Nature, (though I think he does anthropomorphize nature in a misleading way). But Lewis is just putting the case dramatically. And he is pointing to suffering as a reason for thinking that the universe is not intelligently designed by an omnipotent and perfectly good being. Similar dramatizations appear in the presentations of the argument from evil by David Hume and Bertrand Russell.
Anon: Lewis' argument falls apart here. He's made the unsupported assumption the the "world was really unjust." The problem of evil does not require such an assumption.
VR: We've been covering this issue quite a lot here. It requires some assumption about what God ought to do, which God is not doing. It presupposes an idea of what kinds of universes a perfectly good God should permit. It has, in short, a moral premise. But if the proposition "God ought to minimize suffering" is a private fancy of one's own on a level with a liking for pancakes or a dislike for Spam, we have severely weakened the argument from evil. Unless one happens to be arguing with someone with the same private fancy.
Anon: Sounds like the typical Christian portrayal of what an atheistic outlook leads to. Supposedly, all is doom and gloom unless one buys into the idea of a supernatural being in the heavens.
VR: Where does he say this?
Anon: It's hard not to giggle when seeing how much Lewis anthropomorphized nature.
VR: Even Daniel Dennett talks about Mother Nature, (though I think he does anthropomorphize nature in a misleading way). But Lewis is just putting the case dramatically. And he is pointing to suffering as a reason for thinking that the universe is not intelligently designed by an omnipotent and perfectly good being. Similar dramatizations appear in the presentations of the argument from evil by David Hume and Bertrand Russell.
Anon: Lewis' argument falls apart here. He's made the unsupported assumption the the "world was really unjust." The problem of evil does not require such an assumption.
VR: We've been covering this issue quite a lot here. It requires some assumption about what God ought to do, which God is not doing. It presupposes an idea of what kinds of universes a perfectly good God should permit. It has, in short, a moral premise. But if the proposition "God ought to minimize suffering" is a private fancy of one's own on a level with a liking for pancakes or a dislike for Spam, we have severely weakened the argument from evil. Unless one happens to be arguing with someone with the same private fancy.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Worldviews and Arguments
It's certainly implied in the framing of the question, which is a classic tu quoque attempt to deflect discussion away from weaknesses in one's own position. It's a "what about" argument. ("It's immoral to randomly fire rockets into civilian areas." "Oh yeah, well what about the illegal settlements!?"; "It is overwhelmingly certain that humans evolved from earlier species of primates." "Oh yeah, well what about the origin of life?")
But the framing of the OP rests on a deeper fallacy, for lack of a better word call it "worldviewism". Modern apologetics has been extremely succesful in convincing people that no challenge to any individual proposition of their faith can possibly be legitimate unless absolutely every element in their "worldview" can be given a full and complete accounting for by some rival "worldview". So no matter how overwhelming the evidence that this or that proposition of Christianity -- immaculate conception, intelligent design, zombie rabbis -- is false, they can always brush the argument aside and say "ok, that's a 'problem for my worldview', but I'm not going to accept the conclusion of the argument unless you offer a complete alternative worldview that explains the origin of life, the universe, and everything. What about consciousness?"
The atheological argument from evil against contemporary Abrahamic monotheism works if you believe in samsara, or in the Greek pantheon, or in the Aztec pantheon, or in some kooky New Age Crystal magic, or nonreductive physicalism, or reductive physicalism. "Worldviews" are not some sort of impregnable wholes that can indefinitely stave off challenges to individual tenets (like omnibenevolence, or the resurrection of the dead, or the age of the earth) by demanding that the challenger not only supply evidence and arguments that the tenet is false, but that the challenger has an entire worldview and an answer to every question about everything.
OK, I think this is based on a misunderstanding of what I said. I argued that while the argument from evil, properly developed, might provide some evidence against theism, advocates of the argument very often claim more for it. They actually think it decisively refutes theism. And I argued that this sort of a claim on behalf of any philosophical argument is rarely defensible, and that recent work on the problem seems to show that this kind of a claim is too strong. Nothing I have said could be construed as a refutation of a William Rowe or Paul Draper-style inductive argument. I also argued that I did not see why the argument from evil can be regarded as decisive and overwhelming while the argument from consciousness against naturalism (all forms of naturalism by the way, reductive or non-reductive) is not.
If we're going to have world-views, then we are going to have world-views that have problems. What I was arguing is that even if the argument from evil shows that theists have something they have trouble explaining, one can still continue to be a theist unless it is shown that other world-views have fewer or less-serious problems. That is why nice, neat, clean "refutations" in philosophy are hard to come by, (and why I like Bayesian models in which prior probabilities are subjective).
But the framing of the OP rests on a deeper fallacy, for lack of a better word call it "worldviewism". Modern apologetics has been extremely succesful in convincing people that no challenge to any individual proposition of their faith can possibly be legitimate unless absolutely every element in their "worldview" can be given a full and complete accounting for by some rival "worldview". So no matter how overwhelming the evidence that this or that proposition of Christianity -- immaculate conception, intelligent design, zombie rabbis -- is false, they can always brush the argument aside and say "ok, that's a 'problem for my worldview', but I'm not going to accept the conclusion of the argument unless you offer a complete alternative worldview that explains the origin of life, the universe, and everything. What about consciousness?"
The atheological argument from evil against contemporary Abrahamic monotheism works if you believe in samsara, or in the Greek pantheon, or in the Aztec pantheon, or in some kooky New Age Crystal magic, or nonreductive physicalism, or reductive physicalism. "Worldviews" are not some sort of impregnable wholes that can indefinitely stave off challenges to individual tenets (like omnibenevolence, or the resurrection of the dead, or the age of the earth) by demanding that the challenger not only supply evidence and arguments that the tenet is false, but that the challenger has an entire worldview and an answer to every question about everything.
OK, I think this is based on a misunderstanding of what I said. I argued that while the argument from evil, properly developed, might provide some evidence against theism, advocates of the argument very often claim more for it. They actually think it decisively refutes theism. And I argued that this sort of a claim on behalf of any philosophical argument is rarely defensible, and that recent work on the problem seems to show that this kind of a claim is too strong. Nothing I have said could be construed as a refutation of a William Rowe or Paul Draper-style inductive argument. I also argued that I did not see why the argument from evil can be regarded as decisive and overwhelming while the argument from consciousness against naturalism (all forms of naturalism by the way, reductive or non-reductive) is not.
If we're going to have world-views, then we are going to have world-views that have problems. What I was arguing is that even if the argument from evil shows that theists have something they have trouble explaining, one can still continue to be a theist unless it is shown that other world-views have fewer or less-serious problems. That is why nice, neat, clean "refutations" in philosophy are hard to come by, (and why I like Bayesian models in which prior probabilities are subjective).
Monday, October 23, 2006
More on Clayton and evil
The problem here, Clayton, is that we aren't getting the logically conclusive argument that there couldn't be justifying reasons for God to permit horrific suffering. I admit that there is a pull on my moral intuitions to say that God should intervene in such situations, but when this is spelled out in more detail this is not so clear. There is a special burden that falls on people who claim a silver bullet. And I can see how God's intervening in too many cases might result in our not taking responsibility for doing what is right in the world as we find it. My moral intuitions are exactly the opposite of those of Ivan Karamazov: if God can make it the case so that even the most horrific and senseless-seeming suffering can work out the best in the long run, then more power to God for doing so. Further, I can even see the sufferer in eternity thanking God for the privilege of being allowed to suffer so much on earth. If you don't like my moral intuitions, I don't know how to argue with you.
In order for the reductio to go through, you have to be sure that I really have the moral beliefs in question, and that I feel confident in applying them in the way that you insist that I must. The mere fact that theism entails that there are objective moral values (and I think that it does imply that) does not tell you what objective moral values the theist believes in. God has many more things to take into consideration than does a human being in deciding what ought to be done. Humans invariably truncate our thinking, confining ourselves to the realtively short-term temporal consequences of our own actions. God, on the other hand, has eternal consequences to consider as well as temporal ones.
I would not consider allowing terrible pain and suffering in order to achieve a good final outcome. But I have a limited understanding which makes it wicked for me to play God. On the other hand, God is supposed to be up to the challenge of playing that role, since He (she) is God. If God exists, of course.
In order for the reductio to go through, you have to be sure that I really have the moral beliefs in question, and that I feel confident in applying them in the way that you insist that I must. The mere fact that theism entails that there are objective moral values (and I think that it does imply that) does not tell you what objective moral values the theist believes in. God has many more things to take into consideration than does a human being in deciding what ought to be done. Humans invariably truncate our thinking, confining ourselves to the realtively short-term temporal consequences of our own actions. God, on the other hand, has eternal consequences to consider as well as temporal ones.
