Monday, April 30, 2007
Wikipedia entry on actual infinities
This is a wikipedia entry on actual infinities. William Lane Craig defends his argument for the beginning of the universe by maintaining that an actual infinity is impossible.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Kant on arguments from God
I. Kant on the Ontological Argument
Kant begins with the ontological argument. This argument was originally developed by St. Anselm, rejected by St. Thomas Aquinas, but adapted by Descartes.
He maintains that while the idea of God contains the idea of a necessary being, this idea does not tell me whether or not God exists. If a know that a triangle has three angles, I still don’t know whether there are any triangles.
Existence is not a property. If I think of a white cat sitting on my desk, and I think of an existing white cat sitting on my desk, I am thinking of the same thing.
Existence is not a predicate
Existence is not a predicate, that is, a property. (Obviously in grammar, the word “exists” is the predicate of the sentence “God exists,” but this is not what Kant has in mind.) If I think of a white cat sitting on my desk, and I think of an existing white cat sitting on my desk, I am thinking of the same thing.
II. The Cosmological Argument
As Kant understands the cosmological argument, it rests on the premise ‘Every event has a cause.” But this applies only to the world of experience as it appears to us, and can’t be applied to something we can’t experience.
Further it rests on the idea of a necessary being, and therefore only works if the ontological argument works, which it doesn’t.
This is a bit puzzling
Kant’s second response to the cosmological argument strikes me as a bit puzzling. If we can’t prove the existence of a necessary being by the ontological argument, does it follow that we can’t prove it some other way? If Kant had criticized the ontological argument in a way that showed that the idea of a necessary being made no sense (that would be Hume’s critique) then the statement would make sense.
What I think he is getting at is that even if you show that a necessary being exists, that being needn’t be the traditional God unless the ontological argument works. Though Aquinas’ fourth way is somewhat different from the OA, but it would reach the same conclusion if it were to be accepted.
III. Kant on the design argument
Considers it “the oldest and clearest and most accordant with the common reason of mankind of all the arguments for God.”
But it would only prove an architect of the world, not a necessary being or a perfect being. You need the ontological and cosmological arguments for that.
So the arguments for God fail
But so do the arguments against the existence of God. Theoretical reason just doesn’t work in this area. That’s not the fault of God, it’s a question of using the wrong tool.
Kant said he needed to deny knowledge to make room for faith. However, we need to take a close look at what philosophers (or theologians for that matter) mean when they use the word faith.
So do we commit metaphysics to the Humean flames?
No. We are burdened by questions that we as reasoners can’t ignore, but which we don’t know how to answer either.
The ideas help us regulate our thought. It is useful to act as if we knew there was a God, a self, and a cosmos.
Does he mean that these ideas are useful fictions, or does he mean that they are ideas we must presuppose as rational beings? Kant scholars are divided on this.
Kant begins with the ontological argument. This argument was originally developed by St. Anselm, rejected by St. Thomas Aquinas, but adapted by Descartes.
He maintains that while the idea of God contains the idea of a necessary being, this idea does not tell me whether or not God exists. If a know that a triangle has three angles, I still don’t know whether there are any triangles.
Existence is not a property. If I think of a white cat sitting on my desk, and I think of an existing white cat sitting on my desk, I am thinking of the same thing.
Existence is not a predicate
Existence is not a predicate, that is, a property. (Obviously in grammar, the word “exists” is the predicate of the sentence “God exists,” but this is not what Kant has in mind.) If I think of a white cat sitting on my desk, and I think of an existing white cat sitting on my desk, I am thinking of the same thing.
II. The Cosmological Argument
As Kant understands the cosmological argument, it rests on the premise ‘Every event has a cause.” But this applies only to the world of experience as it appears to us, and can’t be applied to something we can’t experience.
Further it rests on the idea of a necessary being, and therefore only works if the ontological argument works, which it doesn’t.
This is a bit puzzling
Kant’s second response to the cosmological argument strikes me as a bit puzzling. If we can’t prove the existence of a necessary being by the ontological argument, does it follow that we can’t prove it some other way? If Kant had criticized the ontological argument in a way that showed that the idea of a necessary being made no sense (that would be Hume’s critique) then the statement would make sense.
What I think he is getting at is that even if you show that a necessary being exists, that being needn’t be the traditional God unless the ontological argument works. Though Aquinas’ fourth way is somewhat different from the OA, but it would reach the same conclusion if it were to be accepted.
