tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11127514278046064572024-03-05T19:56:28.090-08:00Defending Christian TheismWritings on the presuppositional defense of Christian theism.Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-14615123032059881502021-07-07T11:01:00.006-07:002021-07-08T07:16:02.999-07:00Basics of Presuppositionalism. What is a Presupposition, exactly?One of the most voiced criticisms of presuppositionalism is that it "assumes what it is trying to prove." In other words, some say, it is a "circular" argument. These seem to stem from the mistaken belief that a presupposition is something that is merely assumed, either a non-proveable assumption, or something akin to an axiom. <div><br /></div><div>Let's take each of these starting with the "assumption" claim. </div><div><br /></div><div>First, presuppositions are not taken to be synonymous with "merely assumed." As used in presuppositionalism -- as Greg Bahnsen emphasized -- presuppositions are the basic, non-negotiable claims of a worldview. Also, a presupposition is a necessary belief to account for a "state of affairs." Neither of these carry the notion of "unprovable assumptions." In fact the characterization as a "necessary belief" carries with it the idea that such a presupposition is necessary because of the impossibility of the contrary, i.e. to deny it proves it by leading to self-contradiction. That is the essence of proof used in TAG (the "transcendental argument for God").</div><div><br /></div><div>We note that the charge of circularity used by opponents is a case of special pleading on their part. They argue as if their worldview is not guilty of the "sin" of circularity. Yet their argumentation is circular in the most vicious sort of way. The most glaring example is the belief in the existence of an unproved disembodied universal abstract logic existing someplace in a materialist cosmos (or just as incoherent a platonic "heaven"). As Bahnsen pointed out it is unprovable on the basis of their presuppositions, citing the example: "How could one prove 'modus ponens' without using 'modus ponens'?" One can't. In other words, one has "modus ponens" because of "modus ponens" -- one can't get more tightly circular than that.</div><div><br /></div><div>To elaborate, here is a more immediate example from linguistics that illustrates the use of presuppositions in the presuppositional approach of Van Til: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" That question <b>presupposes</b> that the person did in fact engage in wife beating. That is the <b>necessary</b> presupposition that renders the question meaningful. This does not mean the presupposition is true or false. Also, note in this case the presupposition is not of the unprovable variety. In fact, the truth of the presupposition is potentially testable by empirical investigation. <div><br /></div><div>Above I mentioned that some treat a presupposition as an axiom. Unfortunately, that view was espoused by Gordon H. Clark in his version of presuppositionalism. I agree with Van Til and Greg Bahnsen that Gordon H. Clark's version of presuppositionalism is fatally flawed<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a>. His defense of Christian theism had to ultimately rest on the "axiom of Scripture." This essentially reduced Clark's system to fideism. As Bahnsen summarized: "Clark ultimately left Christianity without a rational defense."<a href="#2" name="top2"><sup>2</sup></a> Clark's system leaned heavily to rationalism and deductive proofs when it came to the positive defense of Christianity. He was vehemently opposed to empirical evidence -- deeming it not a path to any knowledge. So much so that he claimed that science has no cognitive content regarding nature. Only deductivism provided knowledge. These faults are serious, and actually are self destructive of Clark's system.<a href="#3" name="top3"><sup>3</sup></a> One should be aware of the difference between Van Til's and Clark's versions of presuppositionalism and not confuse the two.</div><div><br /></div><div div=""></div>
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<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>See Chapter 8.5, p.662 in "Van Til's Apologetic" by Greg Bahnsen for the critiques of Gordon H. Clark.<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#2" name="2"><b>2 </b></a>p.672 in "Van Til's Apologetic" by Greg Bahnsen.<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#3" name="3"><b>3 </b></a> N.B. Clark's writings are not devoid of value. His history of philosophy "Thales to Dewey" is an excellent text that thoroughly dismantles atheistic thought as being contradictory in all of its historical systems.<a href="#top3"><sup>↩</sup></a> </span></div>
Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-44640882432479730582021-03-07T12:20:00.010-08:002021-03-08T10:49:33.078-08:00More NagelismsI was perusing blogs awhile back (actually a few years!) when I came upon this quote from Nagel's <i>Mind and Cosmos</i>. Rather than consulting my notes it is just easier to re-quote it here.