I would not consider allowing terrible pain and suffering in order to achieve a good final outcome. But I have a limited understanding which makes it wicked for me to play God. On the other hand, God is supposed to be up to the challenge of playing that role, since He (she) is God. If God exists, of course.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
More on the problem of evil
I can't for the life of me see why the Christian theist's inability to explain some evils is more damaging to theism than the naturalist's inability to explain consciousness is for naturalism. If anything, the theist at least can, in broad outline, show how in many cases suffering can work redemptively. I would admit that in other cases it's far more mysterious. To say that we know for sure that God ought to intervene in some horrific case is to make moral-theoretic assumptions, and you have no reason to believe that the theist you are arguing with accepts those moral-theoretic assumptions or that they ought to. If you look back at Clayton's reasons why he thinks a hidden good argument won't work, you will find him appealing to Kantian moral principles and moral principles based on a "respect-for-persons" ethic. To get the silver bullet he wants, he either has to argue that these principle hold true objectively and that everyone ought to accept them even if they don't, or else he has to argue that all Christians either accept them or ought to accept them. I think that puts an intolerable burden on his argument.
A Christian moral subjectivist can dodge the argument from evil completely by simply saying that they, subjectively, can look at everything and say that the Omnipotent on is good according to their own feelings. End of argument. I have it tougher; I'm not a moral subjectivist.
A Christian moral subjectivist can dodge the argument from evil completely by simply saying that they, subjectively, can look at everything and say that the Omnipotent on is good according to their own feelings. End of argument. I have it tougher; I'm not a moral subjectivist.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Plantinga and the logical problem of evil
Arguments in philosophy rarely achieve the status of full proofs, arguments that begin from premises known to be true and advancing by impeccable logic to a philosophically significant conclusion. Anyone familiar with my book on the argument from reason realizes that I do not make that kind of a claim on behalf of my own arguments against naturalism. Most of us think that it is a good day's work for a philosopher to provide a cumulative-case role-player, something that might "break the tie" if someone is on the fence between two positions, and in combination with other reasons, might provide a good reason for, say, believing in God or not believing in God.
The argument from evil seems to have a different status, at least in many minds. Many advocates of the argument from evil suppose that that argument, unlike your typical theistic on atheistic argument, really can stand on its own as a disproof of the existence of God, showing that all who believe in God are just being irrational. Plantinga is widely credited by both theists and atheists with showing that the argument does not achieve this goal.
Yet, I get the impression from some people that they really think that the argument from evil is something more than a cumulative case role-player, and I do not think that this claim is defensible. I am unsure as to whether the argument from evil can successfully play a role as a cumulative-case role-player, but I do not think it can do more than this.
At least what is known is the logical argument from evil (as opposed to the evidential argument from evil) was supposed to do.
Would anyone like to argue that it really is stronger than your average cumulative-case role player? That, virtually alone of all philosophical arguments, and regardless of all other considerations both pro and con, really provides beyond a reasonable doubt that God does not exist.
The argument from evil seems to have a different status, at least in many minds. Many advocates of the argument from evil suppose that that argument, unlike your typical theistic on atheistic argument, really can stand on its own as a disproof of the existence of God, showing that all who believe in God are just being irrational. Plantinga is widely credited by both theists and atheists with showing that the argument does not achieve this goal.
Yet, I get the impression from some people that they really think that the argument from evil is something more than a cumulative case role-player, and I do not think that this claim is defensible. I am unsure as to whether the argument from evil can successfully play a role as a cumulative-case role-player, but I do not think it can do more than this.
At least what is known is the logical argument from evil (as opposed to the evidential argument from evil) was supposed to do.
Would anyone like to argue that it really is stronger than your average cumulative-case role player? That, virtually alone of all philosophical arguments, and regardless of all other considerations both pro and con, really provides beyond a reasonable doubt that God does not exist.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Monday, October 16, 2006
Lewis and Anscombe on distinguishing "irrational" from "nonrational"
In my book and in my 1989 essay, "The Lewis-Anscombe Controversy: A Discussion of the Issues," I discussed Anscombe's insistence that Lewis distinguish between irrational causes and non-rational causes. Irrational causes would be things like being bitten by a black dog as a child gives you a complex and causes you to believe that all black dogs are dangerous. Nonrational causes are physical events or physical causes. Now interestingly enough, when I wrote a paper on Lewis on ethical subjectivism back in grad school I noticed this passage from Part I of The Abolition of Man:
Now the emotion, thus considered by itself, cannot be either in agreement or disagreement with Reason. It is irrational not as a paralogism is irrational, but as a physical event is irrational: it does not rise even to the dignity of error.
Now, in this passage doesn't Lewis draw the exact distinction on which Anscombe insisted? The only difference here is that Lewis distinguishes two senses of the term "irrational" instead of distinguishing between irrational and nonrational. But was Lewis's usage of the term "irrational" wrong? Going to a dictionary definition of "irrational" (see link below) I think not. Nevetheless, Lewis changed from "irrational" to "nonrational" to accomodate Anscombe's criticism.
This is the dictionary entry:
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) - Cite This Source
ir‧ra‧tion‧al /ɪˈræʃənl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-rash-uh-nl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective 1. without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason.
2. without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment.
3. not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical: irrational arguments.
4. not endowed with the faculty of reason: irrational animals.
5. Mathematics. a. (of a number) not capable of being expressed exactly as a ratio of two integers.
b. (of a function) not capable of being expressed exactly as a ratio of two polynomials.
6. Algebra. (of an equation) having an unknown under a radical sign or, alternately, with a fractional exponent.
7. Greek and Latin Prosody. a. of or pertaining to a substitution in the normal metrical pattern, esp. a long syllable for a short one.
b. noting a foot or meter containing such a substitution.
–noun 8. Mathematics. irrational number.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Origin: 1425–75; late ME < L irratiōnālis. See ir-2, rational]
—Related forms
ir‧ra‧tion‧al‧ly, adverb
ir‧ra‧tion‧al‧ness, noun
—Synonyms 3. unreasonable, ridiculous; insensate.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006
In writing about this in my 1989 paper "The Lewis-Anscombe Controversy: A Discussion of the Issues," I conceded Anscombe's point but argued that since scientific knowledge depends crucially on our having knowledge that is inferred from other things we know, the distinction hardly sinks Lewis's argument. But I should have gone futher. The dictionary definition clearly shows that the word "irrational" can be used in both senses. Therefore any claim that Anscombe exposed a blunder on Lewis's part is clearly incorrect.
I am grateful to Jim Slagle for pointing this out.
Now the emotion, thus considered by itself, cannot be either in agreement or disagreement with Reason. It is irrational not as a paralogism is irrational, but as a physical event is irrational: it does not rise even to the dignity of error.
Now, in this passage doesn't Lewis draw the exact distinction on which Anscombe insisted? The only difference here is that Lewis distinguishes two senses of the term "irrational" instead of distinguishing between irrational and nonrational. But was Lewis's usage of the term "irrational" wrong? Going to a dictionary definition of "irrational" (see link below) I think not. Nevetheless, Lewis changed from "irrational" to "nonrational" to accomodate Anscombe's criticism.
This is the dictionary entry:
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) - Cite This Source
ir‧ra‧tion‧al /ɪˈræʃənl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-rash-uh-nl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective 1. without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason.
2. without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment.
3. not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical: irrational arguments.
4. not endowed with the faculty of reason: irrational animals.
5. Mathematics. a. (of a number) not capable of being expressed exactly as a ratio of two integers.
b. (of a function) not capable of being expressed exactly as a ratio of two polynomials.
6. Algebra. (of an equation) having an unknown under a radical sign or, alternately, with a fractional exponent.
7. Greek and Latin Prosody. a. of or pertaining to a substitution in the normal metrical pattern, esp. a long syllable for a short one.
b. noting a foot or meter containing such a substitution.
–noun 8. Mathematics. irrational number.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Origin: 1425–75; late ME < L irratiōnālis. See ir-2, rational]
—Related forms
ir‧ra‧tion‧al‧ly, adverb
ir‧ra‧tion‧al‧ness, noun
—Synonyms 3. unreasonable, ridiculous; insensate.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006
In writing about this in my 1989 paper "The Lewis-Anscombe Controversy: A Discussion of the Issues," I conceded Anscombe's point but argued that since scientific knowledge depends crucially on our having knowledge that is inferred from other things we know, the distinction hardly sinks Lewis's argument. But I should have gone futher. The dictionary definition clearly shows that the word "irrational" can be used in both senses. Therefore any claim that Anscombe exposed a blunder on Lewis's part is clearly incorrect.
I am grateful to Jim Slagle for pointing this out.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
From Jarrod Cochran on Bush's exploitation of Christian faith
To those of my friends and family who voted for Bush because he is "A Christian President", then this article is a very sad "I told you so". To those of my friends who realized just what a liar this man is, we have the sad knowledge that we were right all along (I have always hoped and wished that I was wrong on this one). Here's the transcript from the Oct. 11, 2006 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Oblermann where he discusses the new book by a former White House employee that worked for Bush's Faith-Based Initiative Office. Below the article is the link to the actual MSNBC TV footage. I wish I could say "enjoy the article," but hopefully all of us will be grabbing for the Maalox and asking God to keep us from cursing under our breath.
- Jarrod
_________________________________________________
FAITH NOT WORKS
From the October 11, 2006 edition of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC TV
George W. Bush, in a recent televised conference stated that, “The stakes couldn’t be any higher, as I said earlier, in the world in which we live. There are…there are…there are extreme elements that use religion to achieve objectives.”