III. Kant on the design argument
Considers it “the oldest and clearest and most accordant with the common reason of mankind of all the arguments for God.”
But it would only prove an architect of the world, not a necessary being or a perfect being. You need the ontological and cosmological arguments for that.
So the arguments for God fail
But so do the arguments against the existence of God. Theoretical reason just doesn’t work in this area. That’s not the fault of God, it’s a question of using the wrong tool.
Kant said he needed to deny knowledge to make room for faith. However, we need to take a close look at what philosophers (or theologians for that matter) mean when they use the word faith.
So do we commit metaphysics to the Humean flames?
No. We are burdened by questions that we as reasoners can’t ignore, but which we don’t know how to answer either.
The ideas help us regulate our thought. It is useful to act as if we knew there was a God, a self, and a cosmos.
Does he mean that these ideas are useful fictions, or does he mean that they are ideas we must presuppose as rational beings? Kant scholars are divided on this.
Rejoining the fold
Peter Kirby, a long time atheist, has, apparently, become a Catholic. See this post.
HT: Jason Pratt
HT: Jason Pratt
Monday, April 23, 2007
Kant's three metaphysical concepts
I. Three metaphysical concepts
Self
The Cosmos
God
We can’t really discover these by pure reason, because pure reason operates within experience. He calls these transcendental illusions, but it doesn’t follow from that that they don’t exist. They’re just not objects of theoretical knowledge.
II. The Self
Kant thought that every thought or judgment is preceded by the “I think.”
However, the self is not known as a substance. The self we discover in experience is the empirical self, the self as it appears to us. Psychologists can study this self.
The self as it is in itself is called the “transcendental ego” or “transcendental unity of apperception.” This is not known through experience, either introspective or through scientific investigation.
III. The World as a Totality
We can add up all the finite experiences of the world and call it a cosmos.
However, when we attempt to theorize about this as if it were reality as it is in itself, we end up with contradictions. Did the world have a beginning in time? Is it spatially limited? Can it be divided into basic elements? Are some events free and undetermined? Is there a necessary being?
If we think we know the world as it is in itself, we can reason ourselves to opposite answers on this, and these Kant calls antinomies.
IV. Kant’s sympathy for metaphysics
Kant thought that if there is no God and no free will, moral ideas lose all their validity.
However, that doesn’t mean that we can reason from the world to these ideas. This would be to use concepts designed to put experience together and extend them beyond the world of experience.
However, these ideas could be the product of “intellectual presuppositions and faith.”
Self
The Cosmos
God
We can’t really discover these by pure reason, because pure reason operates within experience. He calls these transcendental illusions, but it doesn’t follow from that that they don’t exist. They’re just not objects of theoretical knowledge.
II. The Self
Kant thought that every thought or judgment is preceded by the “I think.”
However, the self is not known as a substance. The self we discover in experience is the empirical self, the self as it appears to us. Psychologists can study this self.
The self as it is in itself is called the “transcendental ego” or “transcendental unity of apperception.” This is not known through experience, either introspective or through scientific investigation.
III. The World as a Totality
We can add up all the finite experiences of the world and call it a cosmos.
However, when we attempt to theorize about this as if it were reality as it is in itself, we end up with contradictions. Did the world have a beginning in time? Is it spatially limited? Can it be divided into basic elements? Are some events free and undetermined? Is there a necessary being?
If we think we know the world as it is in itself, we can reason ourselves to opposite answers on this, and these Kant calls antinomies.
IV. Kant’s sympathy for metaphysics
Kant thought that if there is no God and no free will, moral ideas lose all their validity.
However, that doesn’t mean that we can reason from the world to these ideas. This would be to use concepts designed to put experience together and extend them beyond the world of experience.
However, these ideas could be the product of “intellectual presuppositions and faith.”
Kant's transcendental method
I. Kant’s Transcendental Method
From experience to the conditions of its possibility
II. Hume in reverse
Hume goes from experience to what we can know about the world, and gets skeptical results.
Kant goes from knowledge of the world to how we could possibly have that knowledge.
III. Space and time
Most of us are inclined to suppose that space and time are just “out there.” Kant’s claim is that space and time are the “forms of intuition” generated by the mind.