<blockquote>First, that the non-teleological and timeless laws of physics--those governing the ultimate elements of the physical universe, whatever they are--are not fully deterministic. Given the physical state of the universe at any moment, the laws of physics would have to leave open a range of alternative successor states, presumably with a probability distribution over them.
Second, among those possible futures there will be some that are more eligible than others as possible steps on the way to the formation of more complex systems, and ultimately of the kinds of replicating systems characteristic of life. The existence of teleology requires that successor states in this subset have a significantly higher probability than is entailed by the laws of physics alone--simply because they are on the path toward a certain outcome. Teleological laws would assign higher probability to steps on paths in state space that have a higher "velocity" toward certain outcomes. They would be laws of the self-organization of matter, essentially--or of whatever is more basic than matter. (pp. 92-3)</blockquote>
This is a good summary of Nagel's attempts to reintroduce teleology into the natural universe. Nagel realizes that neo-Darwinism is a fatally flawed theory. The gist of the argument is that naturalism has to reintroduce final causes. Blind chance and mechanistic evolution don't get it. Mixed up in the argument is the typical atheist reliance on chance and probability. The motions of matter are not deterministic.
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Okay, for the sake of argument, let's grant that. As theists we deny that the source of "probability" is what the atheist claims it to be -- an ultimate irrational residue of lawlessness. A world in which things happen for "no reason!" But back to the technical issues.
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The probability distributions of quantum field theory can be computed with some very precise results for things like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scattering_amplitude">scattering amplitudes</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life">half-lives</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_fraction">branching ratios</a> and the like. These probability "amplitudes" are all functions of the basic properties of the physical systems being modeled. And, here's the point: <i>the amplitudes have no teleological aspect</i>. All of physics exhibits non-teleology. The future state(s) of the universe are solely determined by the present state, past and future are irrelevant. This principle falls out rather neatly from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_action">principle of least action</a> -- a very general principle from which all equations of motion can be derived given a Hamiltonian (think, "energy") or Lagrangian function that depends on the constituents of the system and their configurations.
Moreover Nagel's plan is to require "... that successor states in this subset [those favoring replicating life] have a significantly higher probability than is entailed by the <b>laws of physics alone</b>--simply because they are on the path toward a certain outcome."
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The nail in this coffin is that Nagel imagines some non-physical laws that must alter half-lives, branching ratios and so on, along the way. After all, according to the atheist myth of macro evolution, the journey to replicating life is via small steps with compounded probabilities. We ought to be able to see such evidence in pre-biotic chemical reactions.
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Embracing such non-physical laws is to accept a new dualism and to abandon the pillar of monism in the atheist's philosophy. Paradoxically, the positing of extra-physical (should we say supernatural!) properties seems not to worry Nagel's new born "naturalism." Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-78504801521746514512021-02-22T20:01:00.000-08:002021-02-22T20:01:53.759-08:00An Agnostic asserts: "Humans are not random objects like asteroids." I ask, " Are you sure?"It has been awhile. Off busy with other activities. I had typically tried to write longer entries. The following short commentary is due to a comment found on social media a couple of years ago by an avowed agnostic who stated:
<blockquote>"Humans can and do agree amongst themselves what constitutes acceptable behaviour for the greater good of all. That's what distinguishes us from random objects like asteroids. Individual bad people including tyrants may depart from those standards just as they may break other human laws such as relating to fraud or democratic procedures."</blockquote>
This assertion, typical of evolutionary atheists and agnostics, was made in the context of the issue of morality. This person was arguing for conventional morals. But, of course, conventional morals are not true morals. Conventions are arbitrary and not absolute. This is moral relativism all in all. Different strokes for different folks.</br></br>
But the main point is that, in this quote, we have yet another case of the unbeliever's contradictory presuppositions of his rational freedom and freedom from the causal matrix of quantum field theory in a reality of material monism. He claims humans are not "random objects!" Is he sure? Can he prove this assertion is consistent with his metaphysical presuppositions?