He was talking, of course, about extreme elements using religion in Iraq. But an hour later, Mr. Bush posed with officials from the Southern Baptist Convention. It is described as the largest, most influential Evangelical denomination in a new book by the former number two man in Bush‘s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. The book, “Tempting Faith,” not out until Monday.
In our third story tonight, a COUNTDOWN exclusive, we‘ve obtained a copy and it is a devastating work. Author David Kuo‘s conservative Christian credentials are impeccable, his resume sprinkled with names like Bennett and Ashcroft.
Now as the Foley cover-up has many Evangelical Christians wondering whether the GOP is really in sync with their values, “Tempting Faith,” provides the answer: no way.
Kuo citing one example after another of a White House that repeatedly uses Evangelical Christians for their votes, while consistently giving them nothing in return, a White House which routinely speaks of the nation‘s most famous Evangelical leaders behind their backs with contempt and derision.
Furthermore, Faith-Based Initiatives were not only stiffed on one public promise after another by Mr. Bush, the office itself was eventually forced to answer an even higher calling, electing Republican politicians.
Kuo‘s bottom line: the Bush White House is playing millions of American Christians for suckers.
According to Kuo, Karl Rove’s office referred to Evangelical leaders as “the nuts.” Kuo says, “…national Christians leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous’, ‘out of control’, and ‘just plain goofy.’” So how does the Bush White House keep “the nuts” turning out in the polls? One way: Regular conference calls with groups led by Pat Roberson, James Dobson, Ted Haggard, and radio hosts like Michael Reagan.
Kuo says, “Participants were asked to talk to their people about whatever issue was pending…advice was solicited. That advice rarely went much further than the conference call…the true purpose of these calls was to keep prominent social conservatives and their groups or audiences happy.”
They did get some things from the Bush White House. Like the National Day of Prayer. “Another one of the eye-rolling Christian events,” Kuo says. And “…passes to be in the crowd greeting the President” when he arrived on Air Force One, or “…tickets for a speech he was giving” in their hometown. “Little trinkets like cufflinks, or pens, or pads of paper…” were passed out like business cards. “Christian leaders could give them to their congregations or donors or friends to show just how influential they were.” According to Kuo, “Making politically active Christians personally happy meant having to worry far less about the Christian political agenda.”
When cufflinks were not enough the White House played “the Jesus card”, reminding Christian leaders that quote, “They knew the President’s faith…” and begging for patience.
And the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives? According to Kuo, “White House staff didn’t want to have anything to do with the faith-based initiative because they didn’t understand it anymore than did Congressional Republicans….they didn’t lie awake at night trying to kill it. They simply didn’t care.”
Kuo relates one faith-based “promise” after another: billions of dollars in funding and tax credits going unfulfilled year after promise after year. He recounts one specific funding exchange with Mr. Bush:
Bush exclaimed, “Eight Billion in new dollars?” to which Kuo replied, “No sir. Eight Billion existing dollars for which groups will find it technically easier to apply. But faith-based groups have been getting that money for years.”
Bush’s response? “Eight Billion. That’s what we’ll tell them. Eight Billion in new funds for faith-based groups…”
Why bother lying? Kuo says, “The Faith-Based Initiative…had the potential to successfully evangelize more voters than any other.”
According to Kuo, the office spent much of its time on two missions. One: Trying and failing to prove Mr. Bush’s claim against regulatory bias against religious charities hiring who they wanted. Quoting Kuo, “Finding these examples became a huge priority.” But “religious groups had encountered very few instances of actual problems with their hiring practices…it really wasn’t that bad at all.”
Another mission: Lobbying the President to make good on his own promises. How? Kuo says they tried to prove their political value by turning the once bi-partisan Faith-Based Initiatives into a political operation. It wasn’t just discrimination against non-Christian Charities. One official who rated grant applications for the Compassion Capital Peer-Review Panel told Kuo, “When I saw one of those non-Christian groups in the set I was reviewing, I just stopped looking at them and gave them a zero. …A lot of us did.”
The office was also, literally, a tax-payer funded part of the Republican campaign machinery. “In 2002,” Kuo says, the office decided to hold “roundtable events for threatened incumbents with faith and community leaders…using the aura of our White House power to get a diverse group of faith and community leaders to a ‘non-partisan’ event discussing how best to help poor people in their area.”
White House Political Affairs Director, Ken Mehlman, “…loved the idea and gave us our marching orders. There were twenty targets. Including Saxby Chambliss in Georgia and John Shempkist in Illinois.”
Mehlman devised a cover-up for the operation. He told Kuo, “…it can’t come from the campaigns. That would make it look too political. It needs to come from the congressional offices. We’ll take care of that by having our guys call the office to request the visit.”
Kuo explains, “This approach inoculated us against accusations that we were using religion and religious leaders to promote specific candidates.”
Those “roundtable discussions” were a hit. Republicans won 19 out of those 20 races. 76% of Religious Conservatives voted for Saxby Chambliss over the decorated war hero Max Cleland. And Bush’s 2004 victory in Ohio, that “was at least partially tied to the conferences [they] had launched [there] two years before.”
By that time, Kuo had left the White House concluding, “It was mocking the millions of faithful Christians who had put their trust and hope in the President and his administration. Bush knew his so-called Compassion Agenda was languishing and had no problem with that.”
If you would question Mr. Kuo’s credibility, then you should know that his former boss also quite the White House, complaining in his one public interview that “politics drove absolutely everything in the Bush Administration.”
There is more - much more - revealed, in "Tempting Faith": how Jack Kemp was tricked into sounding like a religious conservative without even knowing it; Jerry Falwell's astonishing behavior at the 9/11 day of rememberance; and considerably more, as our COUNTDOWN exclusive on "Tempting Faith" continues here, tomorrow night.
- Jarrod
_________________________________________________
FAITH NOT WORKS
From the October 11, 2006 edition of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC TV
George W. Bush, in a recent televised conference stated that, “The stakes couldn’t be any higher, as I said earlier, in the world in which we live. There are…there are…there are extreme elements that use religion to achieve objectives.”
He was talking, of course, about extreme elements using religion in Iraq. But an hour later, Mr. Bush posed with officials from the Southern Baptist Convention. It is described as the largest, most influential Evangelical denomination in a new book by the former number two man in Bush‘s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. The book, “Tempting Faith,” not out until Monday.
In our third story tonight, a COUNTDOWN exclusive, we‘ve obtained a copy and it is a devastating work. Author David Kuo‘s conservative Christian credentials are impeccable, his resume sprinkled with names like Bennett and Ashcroft.
Now as the Foley cover-up has many Evangelical Christians wondering whether the GOP is really in sync with their values, “Tempting Faith,” provides the answer: no way.
Kuo citing one example after another of a White House that repeatedly uses Evangelical Christians for their votes, while consistently giving them nothing in return, a White House which routinely speaks of the nation‘s most famous Evangelical leaders behind their backs with contempt and derision.
Furthermore, Faith-Based Initiatives were not only stiffed on one public promise after another by Mr. Bush, the office itself was eventually forced to answer an even higher calling, electing Republican politicians.
Kuo‘s bottom line: the Bush White House is playing millions of American Christians for suckers.
According to Kuo, Karl Rove’s office referred to Evangelical leaders as “the nuts.” Kuo says, “…national Christians leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous’, ‘out of control’, and ‘just plain goofy.’” So how does the Bush White House keep “the nuts” turning out in the polls? One way: Regular conference calls with groups led by Pat Roberson, James Dobson, Ted Haggard, and radio hosts like Michael Reagan.
Kuo says, “Participants were asked to talk to their people about whatever issue was pending…advice was solicited. That advice rarely went much further than the conference call…the true purpose of these calls was to keep prominent social conservatives and their groups or audiences happy.”
They did get some things from the Bush White House. Like the National Day of Prayer. “Another one of the eye-rolling Christian events,” Kuo says. And “…passes to be in the crowd greeting the President” when he arrived on Air Force One, or “…tickets for a speech he was giving” in their hometown. “Little trinkets like cufflinks, or pens, or pads of paper…” were passed out like business cards. “Christian leaders could give them to their congregations or donors or friends to show just how influential they were.” According to Kuo, “Making politically active Christians personally happy meant having to worry far less about the Christian political agenda.”
When cufflinks were not enough the White House played “the Jesus card”, reminding Christian leaders that quote, “They knew the President’s faith…” and begging for patience.
And the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives? According to Kuo, “White House staff didn’t want to have anything to do with the faith-based initiative because they didn’t understand it anymore than did Congressional Republicans….they didn’t lie awake at night trying to kill it. They simply didn’t care.”
Kuo relates one faith-based “promise” after another: billions of dollars in funding and tax credits going unfulfilled year after promise after year. He recounts one specific funding exchange with Mr. Bush:
Bush exclaimed, “Eight Billion in new dollars?” to which Kuo replied, “No sir. Eight Billion existing dollars for which groups will find it technically easier to apply. But faith-based groups have been getting that money for years.”
Bush’s response? “Eight Billion. That’s what we’ll tell them. Eight Billion in new funds for faith-based groups…”
Why bother lying? Kuo says, “The Faith-Based Initiative…had the potential to successfully evangelize more voters than any other.”