For example, we can imagine a space with no objects, but not objects with no space. Space is one of the mind’s forms of arranging sensations.
Traditionally, God is thought of as being outside of space and time. So, Kant reasoned, space and time are the ways we put the world together, not a feature of reality as it is in itself.
IV. Geometry and Arithmetic
Geometry is the study of space and its relations.
Arithmetic is the science of temporality.
By saying that space and time are mind-dependent, Kant explains the possibility of our having synthetic a priori knowledge of these. Nevertheless it does give us knowledge of the world that science studies.
V. Categories of the Understanding
What concepts do we need to make experiential judgments? Kant thinks there are twelve.
Quantitative categories
Unity
Plurality
Totality
Qualitative Categories
Reality
Negation
Limitation
Relational Categories
Substance
Causality
Community or reciprocity
Modality
Possibility-impossibility
Existence-nonexistence
Necessity-contingency
VI. The Category of Substance
Agrees with Hume: substance isn’t given in experience.
It’s not some metaphysical reality beneath appearance.
But it’s the way our mind puts the flow of experience together.
VII. Causality
Agrees with Hume that it’s not given in experience.
Not just a subjective custom or habit by which we put events together.
But rather the way our mind must put the world together in order to experience it.
VIII. The Kantian view of experience
If we attend to experience to see what is given in experience, we find that it is a jumble of loose and separate entities.
But we view that experience as organized.
Therefore our minds work like “glasses” to organize experience so that we can know it.
IX. Phenomena and Noumena
However, the world as experienced is the world as it appears to us, as our minds must put it together.
However, that doesn’t tell us how the world is in itself, but rather how the world as it appears to us must be.
Kant says that reality as it is in itself causes the world to appear to us in certain ways. This has been criticized because his notion of causation is supposed to relate events within experience.
From experience to the conditions of its possibility
II. Hume in reverse
Hume goes from experience to what we can know about the world, and gets skeptical results.
Kant goes from knowledge of the world to how we could possibly have that knowledge.
III. Space and time
Most of us are inclined to suppose that space and time are just “out there.” Kant’s claim is that space and time are the “forms of intuition” generated by the mind.
For example, we can imagine a space with no objects, but not objects with no space. Space is one of the mind’s forms of arranging sensations.
Traditionally, God is thought of as being outside of space and time. So, Kant reasoned, space and time are the ways we put the world together, not a feature of reality as it is in itself.
IV. Geometry and Arithmetic
Geometry is the study of space and its relations.
Arithmetic is the science of temporality.
By saying that space and time are mind-dependent, Kant explains the possibility of our having synthetic a priori knowledge of these. Nevertheless it does give us knowledge of the world that science studies.
V. Categories of the Understanding
What concepts do we need to make experiential judgments? Kant thinks there are twelve.
Quantitative categories
Unity
Plurality
Totality
Qualitative Categories
Reality
Negation
Limitation
Relational Categories
Substance
Causality
Community or reciprocity
Modality
Possibility-impossibility
Existence-nonexistence
Necessity-contingency
VI. The Category of Substance
Agrees with Hume: substance isn’t given in experience.
It’s not some metaphysical reality beneath appearance.
But it’s the way our mind puts the flow of experience together.
VII. Causality
Agrees with Hume that it’s not given in experience.
Not just a subjective custom or habit by which we put events together.
But rather the way our mind must put the world together in order to experience it.
VIII. The Kantian view of experience
If we attend to experience to see what is given in experience, we find that it is a jumble of loose and separate entities.
But we view that experience as organized.
Therefore our minds work like “glasses” to organize experience so that we can know it.
IX. Phenomena and Noumena
However, the world as experienced is the world as it appears to us, as our minds must put it together.
However, that doesn’t tell us how the world is in itself, but rather how the world as it appears to us must be.
Kant says that reality as it is in itself causes the world to appear to us in certain ways. This has been criticized because his notion of causation is supposed to relate events within experience.
Notes on Kant
Immanuel Kant
The Powers and Limits of the Mind
I. Kant’s significance
Philosophy is divided between pre-Kantian and post-Kantian periods.
He began as a rationalist, influenced by Christian Wolff, who wrote a book entitled Reasonable Thoughts on God, the World, the Soul of Man, and All Things in General.” This kind of reminds me of Douglas Adams’ book “The World, the Universe and Everything,” except Wolff was serious! Wolff was a follower of G. W. Leibniz, the third of the Continental Rationalists.