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He can't. It is a mere assertion and contradictory to material monism. As a bundle of material he is just a configuration of quantum fields and, ipso facto, "a random object!" On his presuppositions he actually is no different than asteroids, or any other material object in the universe. He would be nothing but a clump of matter responding to the equal and opposite reactions from other clumps of matter in the rest of the universe. The same actions and reactions that have been going on for eternity in his mythology.
And, of course, none of these actions and reactions are evil, and none are good.
Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-26687171914536727712017-05-28T11:30:00.000-07:002017-05-28T11:30:49.449-07:00Mr. Atheist, We Are Not All on an Epistemological TitanicAll worldviews have equal burden of proof. The frequent claim of atheists that Christian theism asserts something positive, i.e. the Triune God, while atheism (contrary to that) does not assert anything positive and has no burden of proof is false. Atheism positively asserts an incoherent plurality of unrelated brute facts which cannot account for themselves or for any fact of human experience whatsoever, be it knowledge, truth, morality, individual rational freedom, immaterial objects, etc. The list goes on and on.</br></br>
The atheist, by his own contradictory presuppositions, is reduced to the absurdity of absolute skepticism -- all along challenging the Christian to account for knowledge based on the atheist's skepticism.<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> The God of Christian theism does account for knowledge. That answer is intelligible and the atheist can understand that answer. The only objection the atheist has is he does not like that answer.</br></br>
Contrary to the atheist we are not all on an epistemological Titanic. Only the atheist is on that ship.
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<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a> By assuming everyone must be in the same epistemological situation the atheist has ascribed to the fallacy of pretended neutrality. That assumption is question begging. <a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br>
</span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-24881713446335669912017-03-26T17:28:00.001-07:002022-07-28T12:02:55.668-07:00The Amazing Autonomous Material Mind?When defending Christian theism via the presuppositional method, we many times visit the various byways and side-roads of all of human experience. These visitations are to show that the presuppositions of the unbeliever are not consistent with the facts of human experience -- that the unbeliever is a self-contradiction (Prov. 26:5, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."). Needless to say, it is, by the nature of the case, inefficient to explicate every implication of particular problems in the materialist worldview in every conversation. </br></br>
In recent conversations the discussion became focused on the issue of the cogency and existence of immaterial entities in the purely materialistic and immanent reality of atheism. The discussion was focused on the example of the mind being not composed of material. This issue is <b>THE</b> big problem for modern materialist philosophers of "mind." These atheist philosophers have been thrashing about and stewing in their own juices for a century, at least.</br></br>
The idea that the mind is no more than the brain has infected society to an alarming degree, of late, and seems to be an accepted article of faith by many. Many unsophisticated man-in-the-street atheists believe it is plausible -- in spite of the fact that such a view undermines much, if not all, of their other beliefs (and thereby secretly involving themselves in unacknowledged, hidden self-contradictions).
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I have been asked: "Why couldn't the mind be material?" One would hope that sometimes people would "do their homework!" For one, the properties of a purely material "mind" are not the properties that most unbelievers ascribe to themselves -- as being free rational beings. Or, on the other hand, how immaterial entities such as abstractions, mathematics, laws of logic are intelligible and exist in a reality of pure matter. Another conundrum is how aggregates of matter become conscious and self-aware, the problem of personal identity and such -- all from determining physical causes. No materialist theory of consciousness -- what consciousness is and how it "emerges" from matter -- is forthcoming. Be that as it may, we have endeavored in the pages of this blog to delineate the concomitant conclusions of the atheist presuppositions. Typical assumptions of the atheist are: <blockquote>(1) Only material exists within our "universe"<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a>;</br> (2) The uniformity of nature. Nature is uniform in time -- the regularity of the laws of nature, the same in the past, present and future<a href="#2" name="top2"><sup>2</sup></a>;</br> (3) All states of the material universe are governed by material laws; </br>(4) Humans are purely material systems produced by chance and the laws of matter (consequence of (1),(2) and (3));</br> (5) Therefore, humans are purely material;</br> (6) Consequently, the mind and the material brain must be the same, or, rather, "mental" states are no more than particular material configurations (states) of the brain; </br>(7) Therefore, all "mental" states are the results (effects) of material processes, and consequently, "thoughts" are effects and "epiphenomena" -- illusions with no causal agency;</br>(8) However, humans are autonomous!</blockquote>