According to Kuo, the office spent much of its time on two missions. One: Trying and failing to prove Mr. Bush’s claim against regulatory bias against religious charities hiring who they wanted. Quoting Kuo, “Finding these examples became a huge priority.” But “religious groups had encountered very few instances of actual problems with their hiring practices…it really wasn’t that bad at all.”
Another mission: Lobbying the President to make good on his own promises. How? Kuo says they tried to prove their political value by turning the once bi-partisan Faith-Based Initiatives into a political operation. It wasn’t just discrimination against non-Christian Charities. One official who rated grant applications for the Compassion Capital Peer-Review Panel told Kuo, “When I saw one of those non-Christian groups in the set I was reviewing, I just stopped looking at them and gave them a zero. …A lot of us did.”
The office was also, literally, a tax-payer funded part of the Republican campaign machinery. “In 2002,” Kuo says, the office decided to hold “roundtable events for threatened incumbents with faith and community leaders…using the aura of our White House power to get a diverse group of faith and community leaders to a ‘non-partisan’ event discussing how best to help poor people in their area.”
White House Political Affairs Director, Ken Mehlman, “…loved the idea and gave us our marching orders. There were twenty targets. Including Saxby Chambliss in Georgia and John Shempkist in Illinois.”
Mehlman devised a cover-up for the operation. He told Kuo, “…it can’t come from the campaigns. That would make it look too political. It needs to come from the congressional offices. We’ll take care of that by having our guys call the office to request the visit.”
Kuo explains, “This approach inoculated us against accusations that we were using religion and religious leaders to promote specific candidates.”
Those “roundtable discussions” were a hit. Republicans won 19 out of those 20 races. 76% of Religious Conservatives voted for Saxby Chambliss over the decorated war hero Max Cleland. And Bush’s 2004 victory in Ohio, that “was at least partially tied to the conferences [they] had launched [there] two years before.”
By that time, Kuo had left the White House concluding, “It was mocking the millions of faithful Christians who had put their trust and hope in the President and his administration. Bush knew his so-called Compassion Agenda was languishing and had no problem with that.”
If you would question Mr. Kuo’s credibility, then you should know that his former boss also quite the White House, complaining in his one public interview that “politics drove absolutely everything in the Bush Administration.”
There is more - much more - revealed, in "Tempting Faith": how Jack Kemp was tricked into sounding like a religious conservative without even knowing it; Jerry Falwell's astonishing behavior at the 9/11 day of rememberance; and considerably more, as our COUNTDOWN exclusive on "Tempting Faith" continues here, tomorrow night.
Steve Lovell Responds to John Loftus
I've taken this from the comment line to its own line.
Loftus' response (linked above) to my paper and subsequent comments is interesting.
I have attempted to defend a position I call Divine Nature Theory (DNT) which I will try to summarise here. DNT seeks to avoid the Euthyphro dilemma by saying that God's commands are rooted in his nature. This is intended to make morality dependant on God without making it arbitrary.
Questions then arise about how we come to our knowledge of morality and how we know that God is good.
My view is that God gave us the gift of conscience, and that we can (in general) trust our conscience even if we don't know that it was given to us by God.
In this way we can use our conscience to form moral beliefs ... including ultimately the belief that God is good. Here I've been charged with accepting an objectionable circularity. I admit the circularity, I only deny that it's objectionable.
Loftus comments that he thinks "inherent circularity in trying to defend the DNT points to the non-existence of God."
I'm not sure what exactly comes under the word "defend" here. The circularity appears in offering a justification of our belief that God is good which includes a description of the where our conscience has come from any why it's reliable. This justification is one that I offer within DNT and is a defence in the negative sense of showing how moral knowledge is possible on DNT. It is not a defense in the sense of an argument for DNT. Of course if there were no "negative" defense then a positive one would be out of the question ... but that's a different point.
Anyway, Loftus goes on to quote my common response here, which is an analogy with the evolutionary account of our senses. It goes like this ...
“It might be helpful to consider the similarities of a non-moral case: trusting our senses. One theory of why we should trust our senses is that natural selection would have eliminated species whose senses weren't reliable. But why should we accept this theory? Because it's confirmed by scientific data? But that data comes to us through our senses! The justification is circular.”
What would Loftus say if to me "the inherent "inherent circularity in trying to defend evolution points to the truth of creationism."?
If Loftus thinks the circularity involved in DNT counts against it, then surely this circularity is equally damaging to evolution.
Loftus' response here is:
"But is this really an analogous case for our moral faculties? We are able to justify our senses pragmatically, but that’s all. They seem to help us live and work and play in our world. Can we trust our senses to tell us what is real? No."
So the case is apparently not analogus because we cannot have anything but a pragmatic confidence in our senses. Does Loftus think that we can have more confidence (and not of a pragmatic kind) in our moral beliefs than in our beliefs based on our senses? If so, this is surely a very unusual position for an atheist.
I don't really see what else Loftus can mean by saying that the two cases aren't analogous. But perhaps his problem is just that while the analogy is a good one it can't do the work I want it to.
Presumably it wont do the work I want it to because beliefs based on our senses are trusted only pragmatically but I'm trying to defend a higher form of confidence for our moral beliefs.
Now I am trying to defend a higher form of confidence for our moral beliefs than a mere pragmatic confidence, but if this is Loftus' view then he has really given the game away ... since it would follow that on his view we can only have (at best) a pragmatic confidence in our moral beliefs, in other words our moral beliefs would be those we can get away with espousing. This doesn't seem to be a good way of arguing that Atheism can ground an objective morality just as well as Theism.
But perhaps Loftus is more confident in his moral beliefs than in those based on his senses. If so, I'd like to know where he thinks our moral beliefs come from and how such moral confidence is possible in a world of scepticism about both God and our senses.
Loftus' response (linked above) to my paper and subsequent comments is interesting.
I have attempted to defend a position I call Divine Nature Theory (DNT) which I will try to summarise here. DNT seeks to avoid the Euthyphro dilemma by saying that God's commands are rooted in his nature. This is intended to make morality dependant on God without making it arbitrary.
Questions then arise about how we come to our knowledge of morality and how we know that God is good.
My view is that God gave us the gift of conscience, and that we can (in general) trust our conscience even if we don't know that it was given to us by God.
In this way we can use our conscience to form moral beliefs ... including ultimately the belief that God is good. Here I've been charged with accepting an objectionable circularity. I admit the circularity, I only deny that it's objectionable.
Loftus comments that he thinks "inherent circularity in trying to defend the DNT points to the non-existence of God."
I'm not sure what exactly comes under the word "defend" here. The circularity appears in offering a justification of our belief that God is good which includes a description of the where our conscience has come from any why it's reliable. This justification is one that I offer within DNT and is a defence in the negative sense of showing how moral knowledge is possible on DNT. It is not a defense in the sense of an argument for DNT. Of course if there were no "negative" defense then a positive one would be out of the question ... but that's a different point.
Anyway, Loftus goes on to quote my common response here, which is an analogy with the evolutionary account of our senses. It goes like this ...
“It might be helpful to consider the similarities of a non-moral case: trusting our senses. One theory of why we should trust our senses is that natural selection would have eliminated species whose senses weren't reliable. But why should we accept this theory? Because it's confirmed by scientific data? But that data comes to us through our senses! The justification is circular.”
What would Loftus say if to me "the inherent "inherent circularity in trying to defend evolution points to the truth of creationism."?
If Loftus thinks the circularity involved in DNT counts against it, then surely this circularity is equally damaging to evolution.
Loftus' response here is:
"But is this really an analogous case for our moral faculties? We are able to justify our senses pragmatically, but that’s all. They seem to help us live and work and play in our world. Can we trust our senses to tell us what is real? No."
So the case is apparently not analogus because we cannot have anything but a pragmatic confidence in our senses. Does Loftus think that we can have more confidence (and not of a pragmatic kind) in our moral beliefs than in our beliefs based on our senses? If so, this is surely a very unusual position for an atheist.
I don't really see what else Loftus can mean by saying that the two cases aren't analogous. But perhaps his problem is just that while the analogy is a good one it can't do the work I want it to.
Presumably it wont do the work I want it to because beliefs based on our senses are trusted only pragmatically but I'm trying to defend a higher form of confidence for our moral beliefs.
Now I am trying to defend a higher form of confidence for our moral beliefs than a mere pragmatic confidence, but if this is Loftus' view then he has really given the game away ... since it would follow that on his view we can only have (at best) a pragmatic confidence in our moral beliefs, in other words our moral beliefs would be those we can get away with espousing. This doesn't seem to be a good way of arguing that Atheism can ground an objective morality just as well as Theism.
But perhaps Loftus is more confident in his moral beliefs than in those based on his senses. If so, I'd like to know where he thinks our moral beliefs come from and how such moral confidence is possible in a world of scepticism about both God and our senses.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Loftus on theological differences
Loftus on the differing views Christians have of many theological issues: Either God was not clear in his revelation about these issues, or the Holy Spirit isn't doing his job in illuminating the truth of the Bible, or God doesn't care what Christians believe.