Was “awakened from his dogmatic slumbers” by the skeptical writings of David Hume. His plan was to combine the rational confidence of the rationalists with the insights of the empiricists without falling into either dogmatism or skepticism.
II. Kant’s key assumption
Kant’s key assumption is that we do have knowledge, found in math and in science.
Kant agreed with the rationalists that genuine knowledge must be universal, necessary and certain, but he knew that perception was essential to the operation of science.
He agreed with the empiricists that all knowledge begins with experience.
III. Difficulties with empiricism
Hume had pointed out that experience alone cannot give us universal, necessary and certain knowledge.
Connections between items of experience, for Hume, is a matter of psychological habit.
Thus Hume could find no grounds for believing that our minds conform to an objective, external world.
IV. Kant’s goals
To put science on a secure foundations and steer between rationalism and empiricism.
To reconcile mechanistic science on the one hand with religion, morality and human freedom.
To address the crisis of metaphysics. Rationalist metaphysics and theology had said we could know various realities that transcended experience, but they all disagreed with one another. Descartes was a dualist, Spinoza was a pantheist, and Leibniz was an idealist. But the solution is not to commit all books on metaphysics to the flames, indeed we can no more stop doing metaphysics than we can stop breathing. So getting metaphysics off the ground by, paradoxically, setting limits for it is another of Kant’s three goals.
V. Critical Philosophy
As opposed to dogmatic philosophy, Kant called his own philosophy critical philosophy.
His most important work is called the Critique of Pure Reason. He determined to find out what pure reason is capable of, and what it is not capable of. The pure reason he is talking about is theoretical reason rather than practical reason.
VI. Kant’s Copernican Revolution
Kant agrees with the empiricists that all knowledge begins with experience.
But it doesn’t all arise out of experience.
Copernicus’ revolution with respect to our understanding of the solar system was achieved by changing the center of focus.
The empiricists thought the mind was passive in confronting the world. On this picture, knowledge conforms to its objects. Kant turned this around and said that objects conform to knowledge. For sense data to be experienced as objects by us, our mind must impose a certain structure on them.
VII. Appearance and Reality
Kant makes a distinction between the way reality appears to us and the way it is in itself. The way it appears to us (the only reality we can know) depends on both the sense and the intellect, or mind. What we see is not what is there in itself, but what appears to us when we put our glasses on.
When we become aware of objects, the mind has already done its work.
VIII. Varieties of judgments
Analytic judgments are based on the principle of contradiction: All bachelors are unmarried.
Synthetic judgments give us new information about the world.
A priori knowledge is knowledge that can be obtained independently of experience.
A posteriori knowledge is knowledge obtained from experience
IX. Four combinations
Analytic a priori judgments, or Humean relations of ideas.
Analytic a posteriori judgments. No such thing. If it’s analytic we don’t learn it by experience. Hence a research study on the marital status of bachelors would be a waste of money indeed.
Synthetic a posteriori judgments. Humean matters of fact. Known through experience.
Synthetic a priori judgments. For Hume these do not exist, but this left big holes in Hume’s theory of knowledge which he had to fill with sentiment, custom, and habit. Kant, however, claims that there are indeed such judgments. For example, for Kant “All events have a cause” is synthetic a priori, as is (contrary to Hume), the truths of mathematics.
The Powers and Limits of the Mind
I. Kant’s significance
Philosophy is divided between pre-Kantian and post-Kantian periods.
He began as a rationalist, influenced by Christian Wolff, who wrote a book entitled Reasonable Thoughts on God, the World, the Soul of Man, and All Things in General.” This kind of reminds me of Douglas Adams’ book “The World, the Universe and Everything,” except Wolff was serious! Wolff was a follower of G. W. Leibniz, the third of the Continental Rationalists.
Was “awakened from his dogmatic slumbers” by the skeptical writings of David Hume. His plan was to combine the rational confidence of the rationalists with the insights of the empiricists without falling into either dogmatism or skepticism.
II. Kant’s key assumption
Kant’s key assumption is that we do have knowledge, found in math and in science.
Kant agreed with the rationalists that genuine knowledge must be universal, necessary and certain, but he knew that perception was essential to the operation of science.
He agreed with the empiricists that all knowledge begins with experience.