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It should be apparent to most that (8) is contrary to (1) through (7). However it is not apparent to those who are willing(!) adherents of the irrationality of "modern" thought, and nonetheless, believe in the existence of their amazing autonomous material mind!<a href="#3" name="top3"><sup>3</sup></a>
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<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>I put universe in quotes since the modern (atheist) view is that our observable universe is a detached quantum bubble -- the result of a quantum fluctuation in a larger "bulk" spacetime. Our "universe" is just one among a huge number of universes (multiverse theory). For the atheist, this larger "bulk" is considered eternal, uncreated and a brute fact. Regardless, the issue of minds within our "universe" is independent of that theory, as to the atheist only matter exists within our "universe."<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br>
<a href="#2" name="2"><b>2 </b></a>The unifromity of nature (a phrase coined by Hume) is the principle that the laws of nature in operation today are the same as those in the past and also the future. The principle is basic to the notion of causation and the necessary presupposition for science "to work." It is foundational to the principle of scientific induction. An atheist that would deny the uniformity of nature would see his entire "scientific" worldview crash to the ground.<a href="#top2"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br>
<a href="#3" name="3"><b>3 </b></a>When the self-avowed material monist secretly believes (8) he is, in fact, an inconsistent crypto-dualist, cf. <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2013/09/van-til-on-antithesis-of-christian-and.html">Van Til on the antitheses</a> and <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2010/09/atheists-miracle.html">An Atheist's Miracle</a>.<a href="#top3"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br>
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Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-84996847237419922122016-12-26T08:27:00.000-08:002017-08-20T14:43:59.012-07:00Another Futile Atheist Argument<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Proverbs 17:28 Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace...</b></span></span></div>
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This meme, posted by an atheist whom we will identify as DJ, popped up on my social media when a friend commented on it. It is another example of the shallow thought of atheists -- a shallowness that results in illogical reasoning and self-contradiction. It is this utter shallowness of the "man-on-the-street" atheist that catches himself in self contradictions.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_fE101Xyhi6YhgG3hr7v8k21WEv9qb_XWMJNS76h5ouFERa81qh_7EIv7PoeEAE3ZpQkphAWvX8nWBqQlITM631mbuxizv54V_TkKwKm5tx0iQALwpKMDJmRGyLnLkl2E6hm_xZ2FKK0/s1600/stupidatheist_meme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_fE101Xyhi6YhgG3hr7v8k21WEv9qb_XWMJNS76h5ouFERa81qh_7EIv7PoeEAE3ZpQkphAWvX8nWBqQlITM631mbuxizv54V_TkKwKm5tx0iQALwpKMDJmRGyLnLkl2E6hm_xZ2FKK0/s320/stupidatheist_meme.jpg" width="320" /> </a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Proverbs 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes. </span></h4>
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First, the meme assumes there is such a thing as "good" and "evil." But "good" and "evil" do not exist in the purely material universe of atheism. All there is are mere chunks of matter undergoing temporal transformations according to the laws of physics. The only laws in a material universe are the underlying laws of physics. There are no moral laws. To put it another way, there is no such thing as "good" solutions of the laws of physics (e.g. a solution of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function" target="_blank">wave-function</a> of the universe) or "evil" solutions. As has been often stated, there is no "ought" in physics, only what "is." If there are two future solutions, "X" and "Y," of the wave-equation, there is no physical reason the solution "ought" to be "X" rather than "Y;" and vice versa. This meme has to presuppose the existence of good and evil -- but to do so is to assume something that does not exist in the atheist universe; it has to assume theism. Such is the atheist's self-contradiction.<br />
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Second, this particular atheist, DJ, once commented in a prior exchange on social media, that the only things that are "real" are those testable by science and accessible via sense perception<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> . This is a big problem for DJ. I asked him if he had ever seen, tasted, heard, smelled or touched a "moral law." Of course he had not; and, understandably, he offered no reply. He was caught in his own trap. Moral laws are not empirically accessible, they are not natural and they are not discoverable in rocks, electric circuits, or test tubes via the scientific method. By his own standard, "good" and "evil" are not real.