VR: I think God wants to appeal to our wills and not simply fill our minds with information, and this seems to be furthered by not making everything "settled" by this that or the other Scripture. Let's take everlasting punishment as an example. I am prepared to take seriously the perspective of Tom Talbott, who thinks that it's essential to believe that God wants all to be saved and thinks God will eventually pull it off, even in the face of human free will. At the same time, I believe that sin doesn't reverse itself, it is not a minor detail, and if left unchecked it damages our relationship to God and to every other creature. That being the case, my inclination is to go agnostic on the question of hell. I accept the doctrine of hell as a perfectly accurate account about what happens to people if sin persists, I believe in a loving God bound and determined to save all, I think the passages saying that only Christ can save are there for a reason, and no attempt to "resolve" the relevant issues prematurely will be adequate. God has, in my view, left pieces of the truth around, and for our own good has refused to tell us how they fit together.
VR: I think God wants to appeal to our wills and not simply fill our minds with information, and this seems to be furthered by not making everything "settled" by this that or the other Scripture. Let's take everlasting punishment as an example. I am prepared to take seriously the perspective of Tom Talbott, who thinks that it's essential to believe that God wants all to be saved and thinks God will eventually pull it off, even in the face of human free will. At the same time, I believe that sin doesn't reverse itself, it is not a minor detail, and if left unchecked it damages our relationship to God and to every other creature. That being the case, my inclination is to go agnostic on the question of hell. I accept the doctrine of hell as a perfectly accurate account about what happens to people if sin persists, I believe in a loving God bound and determined to save all, I think the passages saying that only Christ can save are there for a reason, and no attempt to "resolve" the relevant issues prematurely will be adequate. God has, in my view, left pieces of the truth around, and for our own good has refused to tell us how they fit together.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Infidelguy interview cancelled
The interview I was going to do with the Infidelguy was cancelled a couple of weeks back, and it looks as if we will no tbe able to reschedule. This is NOT my fault, but I do not feel it necessary to discuss any of the details beyond that.
More Aristotle Notes
I. Against Plato’s forms
A. The forms are useless, and double the number of things that need to be explained
B. Forms cannot explain change
C. Forms cannot be the essence of that which they are separated from
D. It is not clear what it means for particulars to “participate” in forms
E. Third man argument. If there is a relation between the form of a chair and a chair, then doesn’t there have to be form of that relations, and the a form for the relation to the relation, and then a form for the relation to the relation to the relation, and then form of the relation to the relation of the relation to the relation, etc. etc, etc.
II. Transcendent versus Immanent Forms
A. If all the chair were to disappear in a nuclear war, for Plato the form of Chairness would continue to be
B. If all the chair were to disappear in a nuclear war, for Aristotle, for form of Chairness would be gone as well
III. Substances: What is real is the sum total of all the substances in the world
A. Substances consist of a whatness and a thisness.
1. The whatness picks out the universal properties of a thing. It makes a thing the thing that it is. The whatness is identified with the substance’s form.
2. The thisness of a substance picks out its matter. Hence for Aristotle, a rock is not a purely material object, as you might have thought, but rather a combination of matter and form.
IV. Change. Aristotle’s philosophy, unlike Plato’s, has a theory that accounts for change. A change is a change from potentiality to actuality.
V. A change has four causes. Those causes are the material cause, what the thing is made of, the efficient cause, what brought it to be the way it is, the formal cause, what the thing is, and the final cause, which is its purpose.
A. The forms are useless, and double the number of things that need to be explained
B. Forms cannot explain change
C. Forms cannot be the essence of that which they are separated from
D. It is not clear what it means for particulars to “participate” in forms
E. Third man argument. If there is a relation between the form of a chair and a chair, then doesn’t there have to be form of that relations, and the a form for the relation to the relation, and then a form for the relation to the relation to the relation, and then form of the relation to the relation of the relation to the relation, etc. etc, etc.
II. Transcendent versus Immanent Forms
A. If all the chair were to disappear in a nuclear war, for Plato the form of Chairness would continue to be
B. If all the chair were to disappear in a nuclear war, for Aristotle, for form of Chairness would be gone as well
III. Substances: What is real is the sum total of all the substances in the world
A. Substances consist of a whatness and a thisness.
1. The whatness picks out the universal properties of a thing. It makes a thing the thing that it is. The whatness is identified with the substance’s form.
2. The thisness of a substance picks out its matter. Hence for Aristotle, a rock is not a purely material object, as you might have thought, but rather a combination of matter and form.
IV. Change. Aristotle’s philosophy, unlike Plato’s, has a theory that accounts for change. A change is a change from potentiality to actuality.
V. A change has four causes. Those causes are the material cause, what the thing is made of, the efficient cause, what brought it to be the way it is, the formal cause, what the thing is, and the final cause, which is its purpose.
Monday, October 09, 2006
LInk to a Dissertation Defending Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
If you want to do some really hard philosophical work you might want to read the defense of Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism found in this doctoral dissertation, reference by J. D. Walters, and with some discussion between J. D. and Blue Devil Knight.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Gert Korthof reviews Francis Collins
An interesting review of Francis Collins and a critique of Collins' Lewis-style moral argument. The witch-burning stuff is interesting. Lewis had argued that we don't believe that there are witches, but if we did think there were witches, and could prove who they were, they would have to be regarded as the worst of criminals, deserving the worst punishment that state could dish out. If we mean by "witches" not practicioners of some nature religion, but rather persons who used powers derived from Satan to do harm to others, I would have to agree. Of course we no longer practice methods of execution that inflict as much pain as burning, and I believe Lewis would agree that that is an improvement, but his and (I take it) Collins's point stands--that witches in the sense above defined would have to be treated as the worst criminals, assuming we had real ones on our hands and knew it.
Chandler replies to Jason
Jason writes:
This being the case, I think Lewis is _not_ avoiding saying that the Being composed of three persons can also be legitimately spoken of in the personal singular, i.e. as a single person.
Yes, of course Jason is right. But then,if God is a person composed of three people, doesn't that make FOUR people?
Or is God just those three people, and not, in himself, ANOTHER person?
I think Lewis has got himself in trouble by thinking of God as something COMPOSED OF three people. Presumably Anselm and Co. would say that God isn't composed of ANYTHING - not even the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Hugh
VR: Saying the Godhead is composed of anything is, I think a heresy. I'll have to look at the relevant passage to see if it is meant in a way as to make a heretical reading plausible.
This being the case, I think Lewis is _not_ avoiding saying that the Being composed of three persons can also be legitimately spoken of in the personal singular, i.e. as a single person.
Yes, of course Jason is right. But then,if God is a person composed of three people, doesn't that make FOUR people?
Or is God just those three people, and not, in himself, ANOTHER person?
I think Lewis has got himself in trouble by thinking of God as something COMPOSED OF three people. Presumably Anselm and Co. would say that God isn't composed of ANYTHING - not even the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Hugh
VR: Saying the Godhead is composed of anything is, I think a heresy. I'll have to look at the relevant passage to see if it is meant in a way as to make a heretical reading plausible.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Some previous dialogue on the Euthyphro
Since the Euthyphro dilemma has reared its head in a discussion, I thought I would track back to some previous dialogue involving Steve Lovell on the subject.
Lecture notes on Aristotle
I. Aristotle’s Life
II. Relationship to his teacher Plato:
A. While Plato’s philosophy is idealistic, inspiring, otherworldly and perfectionist, Aristotle’s is realistic, scientific, this-worldly and pragmatic.
B. Styles are different largely in virtue of what has survived. Plato’s dialogues survived, Aristotle’s lecture notes survived.
C. Picture of the School of Athens: Plato points up (to the Forms), Aristotle point down (at the world of our experience).
D. For Plato the model for knowledge is mathematics. For Aristotle it’s biology. What’s the difference? Biology relies extensively on observation.
E. Example: Plato’s social/political philosophy defines an ideal society. He doesn’t care if it’s attainable, and even tells you how it will fall apart if it is achieved. Aristotle’s looks at actual societies to see which ones work the best. He surveys 158 constitutions and decides which ones work the best in what circumstances.
III. Theory of knowledge
A. All human beings by nature desire to know.
B. For Plato there can be no science (rational discourse) of particular things.
For Aristotle there can be, in fact knowledge begins with the study of particular things.
C. It is a mistake to study an abstract quality in isolation form concrete exemplifications.
D. Presupposes that language and thought are congruent to the structure of reality. How could we understand nature if there is no affinity between nature and our minds?
E. The ten categories
1. What is it?
2. How large is it?
3. What is it like?
4. How is it related?
5. Where is it?
6. When does it exist?
7. What position is it in?
8. What condition is it in?
9. What is it doing?
10. How is it acted upon?
Would Plato ask the questions that have been put into the ten categories?
F. The discovery of logic, the science of arguments. Aristotle discovered that you could distinguish the form of an argument from the content of the argument. Aristotle put statements into categories and show how you can determine, based on the structure of an argument, whether or not the argument is valid.
1. An argument is valid, just in case, on the assumption that the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. If an argument is valid, the internal logic of the argument is solid. The argument can only be challenged externally, but attacking the truth of the premises
2. Validity is a matter of logical form. A valid argument can be given in favor of a false conclusion, or even in favor of a stupid conclusion.