III. Difficulties with empiricism
Hume had pointed out that experience alone cannot give us universal, necessary and certain knowledge.
Connections between items of experience, for Hume, is a matter of psychological habit.
Thus Hume could find no grounds for believing that our minds conform to an objective, external world.
IV. Kant’s goals
To put science on a secure foundations and steer between rationalism and empiricism.
To reconcile mechanistic science on the one hand with religion, morality and human freedom.
To address the crisis of metaphysics. Rationalist metaphysics and theology had said we could know various realities that transcended experience, but they all disagreed with one another. Descartes was a dualist, Spinoza was a pantheist, and Leibniz was an idealist. But the solution is not to commit all books on metaphysics to the flames, indeed we can no more stop doing metaphysics than we can stop breathing. So getting metaphysics off the ground by, paradoxically, setting limits for it is another of Kant’s three goals.
V. Critical Philosophy
As opposed to dogmatic philosophy, Kant called his own philosophy critical philosophy.
His most important work is called the Critique of Pure Reason. He determined to find out what pure reason is capable of, and what it is not capable of. The pure reason he is talking about is theoretical reason rather than practical reason.
VI. Kant’s Copernican Revolution
Kant agrees with the empiricists that all knowledge begins with experience.
But it doesn’t all arise out of experience.
Copernicus’ revolution with respect to our understanding of the solar system was achieved by changing the center of focus.
The empiricists thought the mind was passive in confronting the world. On this picture, knowledge conforms to its objects. Kant turned this around and said that objects conform to knowledge. For sense data to be experienced as objects by us, our mind must impose a certain structure on them.
VII. Appearance and Reality
Kant makes a distinction between the way reality appears to us and the way it is in itself. The way it appears to us (the only reality we can know) depends on both the sense and the intellect, or mind. What we see is not what is there in itself, but what appears to us when we put our glasses on.
When we become aware of objects, the mind has already done its work.
VIII. Varieties of judgments
Analytic judgments are based on the principle of contradiction: All bachelors are unmarried.
Synthetic judgments give us new information about the world.
A priori knowledge is knowledge that can be obtained independently of experience.
A posteriori knowledge is knowledge obtained from experience
IX. Four combinations
Analytic a priori judgments, or Humean relations of ideas.
Analytic a posteriori judgments. No such thing. If it’s analytic we don’t learn it by experience. Hence a research study on the marital status of bachelors would be a waste of money indeed.
Synthetic a posteriori judgments. Humean matters of fact. Known through experience.
Synthetic a priori judgments. For Hume these do not exist, but this left big holes in Hume’s theory of knowledge which he had to fill with sentiment, custom, and habit. Kant, however, claims that there are indeed such judgments. For example, for Kant “All events have a cause” is synthetic a priori, as is (contrary to Hume), the truths of mathematics.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The passing of Douglas Arner
I have just learned that, last year Douglas Arner, perhaps the best lecturer I have ever encountered has passed away. He was my professor at Arizona State University during my undergraduate years from 1973-1975 and during my graduate career there from 1981-1984. I still use his examples and arguments when I teach classes today. Most philosophy classes are pretty boring if only the teacher speaks. Douglas Arner's classes could be interesting even if there were no class discussion, because of his smooth and fascinating lecture style. But there usually was plenty of discussion, which he handled with extraordinary grace. He was a Presbyterian, a Christian philosopher before there was a Society of Christian Philosophers. He did more to generate enthusiasm for philosophical classics than anyone I have encountered before or since. His introductory philosophy classes managed to bring cover all the major issues in philosophy out of the middle dialogues of Plato. His other philosophical passion was Immanuel Kant, in particular Kantian ethics. There's a lot of Arner in, for example, my treatment of ethical relativism, and the phrase "It is wrong to inflict pain on little children for your own amusement" is cribbed straight from his lectures.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Slow learner
After all this time as a blogger, I've finally figured out how to put together a blogroll. It's short right now, so if you blog isn't on yet, be patient.
Kant on the cosmological argument
What sense does anyone make of Kant's claim that the cosmological argument rests on the ontological argument. The OA attempts to prove the existence of a necessarily existing God by definition, the CA by causal inference. The only thing I can think of is that the CA doesn't get you a perfect being necessarily, just a necessarily existing first cause, and you need another argument to establish God's perfection after that. Only, Aquinas' fourth way is a different way to establish God's perfection, which is different from the ontological argument. So I'm still confused.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Spencer Lo's argument from evil
Spencer Lo has sent me a version of the argument from evil, to which I would like to get some reactions before commenting myself.