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<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>The view that knowledge is only obtained through sense perception ("experience") is radical empiricism. I addressed part of this prior exchange in the post "<a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2015/10/village-atheism-and-magical.html">Village Atheism and Magical Configurations of Matter</a>".<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
</span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-73352148513928277982016-12-15T17:32:00.000-08:002017-03-18T09:31:45.664-07:00Feckless Arguments: Atheist and otherwise. Heidegger redux redux: Fallacy of Special Pleading.One of the things that impressed me when I first read Van Til was the intellectual rigor of the presuppositional defense of Christian theism. Greg Bahnsen repeatedly emphasized the objective truth of Christian theism and the surety of its proof via the transcendental argument outlined by Van Til.
</br></br>An example of this intellectual rigor is shown by the fact that presuppositional apologetics rejects the so-called traditional "proofs," such as the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/">ontological</a>, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/">cosmological</a> and <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/">teleological</a> proofs; since, as they are traditionally formulated they employ fallacies of reasoning. These are examples of fallacious arguments by Christians. Atheists equally employ fallacious arguments, which we will address below.
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As for the traditional Christian "proofs," consider the cosmological argument, also known as the argument from causality. A naive presentation of the cosmological argument, in schematic, goes something like the following:</br>
<blockquote>(A) Everything has a cause; </br>(B) the universe has a cause;</br> (C) therefore, that cause is God.</blockquote>
Of course, if premise A is a universal metaphysical principle, then God, too, has a cause; while if God has no cause, then premise A is not true. As formulated, this is an example of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading">special pleading</a>. It is intellectually embarrassing.
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So then a better formulation is
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<blockquote>(A) Every <i>effect</i> has a cause;</br> (B) the universe (which had a beginning) is an effect; </br>(C) therefore, that cause is God.</blockquote>
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This version is less silly than the prior argument -- but is still fallacious. As Bahnsen has pointed out, it commits the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition">fallacy of composition</a>. It argues that since every effect <i>within</i> the universe has a cause then the universe <i>as a whole</i> has a cause. That is a fallacy. It also argues from <i>immanent physical</i> causation to a <i>transcendent non-physical</i> cause; again a fallacious jump. The sophisticated atheist believes (irrationally, of course) that physical reality as a whole is not an effect; it had no cause -- it is a brute fact. The fact that scientific evidence shows our universe (including time) had a beginning only means to an atheist that this universe is an effect that had a beginning as a "bubble" in some greater physical reality. Of course, such an atheist evasion smacks of the infinite regress that when it comes to "bubbles" it is "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down">turtles all the way down</a>!"
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Such are the problems and lack of intellectual rigor of the so-called traditional cosmological argument -- including equally feckless rebuttals by atheists.
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A presuppositional counter to the traditional cosmological argument is that the very idea of causation makes no sense outside of Christian theism. In fact, on the atheist ground, there is no justification of causality in general, or induction specifically. The problems of causality and induction described by Hume and Russell have been unanswered by atheist philosophy to this day.
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On the other side we have an example from the anti-theistic camp in the question of Heidegger that I discussed <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2013/08/heideggerian-nonsense-asking-wrong.html">here</a>.
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This interlocutor went from an initial "challenge" of :"Rather than asking about the existence of God, one should ask why there is something rather than nothing." Then, by including God in the abstract class of "something," flipped back, in a later exchange, to the same initial question of "Why God rather than nothing?" This, no doubt, is an example of "circular objections."
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Of course the Christian answer is that God is eternal and self existent. But the question, "why God rather than nothing?" is itself an example of special pleading. It poses the question within a presupposed metaphysics of absolute "causality" and "possibility." For an anti-theist, <i>everything</i>, God included, and yes, even "nothing" (reified into a "something") are equal participants in the "arena of possibility." This type of atheist query inspires no more confidence than the original cosmological arguments given above. </br></br> It seems that to the atheist nothing is eternal and self existent unless it is the eternal principle of universal causation.<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> As such, the question is another example of the fallacy of special pleading.