3. Other argument forms to not reliably get true conclusions if the premises are true. There are invalid arguments.
G. First principles
1. Aristotle maintained that there were certain fundamental principles in every discipline. Although some people would like to think they can, or should, prove everything they believe, Aristotle realized that you can demand proof for the premises every time proof is offered, and impose an infinite regress. Some things are so basic as not to require proof.
2. An example would be the law of noncontradiction in logic, the claim that a statement and its contradictory cannot both be true. The trouble here is that any argument for the law of noncontradiction is going to assume the law of noncontradiction, and thereby be open to charge of being a circular argument. However, if someone doesn’t believe in the law of noncon, Aristotle will ask “Are you really saying that?” If the person says they are making a statement, then Aristotle will say that the person has implicitly accepted the law of non-contradiction. If the person says “No, I’m not really saying that,” then Aristotle says “Well, if you aren’t really saying anything, then I really have nothing to respond to,” and treat the person as a cabbage.
II. Relationship to his teacher Plato:
A. While Plato’s philosophy is idealistic, inspiring, otherworldly and perfectionist, Aristotle’s is realistic, scientific, this-worldly and pragmatic.
B. Styles are different largely in virtue of what has survived. Plato’s dialogues survived, Aristotle’s lecture notes survived.
C. Picture of the School of Athens: Plato points up (to the Forms), Aristotle point down (at the world of our experience).
D. For Plato the model for knowledge is mathematics. For Aristotle it’s biology. What’s the difference? Biology relies extensively on observation.
E. Example: Plato’s social/political philosophy defines an ideal society. He doesn’t care if it’s attainable, and even tells you how it will fall apart if it is achieved. Aristotle’s looks at actual societies to see which ones work the best. He surveys 158 constitutions and decides which ones work the best in what circumstances.
III. Theory of knowledge
A. All human beings by nature desire to know.
B. For Plato there can be no science (rational discourse) of particular things.
For Aristotle there can be, in fact knowledge begins with the study of particular things.
C. It is a mistake to study an abstract quality in isolation form concrete exemplifications.
D. Presupposes that language and thought are congruent to the structure of reality. How could we understand nature if there is no affinity between nature and our minds?
E. The ten categories
1. What is it?
2. How large is it?
3. What is it like?
4. How is it related?
5. Where is it?
6. When does it exist?
7. What position is it in?
8. What condition is it in?
9. What is it doing?
10. How is it acted upon?
Would Plato ask the questions that have been put into the ten categories?
F. The discovery of logic, the science of arguments. Aristotle discovered that you could distinguish the form of an argument from the content of the argument. Aristotle put statements into categories and show how you can determine, based on the structure of an argument, whether or not the argument is valid.
1. An argument is valid, just in case, on the assumption that the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. If an argument is valid, the internal logic of the argument is solid. The argument can only be challenged externally, but attacking the truth of the premises
2. Validity is a matter of logical form. A valid argument can be given in favor of a false conclusion, or even in favor of a stupid conclusion.
3. Other argument forms to not reliably get true conclusions if the premises are true. There are invalid arguments.
G. First principles
1. Aristotle maintained that there were certain fundamental principles in every discipline. Although some people would like to think they can, or should, prove everything they believe, Aristotle realized that you can demand proof for the premises every time proof is offered, and impose an infinite regress. Some things are so basic as not to require proof.
2. An example would be the law of noncontradiction in logic, the claim that a statement and its contradictory cannot both be true. The trouble here is that any argument for the law of noncontradiction is going to assume the law of noncontradiction, and thereby be open to charge of being a circular argument. However, if someone doesn’t believe in the law of noncon, Aristotle will ask “Are you really saying that?” If the person says they are making a statement, then Aristotle will say that the person has implicitly accepted the law of non-contradiction. If the person says “No, I’m not really saying that,” then Aristotle says “Well, if you aren’t really saying anything, then I really have nothing to respond to,” and treat the person as a cabbage.
Poll on pedophilia-good news for congressional Republicans
This is a poll showing that 10% of Canadians see nothing wrong with pedophilia. And if relativism is true, hey. Who's to say what's really right or wrong?
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Clayton on evil
Clayton wrote: I've got the numbers:
(1) There has been at least one event e in the history of the world such that anyone who could have prevented e would be morally required to do so.
(2) God never fails to fulfill a moral requirement.
(3) If God existed, e wouldn't have occurred.
(C) God doesn't exist.
Logically, it seems good to me. Let 'e' be the gang rape and butchering of a helpless woman in Darfur. Or, substitute some other event if you like.
Such an event is one God would be morally required to prevent and yet it happened.My question is whether you think God is obligated to prevent all occurrences of this type. Logically, one would have to say yes. However, this would have the implication that anyone who wanted to do something like commit a gang rape would be prevented from doing so. I don't see how God could do that without creating the World of Clockwork Orange, in which humans are systematically prevented from carrying out wrong actions. I think God has an interest in creating a world in which there free responses by human beings are free to make choice and where there are normal consequences for those actions, even if that means allowing gang rapes in Darfur and unjust invasions of Iraq.
Pre-emptive strike against the hidden goods response:
(a) If there were such hidden goods that would show that all things considered it would be wrongful to intervene on her behalf, God created us as utter moral imbeciles. Such a claim seems flatly inconsistent with the idea that God created us as morally responsible agents.(b)
Not moral imbeciles. Well, human beings with limited information. We must act not knowing all the effects of our actions. It's different with God. (I suppose some Christians, committed to the doctrine of Total Depravity, would say that we think there is unnecessary evil in the world because we are moral imbeciles). We are, however, somewhat morally challenged compared to the Almighty.
If God created a world in which her enduring such an event is a necessary part of bringing about some e' that is the hidden good, intuitively, it sounds as if God is using a person as a mere means to an end. Very un-Kantian.
Who died and made Kant the morality god? More seriously, in a heavenly future life everyone desires the happiness of everyone else, and therefore the feeling that one's intense suffering played a role in someone's enhanced ability to enjoy eternal life would also enhance my eternal life.
(c) To say that God should have let this happen to her or endorse a theory knowing this is an implication of such a theory seems to low a lack of respect for our fellow persons.
Not, on my view, if you think clearly about what it would take to prevent not only this tragedy, but all others like it.
If we ever got our hands on a person who could have prevented such a thing but didn't, we'd have a hard time preventing a mob from lynching him.
People who make comments like this seem to forget that we are talking about a being who is running the universe. Guaranteeing the nonoccurrence of a tragedy has many, far-reaching implications, implications that we as humans only have as small grasp of.
I take it that you think the reason my argument fails is that you can knowingly say:
(*) God was right to allow that woman to be gang raped and butchered.
I say that that's false and not for epistemic reasons. Now, you say that I'm making an appeal to emotion. It may well stir the emotions. Here's a question that I think is significant. I think you cannot be a decent person and believe (*). Any decent person should find that claim quite beyond belief. You would think that if theism were true, God would not put us in a position whereby the claims we are rationally compelled to endorse insofar as we believe in God's existence make us less than morally decent people. That is a second sort of argument and one that is distinct from my first numbered one.
On the contrary, I think you can be a decent person and believe that God, before the foundation of the world, predestined some to everlasting heaven and the rest to everlasting hell. (Though sometimes I wonder how they pull it off). I don't see that this affects one iota my desire to alleviate suffering, or to act in compassionate ways. Mother Teresa was someone who believed, surely, that God had permitted the great sufferings of the people with whom she dealt, but she also believed that God wanted her to do all she could to decrease the suffering of those people. Just because I think God sometimes allows the human race to be scourged does not mean that I am raising my hand volunteering for the job of being the Scourge of God.
And, kudos to Clayton for meeting the terms of my challenge. I was starting to think that the argument from evil was just an emotional objection.
(1) There has been at least one event e in the history of the world such that anyone who could have prevented e would be morally required to do so.
(2) God never fails to fulfill a moral requirement.
(3) If God existed, e wouldn't have occurred.
(C) God doesn't exist.
Logically, it seems good to me. Let 'e' be the gang rape and butchering of a helpless woman in Darfur. Or, substitute some other event if you like.
Such an event is one God would be morally required to prevent and yet it happened.My question is whether you think God is obligated to prevent all occurrences of this type. Logically, one would have to say yes. However, this would have the implication that anyone who wanted to do something like commit a gang rape would be prevented from doing so. I don't see how God could do that without creating the World of Clockwork Orange, in which humans are systematically prevented from carrying out wrong actions. I think God has an interest in creating a world in which there free responses by human beings are free to make choice and where there are normal consequences for those actions, even if that means allowing gang rapes in Darfur and unjust invasions of Iraq.
Pre-emptive strike against the hidden goods response:
(a) If there were such hidden goods that would show that all things considered it would be wrongful to intervene on her behalf, God created us as utter moral imbeciles. Such a claim seems flatly inconsistent with the idea that God created us as morally responsible agents.(b)
Not moral imbeciles. Well, human beings with limited information. We must act not knowing all the effects of our actions. It's different with God. (I suppose some Christians, committed to the doctrine of Total Depravity, would say that we think there is unnecessary evil in the world because we are moral imbeciles). We are, however, somewhat morally challenged compared to the Almighty.