1. If there's a morally sufficient reason to not prevent instances of gratuitous suffering from occurring, then one ought not to prevent those instances from occurring (God's moral justification for allowing instances of gratuitous suffering).
2. When people are confronted with an instance of gratuitous suffering S, they cannot know whether or not there is a morally sufficient reason R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible.
3. Only God knows whether or not there is a morally sufficient reason R that makes the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible.
4. If one doesn't know whether or not there is a morally sufficient reason that would make preventing the prolongation of gratuitous suffering morally impermissible, but knows that moral agent P does know, one ought to yield the decision of whether or not to allow the prolongation of gratuitous suffering to P.
5. Although people do not know whether or not there's an R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible, they know that God knows whether or not there's an R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible.
6. Therefore, people are ought to yield the decision of whether or not to prevent the prolongation of S to God.
7. Therefore, unless God gives people clear indications that there's an R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible, people ought not to act so as to prevent the prolongation of S.
8. It can be reasonably assumed that God did not give the people who prevented the prolongation of the Holocaust clear indications that there exists an R that would make the prevention of Holocaust's prolongation morally impermissible.
9. Therefore, the people who prevented the prolongation of the Holocaust ought not to have prevented its prolongation.
1. If there's a morally sufficient reason to not prevent instances of gratuitous suffering from occurring, then one ought not to prevent those instances from occurring (God's moral justification for allowing instances of gratuitous suffering).
2. When people are confronted with an instance of gratuitous suffering S, they cannot know whether or not there is a morally sufficient reason R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible.
3. Only God knows whether or not there is a morally sufficient reason R that makes the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible.
4. If one doesn't know whether or not there is a morally sufficient reason that would make preventing the prolongation of gratuitous suffering morally impermissible, but knows that moral agent P does know, one ought to yield the decision of whether or not to allow the prolongation of gratuitous suffering to P.
5. Although people do not know whether or not there's an R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible, they know that God knows whether or not there's an R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible.
6. Therefore, people are ought to yield the decision of whether or not to prevent the prolongation of S to God.
7. Therefore, unless God gives people clear indications that there's an R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible, people ought not to act so as to prevent the prolongation of S.
8. It can be reasonably assumed that God did not give the people who prevented the prolongation of the Holocaust clear indications that there exists an R that would make the prevention of Holocaust's prolongation morally impermissible.
9. Therefore, the people who prevented the prolongation of the Holocaust ought not to have prevented its prolongation.
God, the supernatural, and prior probabilities
I don't think the "supernatual" character of God is any essential part of Christian doctrine. So the fact that in some sense God could turn out to be a "natural" entity doesn't especially bother me. This is often put forward sa if it should be terribly embarrassing, but I've never been able to see why.
As for "laws of supernature," if we are talking about stict deterministic laws, we don't have those for nature either. If we are talking about probabilistic expectations, then it seems as if we can generate those based on what we take to be the character of the person we are talking about. It's not part of anything I believe that God is completely capricious in his actions.
I'm a subjectivist about antecedent probabilities, period. You don't have to "ground" them in anything. Attempts to provide an account of how you get "objective" priors have failed completely, so far as I have been able to tell. Frequency theory founders on the problem of the single case. Thge best we as humans can do epistemically is start from what we do believe and adjust our convictions based on the evidence. Bayesian confirmation theory helps us do that. What it does not do is tell us where to get the antecedent probabilities in the first place. There's an outstanding book by Howson and Urbach on this from about 1989.
I guess I would want to ask how much of a story you think you can tell, or want to, about the founding of Christianity. I think you're going to end up left with some pretty mysterious facts at the end of the day, whether you go hallucination, or legend, or theft, or swoon, or wrong tomb, or what have you. If "plausible" you mean more plausible than any alternative, including a supernatural alternative, given your own presuppositions as a naturalist" then that's not what I mean by plausible. I'm not claiming a refutation of naturalism based on the events surrounding the life of Christ. If naturalism constrains what you think is possible, then you can say with Sherlock Holmes, "Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth." But I am betting, based on my knowledge of the founding of Christianity, that your story will end up being improbable in various ways.