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<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>Note that such reasoning merely assumes some abstract notion of causation. To the monist the only causation is physical causation, so the implication of such a question is that God must be a material, physical being produced by physics also. In other words, God, like man, is a <i>creature</i> created by nature! -- again, yet more question begging.<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br>
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Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-85592924179204579912016-11-20T12:31:00.001-08:002021-03-08T11:00:16.217-08:00Myth of Neutrality and a Prejudicial Challenge.<br />
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A reader responded to my previous blog
on <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2013/07/varieties-of-anti-theism.html" target="_blank">Anti-theism</a> and challenged me to <i>show</i> how I <i>know</i> that
God exists <i>without relying on the Bible</i>. It has been stated many times that such a proof is provided by the negative portion ("God exists because of the impossibility of the contrary") of the Transcendental Argument for God (TAG). However, we have mentioned that, as Christians, we defend Christianity as a whole; not a truncated metaphysical theism (or Deism). The God referred to in TAG is the Triune God of Christianity -- not a merely generic deity.<br />
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But first, we need to consider the nature of the unbeliever's challenge. <br />
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Such a challenge typically stems from metaphysical and epistemological biases -- i.e., unargued presuppositions. The challenge is certainly <i>intellectually</i> anti-Christian. It may be motivated by a false belief that the Bible is contradictory and unreliable or falsely assumes that Christians adhere to the Bible as an arbitrary authority in blind faith. But beyond that, it presupposes an unspecified <i>method</i> and some coordinate standard of <i>knowledge</i> by which the proof (or proof of <i>anything</i>) would be judged. Based on remarks of typical unbelievers, perhaps by "show" he means deductive argumentation.
<br><br> Of course, it is well known that deductive arguments only produce what is already contained in their premises. (In other words, the conclusion is already contained in the asserted premises. That is why the conclusion is <i>necessitated</i> by the premises.) Or, he could mean "show" by the "scientific method" since he once intimated that only science produces "knowledge." TAG (being a transcendental argument) is not properly an empirical (inductive) nor a deductive argument (as those are understood by the opponents of theism) and thus would seem to be disallowed <i>by assumption</i> and <i>stipulation</i> as producing knowledge of the sort acceptable to the respondent's presupposed epistemology - a biased non-neutral theory of knowledge that is antithetical to the Christian theory of knowledge and thus precludes Christianity.<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> So the correspondent's attempt to impose an assumed non-Christian methodology is illegitimate. But not all things are known by way of inductive empiricism (sense
perception) or deductive syllogisms (as understood by anti-theistic philosophies).<a href="#2" name="top2"><sup>2</sup></a> Perhaps he merely means (ambiguously) provide some presumably neutral
"reasoning." One can fairly ask: What are the non-Christian assumptions behind this putative "neutral reasoning"?<br />
<br />
Unbelievers merely <i>presuppose</i> "reason" without a ground. For them reason is conceivably just one more brute fact in a mindless and
infinite sea of other unrelated brute facts. None of these brute facts are necessarily dependent on God, of course. Since it presupposes that human reason and rules of logic can exist apart from God it is, de facto, an atheist theory of knowledge. Such is <i>blatantly</i> not a neutral stance. The question is, <i>ipso facto</i>, a visible display of the "myth of neutrality" (or what Greg Bahnsen has called the "pretended neutrality fallacy"). In this regard, the unbeliever's underlying epistemology is patently non-neutral -- it is an atheist epistemology. An unbeliever views himself as the self-sufficient autonomous man; a man produced out of a sea of chance, by way of materialistic evolutionary processes, yet, nonetheless, now free from that very "chance" and using an ultimate and immaterial "eternal logic" to judge what can or cannot be the case. To an agnostic, maybe some sort of "god" may exist, but such a "god" is irrelevant to their use of reason and appeal to abstract logic. Again, that stance, in effect, presupposes atheism.