If God created a world in which her enduring such an event is a necessary part of bringing about some e' that is the hidden good, intuitively, it sounds as if God is using a person as a mere means to an end. Very un-Kantian.
Who died and made Kant the morality god? More seriously, in a heavenly future life everyone desires the happiness of everyone else, and therefore the feeling that one's intense suffering played a role in someone's enhanced ability to enjoy eternal life would also enhance my eternal life.
(c) To say that God should have let this happen to her or endorse a theory knowing this is an implication of such a theory seems to low a lack of respect for our fellow persons.
Not, on my view, if you think clearly about what it would take to prevent not only this tragedy, but all others like it.
If we ever got our hands on a person who could have prevented such a thing but didn't, we'd have a hard time preventing a mob from lynching him.
People who make comments like this seem to forget that we are talking about a being who is running the universe. Guaranteeing the nonoccurrence of a tragedy has many, far-reaching implications, implications that we as humans only have as small grasp of.
I take it that you think the reason my argument fails is that you can knowingly say:
(*) God was right to allow that woman to be gang raped and butchered.
I say that that's false and not for epistemic reasons. Now, you say that I'm making an appeal to emotion. It may well stir the emotions. Here's a question that I think is significant. I think you cannot be a decent person and believe (*). Any decent person should find that claim quite beyond belief. You would think that if theism were true, God would not put us in a position whereby the claims we are rationally compelled to endorse insofar as we believe in God's existence make us less than morally decent people. That is a second sort of argument and one that is distinct from my first numbered one.
On the contrary, I think you can be a decent person and believe that God, before the foundation of the world, predestined some to everlasting heaven and the rest to everlasting hell. (Though sometimes I wonder how they pull it off). I don't see that this affects one iota my desire to alleviate suffering, or to act in compassionate ways. Mother Teresa was someone who believed, surely, that God had permitted the great sufferings of the people with whom she dealt, but she also believed that God wanted her to do all she could to decrease the suffering of those people. Just because I think God sometimes allows the human race to be scourged does not mean that I am raising my hand volunteering for the job of being the Scourge of God.
And, kudos to Clayton for meeting the terms of my challenge. I was starting to think that the argument from evil was just an emotional objection.
The atheistic problem of pain
One thing I really don't get. Pain is supposed to be a big problem for the theist, and is hence supposed to be a reason to be a naturalist instead. (Most problem of evil atheists, so far as I can tell, are naturalists). So, they say, the distribution of pain and suffering in the world is not what you should expect with a good God but precisely what you should expect with no God. Really? In a godless, naturalistic world, the existence of pain or any other conscious state or quale is exactly what we should not expect. Of course, you can I suppose have organism with dispositions to behave in certain ways, but the actual internally experienced state of pain is a huge, hard problem for atheistic naturalism, a problem that I personally consider to be logically impossible to solve. Going from theism to atheism to solve the problem of pain is like going from the frying pan to the fire.
Lewis's Last Version of the Argument from Reason
The Discarded Image was published posthumously.
No Model yet devised has made a satisfactory unity between our actual experience of sensation or thought or emotion and any available account of the corporeal processes which they are held to involve. We experience, say, a chain of reasoning; thoughts, which are ‘about’ or ‘refer to’ something other than themselves, are linked together by the logical relation of grounds and consequents. Physiology resolves this into a sequence of cerebral events. But physical events, as such, cannot in any intelligible sense be said to be ‘about’ or to ‘refer to’ anything. And they must be linked to one another not as grounds and consequents but as causes and effects—a relation so irrelevant to the logical linkage that it is just as perfectly illustrated by the sequence of a maniac’s thoughts as by the sequence of a rational man’s.” C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1964), 165-6.
No Model yet devised has made a satisfactory unity between our actual experience of sensation or thought or emotion and any available account of the corporeal processes which they are held to involve. We experience, say, a chain of reasoning; thoughts, which are ‘about’ or ‘refer to’ something other than themselves, are linked together by the logical relation of grounds and consequents. Physiology resolves this into a sequence of cerebral events. But physical events, as such, cannot in any intelligible sense be said to be ‘about’ or to ‘refer to’ anything. And they must be linked to one another not as grounds and consequents but as causes and effects—a relation so irrelevant to the logical linkage that it is just as perfectly illustrated by the sequence of a maniac’s thoughts as by the sequence of a rational man’s.” C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1964), 165-6.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Chandler on Plantinga and Lewis on God
Plantinga and Lewis on God's Nature: I've looked at Plantinga's Does God Have a Nature. Plantinga's God is defiantly personal. He is "alive, knowledgeable, capable of action, powerful and good." [p. 92] [This is an interesting little book.] I now think that Lewis' God is personal too - but in a rather odd way. This is from Beyond Personality: "On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two separate beings - just as, in two dimensions (say on a flat sheet of paper) one square is one figure, and any two squares are two separate figures. On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who don't live on that level can't imagine. In God's dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube. Of course we can't fully conceive a Being like that.." [p. 10] Lewis seems to avoid saying that the Being composed of three persons is itself a (single) person. (A cube is not a kind of square.) He does say that that Being is "something super-personal - something more than a person." [p. 10] I'm not quite sure where that leaves us. My present view is that Lewis is NOT in full accord with Anselm & Co on this matter. In any case, we all agree, I think, that, according to Lewis' God is non-temporal. In this he certainly departs from Plantinga. Hugh
Fred Freddoso, who is probably the top expert on the Thomistic doctrine of God, also has used Lewis's writings in his class. I wonder what he would say here. Lewis, rather famously, works the Flatland analogy to death.
Fred Freddoso, who is probably the top expert on the Thomistic doctrine of God, also has used Lewis's writings in his class. I wonder what he would say here. Lewis, rather famously, works the Flatland analogy to death.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Replies to comments on the problem of evil
Just keeping score: there's been 23 comments, many by defenders of the argument from evil, and 0 numbered-premise arguments. Do I have to get out William Rowe and Keith Parsons and Paul Draper and try to supply some of these myself?
VR: "OK, could you formulate these claims in a numbered-premise argument? "
Anon: Um, no. I'm not really interested in formulating a logical problem of evil argument. It is always possible to justify any amount of evil using a logical format. Pretty much speaking from the gut here.
VR (new): So you argument is an emotional, and not a logical argument, and you admit this?? Wow!
VR: "First we have to know what is meant by lifting a finger. On what grounds do we deny that God isn't doing plenty to keep things from being a whole lot worse than they are now?"
Anon: It all depends on what kind of God we are talking about here. If God is all-powerful and all-good, it is hard to understand why things are not much, much better than they are now. I.E., this world does not seem to me to be the type that an omnipowerful, omniscient, and omnibenevolent one would create.
VR: Here's where the numbered-premise argument would help. Are you contending that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being would make the best of all possible worlds? If that's what you're saying, then you've got to contend with the arguments of Alvin Plantinga and Robert Merrihew Adams, who say that this is a false premise.
Anon: When discussing this with Christian theists I often have the sense that there is a lack of imagination regarding the degree or amount of suffering that is taking place on earth every moment.
VR: And you think the authors of Scripture didn't know about how much suffering there was in the world? Just for starters, anaesthesia was centuries away from being invented. Do you think that Apostles, who founded Christianity, were naive about the amount of suffering? If you believe that, the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale for ten grand.
Carr: It is nice to know that there no guarentees of a suffering-free existence in Heaven.
Or at the least, such guarantees should be treated by Victor with the same scepticism that he would treat a guarantee by God that he will not create any further pathogens along the lines of HIV.
VR: What God has promised to those who have submitted their wills completely to God should not be used as a benchmark for what we should expect God to allow a rebellious human race to endure. Can we have done with this canard?
Carr: What would Jesus do if he saw cruelty and suffering and starvation and drought?
And then equate Jesus with God.
VR: I'm glad Carr is asking what Jesus would do. Maybe we can get him a leather bracelet to help him to remember that question at all times. Jesus alleviated suffering in accordance with his mission on earth. He didn't alleviate all the suffering he saw, surely.
Loftus: Vic, you ask, "Where do we draw the line?" That's like asking "which whisker is the one, such that when it's plucked, no longer leaves a beard?" It's perfectly reasonable to say what abeard it without that level of specification. So this line drawing argument does not apply to this particular world. This particular world has senseless suffering in it, and this is the world we're looking at to determine if a good God exists...not some other one.
VR: You *know* that the suffering is senseless? What you know is that it looks senseless to you, and maybe to me. And have you proved that a perfectly good God would eliminate all senseless suffering? Have you even read Adams' "Must God Create the Best?"
Anon, quoting me: "If it becomes obvious that God is relieving suffering in the world on a massive scale, doesn't human nature suggest that we will just let God get on with the business of relieving suffering and attend to other things? "
And this would be a bad thing, how?
VR: Because according to Christianity, this earth and everything in it, including all the human suffering we find there, lasts only a few centuries, while human character lasts forever. Something that alleviates our suffering at the cost of harming our character is not a bargain if Christians are right.
Refuting the argument from evil should not be this easy. I wonder what is going wrong.
VR: "OK, could you formulate these claims in a numbered-premise argument? "
Anon: Um, no. I'm not really interested in formulating a logical problem of evil argument. It is always possible to justify any amount of evil using a logical format. Pretty much speaking from the gut here.