As for "laws of supernature," if we are talking about stict deterministic laws, we don't have those for nature either. If we are talking about probabilistic expectations, then it seems as if we can generate those based on what we take to be the character of the person we are talking about. It's not part of anything I believe that God is completely capricious in his actions.
I'm a subjectivist about antecedent probabilities, period. You don't have to "ground" them in anything. Attempts to provide an account of how you get "objective" priors have failed completely, so far as I have been able to tell. Frequency theory founders on the problem of the single case. Thge best we as humans can do epistemically is start from what we do believe and adjust our convictions based on the evidence. Bayesian confirmation theory helps us do that. What it does not do is tell us where to get the antecedent probabilities in the first place. There's an outstanding book by Howson and Urbach on this from about 1989.
I guess I would want to ask how much of a story you think you can tell, or want to, about the founding of Christianity. I think you're going to end up left with some pretty mysterious facts at the end of the day, whether you go hallucination, or legend, or theft, or swoon, or wrong tomb, or what have you. If "plausible" you mean more plausible than any alternative, including a supernatural alternative, given your own presuppositions as a naturalist" then that's not what I mean by plausible. I'm not claiming a refutation of naturalism based on the events surrounding the life of Christ. If naturalism constrains what you think is possible, then you can say with Sherlock Holmes, "Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth." But I am betting, based on my knowledge of the founding of Christianity, that your story will end up being improbable in various ways.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
On the gnostic heresy
Let's get one thing clear. The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic gospel. The media is sensationalizing the whole "discovery" of this gospel while providing no explanation for the doctrines that underlie this gospel. Back when I was in seminary, "Gnostic" was what you called someone when you wanted to call them a dirty name. One of my favorite lectures was one by theology professor Ted Runyon, who used the Hare Krishnas and the Late Great Planet Earth as examples of twentieth-century Gnosticism. (Great line about Lindsey: he cuts the Bible into little pieces and reads it like a fortune cookie).
I guess more recently, under the baneful influence of Elaine Pagels, the Gnostics experience something of a revival of reputation after my seminary days. But I stick by the Gnostic-bashers. The Gnostics had it coming.
Anyway, this link explains gnosticism.
I guess more recently, under the baneful influence of Elaine Pagels, the Gnostics experience something of a revival of reputation after my seminary days. But I stick by the Gnostic-bashers. The Gnostics had it coming.
Anyway, this link explains gnosticism.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Gnosticism
I. Gnosticism
A view that a special secret knowledge will save you out of this evil world.
It is the liberation of the spirit, because it is enslaved by its union with material things.
We are freed through knowledge of gnosis.
This is not just information but is a mystical illumination that results from revelation of the eternal.
Jesus, for Christian gnosticism, is the one who brings the mystical illumination and liberates us from our connection to matter.
II. Why Christian leaders objected to gnosticism
The doctrine of creation and the divine rule over the world
Doctrine of salvation
Christology
III. Creation
For the Gnostics, the world is not the creation of God, but instead is the result of an error committed by an inferior and evil or ignorant being. The things of this world are not just worthless, they’re evil.
IV. Salvation
Gnostics held that salvations consisted of saving us from our material existence.
Christians affirmed that the salvation included the human body, and the we will be resurrected physically.
V. Christology
Christians affirmed that Christ was God come in the flesh: the incarnation.
Gnostics said that Jesus only appeared to be a fleshly being, but was really a spirit-being who brought us the secret knowledge.
VI. Defenses against Gnosticism
Canon of Scripture
Apostolic Succession
Apostles’ Creed
VII. Canon of Scripture
Marcion had proposed a set of Scriptural books that fit with Gnosticism.
Hence, the Church put forward a canon of Scripture that, for example, included the Book of Matthew, which connects Christ to the Old Testament, or I John, which says that if anyone says that Christ has not come in the flesh, he should not even be bid Godspeed.
While Protestant Christians think that a biblical appeal would have been enough to defeat Gnosticism, it should be remembered that mass-produced Bibles were not available in that time. So this was not the sole weapon the Church used to defeat Gnosticism.
VIII. Apostolic Succession
Persons properly licensed to teach doctrine within the Church had to receive authority to do so in virtue of standing in a succession of authority from the Apostles. The teachers of Gnosticism could not claim this kind of authorization, so their teachings were rejected.