<br />
<br />
We again
point out that on atheist (and agnostic) metaphysical presuppositions, there is no "reason for
reasoning." Human minds, consciousness, rational autonomy, abstract immaterial concepts, truth and knowledge, in general, would not exist in the world of material monism -- where all that exists is matter moving according to physical causality. There is no justification for the atheist's appeal to induction and assumptions of causality (uniformity of nature), and no account of deductive logic or rational volitional minds springing from matter-in-motion. In general, there is no philosophically sound account of (merely presupposed) autonomous "reason"
that comports with atheist metaphysical presuppositions. If man is produced by necessity and chance, <i>and there is nothing that transcends the material</i>, then how can man be autonomous? If man was created by chance and necessity, he still is controlled by chance and necessity.<a href="#3" name="top3"><sup>3</sup></a> The necessity and chance of atheist monism (of all varieties) is antithetical to human autonomy. In the atheist universe all events are ultimately the result of chance and are acausal -- this is metaphysical <i>irrationalism</i>. In spite of these metaphysical presuppositions, the atheist attempts to build his "rational" house on an infinite sea of irrational chance. Since this ultimacy of the irrational provides no explanation or justification for either inductive reasoning or the universal validity of logic, it is futile, on their terms, to use these methods as the basis of any "explanation." Thus, on the atheist's presuppositions, not only would "reason" not exist -- nothing would be provable and nothing would be knowable. The conclusion is that the atheist knows nothing. Atheism resolves itself in an ultimate and irremediable skepticism. These are some of the many refutations of atheism (and, a fortiori, of agnosticism). But let us proceed.<br />
<br />
So then, as Christian
apologists, we defend the objective truth of the totality of <b>Christian
</b>theism. Our <i>positive</i> argument takes Christian theism as a complete
and coherent system, a total worldview, that is defended as a whole. That whole is
based on, and thus includes, God's revelation and Christ testified to in the historical record <i><b>in the Bible</b></i>. We don't defend a theism without Christ. We defend <i>Christian</i> theism. This defense includes the <b><i>Biblical</i></b> doctrines of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, Christ's death and bodily resurrection, and Christ's atonement for sin, and the redemption of sinners.
<br />
<br />
The respondent's challenge is somewhat akin to challenging a geometer to
prove the theorems of Euclidean geometry without using Euclid's
axioms.<a href="#4" name="top4"><sup>4</sup></a> That would be rather silly. In the same way, the
respondent's attempt to impose such a demand on
Christians is, likewise, silly. The challenge is based on a
presupposed anti-theistic standard of truth ("epistemic authority"), a standard that is
based on a viciously circular philosophy and that is not
self-verifying. It is a prejudicial, merely assumed and unproven standard, consequently, that standard is not normative.<a href="#5" name="top5"><sup>5</sup></a> Further it is an epistemology that does not comport with the anti-theist's (whether atheist or agnostic) presupposed metaphysics. (In fact, as has been repeatedly shown, such merely asserted epistemological claims, such as "only science yields knowledge," are self-refuting.) At any rate, it is a truth that one cannot argue <i>deductively</i> <b>from</b> a false (inconsistent) system <b>to</b> a true (consistent) one, or from one system to its contrary.<a href="#6" name="top6"><sup>6</sup></a> (This is one reason why one must argue transcendentally.)