VR (new): So you argument is an emotional, and not a logical argument, and you admit this?? Wow!
VR: "First we have to know what is meant by lifting a finger. On what grounds do we deny that God isn't doing plenty to keep things from being a whole lot worse than they are now?"
Anon: It all depends on what kind of God we are talking about here. If God is all-powerful and all-good, it is hard to understand why things are not much, much better than they are now. I.E., this world does not seem to me to be the type that an omnipowerful, omniscient, and omnibenevolent one would create.
VR: Here's where the numbered-premise argument would help. Are you contending that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being would make the best of all possible worlds? If that's what you're saying, then you've got to contend with the arguments of Alvin Plantinga and Robert Merrihew Adams, who say that this is a false premise.
Anon: When discussing this with Christian theists I often have the sense that there is a lack of imagination regarding the degree or amount of suffering that is taking place on earth every moment.
VR: And you think the authors of Scripture didn't know about how much suffering there was in the world? Just for starters, anaesthesia was centuries away from being invented. Do you think that Apostles, who founded Christianity, were naive about the amount of suffering? If you believe that, the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale for ten grand.
Carr: It is nice to know that there no guarentees of a suffering-free existence in Heaven.
Or at the least, such guarantees should be treated by Victor with the same scepticism that he would treat a guarantee by God that he will not create any further pathogens along the lines of HIV.
VR: What God has promised to those who have submitted their wills completely to God should not be used as a benchmark for what we should expect God to allow a rebellious human race to endure. Can we have done with this canard?
Carr: What would Jesus do if he saw cruelty and suffering and starvation and drought?
And then equate Jesus with God.
VR: I'm glad Carr is asking what Jesus would do. Maybe we can get him a leather bracelet to help him to remember that question at all times. Jesus alleviated suffering in accordance with his mission on earth. He didn't alleviate all the suffering he saw, surely.
Loftus: Vic, you ask, "Where do we draw the line?" That's like asking "which whisker is the one, such that when it's plucked, no longer leaves a beard?" It's perfectly reasonable to say what abeard it without that level of specification. So this line drawing argument does not apply to this particular world. This particular world has senseless suffering in it, and this is the world we're looking at to determine if a good God exists...not some other one.
VR: You *know* that the suffering is senseless? What you know is that it looks senseless to you, and maybe to me. And have you proved that a perfectly good God would eliminate all senseless suffering? Have you even read Adams' "Must God Create the Best?"
Anon, quoting me: "If it becomes obvious that God is relieving suffering in the world on a massive scale, doesn't human nature suggest that we will just let God get on with the business of relieving suffering and attend to other things? "
And this would be a bad thing, how?
VR: Because according to Christianity, this earth and everything in it, including all the human suffering we find there, lasts only a few centuries, while human character lasts forever. Something that alleviates our suffering at the cost of harming our character is not a bargain if Christians are right.
Refuting the argument from evil should not be this easy. I wonder what is going wrong.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Chandler's question of Lewis and the doctrine of God
In his helpful remarks, Jason writes:
JP: "It is true that Lewis claims that God transcends 'ordinary' personhood; although I don't think he would have put it quite the same way HC does (i.e. as far above as a rock or number is 'beneath' ordinary personhood.) The important thing though, is that Lewis very strenuously emphasized in such discussions (his MaPS chapter on pantheism being a good case in point) that we should not consider God's transcendence of ordinary personhood to mean something _less_ than what we would call person-ness. (Which is related to that whole trinitarian thing again, as I mentioned last time. {g})
HC: As I understand it, traditionally, when it was said that God is, or is 'in' three 'persons', the word 'persons' does not (or did not) mean that God is, or is in, three PEOPLE. Didn't it mean God is (to be viewed as, in some sense, three aspects - even perhaps three 'masks' (persona)?
VR: As I recall, that's a heresy, alternatively known as Sabellianism of Modalistic Monarchianism.
Anyway, Augustine, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas, believed that God was absolutely 'simple,' i.e. had no 'parts' of any kind. (This was, presumably, reconcilable, with the 'God in three persons' doctrine, as they understood it.)
It is, I believe, principally because of the 'simplicity' doctrine that these people held (although they wouldn't put it this way) that God could not be a 'person' in anything like the ordinary sense. 'People' (in the ordinary sense) have 'parts' (in various senses of the term). For instance, they have temporal parts, and various mental - psychological - faculties, they have memories and aspirations, they have reason and passions. They are 'entities' that have 'properties.' God, I think these people thought, is not like this.
Plantinga, as I understand it, strongly rejects this tradition. Norman Kretzmann, on the other hand, definitely accepted it. [See his Metaphysics of Theism]
Where does C. S. Lewis stand on this matter? I would really like to know. My IMPRESSION is that he was (really) on the side of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas - he accepted the absolute simplicity doctrine and all that it entails. But I am going on very little evidence, and may well be wrong.
Hugh
Lewis's exposition of the doctrine of the trinity is in book III of Mere Christianity. By and large he stayed away from issues like simplicity, which he thought were divisive.
These passages, from Miracles, might help some:
CSL: ". . . When [people] try to get rid of man-like, or, as they are called, 'anthropomorphic,' images, they merely succeed in substituting images of some other kinds. 'I don't believe in a personal God,' says one, 'but I do believe in a great spiritual force.' What he has not noticed is that the word 'force' has let in all sorts of images about winds and tides and electricity and gravitation. 'I don't believe in a personal God,' says another, 'but I do believe we are all parts of one great Being which moves and works through us all' -not noticing that he has merely exchanged the image of a fatherly and royal-looking man for the image of some widely extended gas or fluid.
"A girl I knew was brought up by 'higher thinking' parents to regard God as perfect 'substance.' In later life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.) We may feel ourselves quite safe from this degree of absurdity but we are mistaken. If a man watches his own mind, I believe he will find that what profess to be specially advanced or philosophic conceptions of God, are, in his thinking, always accompanied by vague images which, if inspected, would turn out to be even more absurd than the manlike images aroused by Christian theology. For man, after all, is the highest of the things we meet in sensuous experience."
JP: "It is true that Lewis claims that God transcends 'ordinary' personhood; although I don't think he would have put it quite the same way HC does (i.e. as far above as a rock or number is 'beneath' ordinary personhood.) The important thing though, is that Lewis very strenuously emphasized in such discussions (his MaPS chapter on pantheism being a good case in point) that we should not consider God's transcendence of ordinary personhood to mean something _less_ than what we would call person-ness. (Which is related to that whole trinitarian thing again, as I mentioned last time. {g})
HC: As I understand it, traditionally, when it was said that God is, or is 'in' three 'persons', the word 'persons' does not (or did not) mean that God is, or is in, three PEOPLE. Didn't it mean God is (to be viewed as, in some sense, three aspects - even perhaps three 'masks' (persona)?
VR: As I recall, that's a heresy, alternatively known as Sabellianism of Modalistic Monarchianism.
Anyway, Augustine, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas, believed that God was absolutely 'simple,' i.e. had no 'parts' of any kind. (This was, presumably, reconcilable, with the 'God in three persons' doctrine, as they understood it.)
It is, I believe, principally because of the 'simplicity' doctrine that these people held (although they wouldn't put it this way) that God could not be a 'person' in anything like the ordinary sense. 'People' (in the ordinary sense) have 'parts' (in various senses of the term). For instance, they have temporal parts, and various mental - psychological - faculties, they have memories and aspirations, they have reason and passions. They are 'entities' that have 'properties.' God, I think these people thought, is not like this.
Plantinga, as I understand it, strongly rejects this tradition. Norman Kretzmann, on the other hand, definitely accepted it. [See his Metaphysics of Theism]
Where does C. S. Lewis stand on this matter? I would really like to know. My IMPRESSION is that he was (really) on the side of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas - he accepted the absolute simplicity doctrine and all that it entails. But I am going on very little evidence, and may well be wrong.
Hugh
Lewis's exposition of the doctrine of the trinity is in book III of Mere Christianity. By and large he stayed away from issues like simplicity, which he thought were divisive.
These passages, from Miracles, might help some:
CSL: ". . . When [people] try to get rid of man-like, or, as they are called, 'anthropomorphic,' images, they merely succeed in substituting images of some other kinds. 'I don't believe in a personal God,' says one, 'but I do believe in a great spiritual force.' What he has not noticed is that the word 'force' has let in all sorts of images about winds and tides and electricity and gravitation. 'I don't believe in a personal God,' says another, 'but I do believe we are all parts of one great Being which moves and works through us all' -not noticing that he has merely exchanged the image of a fatherly and royal-looking man for the image of some widely extended gas or fluid.
"A girl I knew was brought up by 'higher thinking' parents to regard God as perfect 'substance.' In later life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.) We may feel ourselves quite safe from this degree of absurdity but we are mistaken. If a man watches his own mind, I believe he will find that what profess to be specially advanced or philosophic conceptions of God, are, in his thinking, always accompanied by vague images which, if inspected, would turn out to be even more absurd than the manlike images aroused by Christian theology. For man, after all, is the highest of the things we meet in sensuous experience."
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