This is a Catholic approach to dealing with doctrinal conflict. With the doctrine of apostolic succession, the authority to reject doctrine comes from within the Church, and is not to be found in the written word of Scripture.
What if Scripture and Church authority (apparently) conflict? We have to wait over 1300 years to see this issue battled out between Catholics and Protestants?
IX. Apostles’ Creed
The church had a list of questions for people who were going to join the Church. Some Christian churches still say the Apostles’ Creed in Church. The “I believes” of this creed are the positive answers to the questions that were asked of those who wished to join the Church.
These statements were directed against the doctrines of the Gnostics. The Gnostics did not believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. The did not believe in a Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was raised bodily from the dead. Thus the creed was a third line of defense against Gnosticism.
X. Can’t we all just get along? Agree to disagree, you know?
Apparently not. What the Christian leadership maintained was that the very guts of Christianity were threatened by the Gnostics.
Orthodoxy is the term for correct belief. As a revealed religion, the Christian leadership believed that a correct understanding of salvation through Christ was sufficiently important that they felt they had to kick people out who were distorting it.
Heresy is the opposite of orthodoxy, and the Gnostics were condemned and kicked out of the Church for heresy.
A view that a special secret knowledge will save you out of this evil world.
It is the liberation of the spirit, because it is enslaved by its union with material things.
We are freed through knowledge of gnosis.
This is not just information but is a mystical illumination that results from revelation of the eternal.
Jesus, for Christian gnosticism, is the one who brings the mystical illumination and liberates us from our connection to matter.
II. Why Christian leaders objected to gnosticism
The doctrine of creation and the divine rule over the world
Doctrine of salvation
Christology
III. Creation
For the Gnostics, the world is not the creation of God, but instead is the result of an error committed by an inferior and evil or ignorant being. The things of this world are not just worthless, they’re evil.
IV. Salvation
Gnostics held that salvations consisted of saving us from our material existence.
Christians affirmed that the salvation included the human body, and the we will be resurrected physically.
V. Christology
Christians affirmed that Christ was God come in the flesh: the incarnation.
Gnostics said that Jesus only appeared to be a fleshly being, but was really a spirit-being who brought us the secret knowledge.
VI. Defenses against Gnosticism
Canon of Scripture
Apostolic Succession
Apostles’ Creed
VII. Canon of Scripture
Marcion had proposed a set of Scriptural books that fit with Gnosticism.
Hence, the Church put forward a canon of Scripture that, for example, included the Book of Matthew, which connects Christ to the Old Testament, or I John, which says that if anyone says that Christ has not come in the flesh, he should not even be bid Godspeed.
While Protestant Christians think that a biblical appeal would have been enough to defeat Gnosticism, it should be remembered that mass-produced Bibles were not available in that time. So this was not the sole weapon the Church used to defeat Gnosticism.
VIII. Apostolic Succession
Persons properly licensed to teach doctrine within the Church had to receive authority to do so in virtue of standing in a succession of authority from the Apostles. The teachers of Gnosticism could not claim this kind of authorization, so their teachings were rejected.
This is a Catholic approach to dealing with doctrinal conflict. With the doctrine of apostolic succession, the authority to reject doctrine comes from within the Church, and is not to be found in the written word of Scripture.
What if Scripture and Church authority (apparently) conflict? We have to wait over 1300 years to see this issue battled out between Catholics and Protestants?
IX. Apostles’ Creed
The church had a list of questions for people who were going to join the Church. Some Christian churches still say the Apostles’ Creed in Church. The “I believes” of this creed are the positive answers to the questions that were asked of those who wished to join the Church.
These statements were directed against the doctrines of the Gnostics. The Gnostics did not believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. The did not believe in a Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was raised bodily from the dead. Thus the creed was a third line of defense against Gnosticism.
X. Can’t we all just get along? Agree to disagree, you know?
Apparently not. What the Christian leadership maintained was that the very guts of Christianity were threatened by the Gnostics.
Orthodoxy is the term for correct belief. As a revealed religion, the Christian leadership believed that a correct understanding of salvation through Christ was sufficiently important that they felt they had to kick people out who were distorting it.
Heresy is the opposite of orthodoxy, and the Gnostics were condemned and kicked out of the Church for heresy.
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