<br />
<br />
Further, the God Who we know exists is not just a mere abstract
concept ("the god of the philosophers") but the God of <b>Christianity</b>, the personal Triune
God revealed in the Bible. The respondent's challenge imposes an unbelieving and non self-verifying epistemological framework
(his "rules of the game") to assess Christian truth. It is an invalid invitation for Christians to step outside of our circle of authority and join him within his circle of authority. This
challenge should be filed under, "Deducing Christian Theism from Atheism," right next to the file on "Squaring the
Circle." As Scripture states: "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou
also be like unto him." (Prov 26:4).<br />
<br />
In short, the challenge is: "I'll presuppose my worldview, but you can't presuppose yours!" But then, as Van Til has remarked, we treat the unbeliever better than he is willing to treat us. As Presuppositionalists, <b>we do not impose any like demand on
unbelievers</b>. Rather, we challenge them to explicate and show the consistency of their
worldview (metaphysics, epistemology and ethics) <b>on their presuppositions</b>. <br />
<br />
So then, how do we know the Triune Christian God exists?<br />
<br />
We know that the Triune Christian God exists because of the
impossibility of the contrary. Positively, that the God of Christian theism -- revealed in the Bible and the creation -- is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of human experience. This is the Transcendental
Argument for God (TAG) in a nutshell, and we argue via
transcendental critiques of the unbeliever's worldview that show their presuppositions are self-contradictory. This is
necessary because of the radical and total antithesis of the
opposing worldviews. In Christianity, every man
and every fact is dependent on God. In atheism autonomous man is
independent of God and no fact is dependent on God. So then there is no neutral ground, no neutral
epistemology and certainly completely antithetical metaphysics. (The respondent's challenge is evidence of this. The challenge rejects Christian epistemology and embraces a groundless atheist epistemology and standards of truth.)<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
As Christians we do not engage in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">special pleading</a> for Christian theism. </div>
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
</div>
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
<i>For the sake of argument</i>, we allow atheists to stand <b>on their own ground</b> to
attempt to demonstrate the internal coherence of their
worldview. Every version of atheism (whether monist or
pluralist) fails, on <b>its</b> <b>own</b> presuppositions. They are self-contradictory and therefore false.<br />
<br />
We allow the agnostics to stand <b>on their own ground</b> to
attempt to demonstrate the internal coherence of their
worldview. Every version of agnosticism fails on <b>its own</b>
presuppositions. <br />
<br />
In all of the above cases, this fair challenge to unbelievers, to present the
coherence and intelligibility of their worldview on <b>their presuppositions</b>
has never been answered. They are all false systems. Their
answers, when examined critically, resort to question begging and special pleading. In addition, their philosophies all result ultimately in skepticism, provide no foundation for ethics, undermine truth, and render knowledge impossible -- on their account, it is not possible for them to know anything. It
therefore devolves to the Christian apologist to question the unbelievers and to stand on the unbeliever's ground, <i>for the sake of argument,</i> to show the contradictions of their presuppositions. Each instance of these internal critiques, which is argued<i> ad seriatim</i>, is
part and parcel of TAG. This conforms to Proverbs 26:5, "Answer
a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own
conceit."<br />
<br />
As far as other non-atheistic philosophies (such as pantheism,
eastern mysticism etc.) and non-Christian religions (e.g. Judaism, Islam), the
apologetic procedure is methodologically the same. Each is internally incoherent, destroys the possibility of knowledge and is self-contradictory <b>based on its own presuppositions</b>. As
Christian apologists, we do not impose external standards upon them;
rather we critique them<b> on their own ground.</b><br />
<br />
In the end then, we present and defend the truth of <b>Christianity </b>as
revealed in God's Word. The God that we know exists is not an abstract "god," not a mere "god of the philosophers," but the eternal, personal
God, who revealed himself in the world and in His Word. The
God who manifested himself in the flesh in the person of Jesus
Christ, who died and rose again to redeem sinners. That is the
God of the Bible. The God of the historical record preserved in the Bible. We defend Christian theism as a whole -- a
complete worldview that is non-contradictory, is consistent, and
accounts for all human experience. This conforms to Prov. 26:4,
"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be
like unto him."<br />
<br />
In short, only Christian theism is consistent; nothing else is. Those who reject the Bible choose to believe the absurd in its place.
<br />
<br />
In closing, unbelievers who reject the Bible, no doubt, view themselves as "innocent truth seekers" within an ultimately random and meaningless reality. They believe their unbelief has no moral consequences. They are mistaken. They are culpable in their unbelief and ignorance . Their every thought is enmity to God (Rom. 8:7). They are lost, sinful rebels in God's created universe and in need of a Savior. Among other sins, they are<i> earning</i> their death every day by the sin of unbelief. <br />
<br />
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. <br />
<br />
John 3:18-19 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. <br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a> The stipulation to use an anti-Christian epistemology is to commit the fallacy of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">special pleading</a>. As Bahnsen states in <i>Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended</i>, "There is no way to use non-Christian language and logic to arrive at Christian utterances, conclusions, and behavior.” The unbeliever needs to justify his epistemology before demanding it as the standard. <a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a>
<br />
<a href="#2" name="2"><b>2 </b></a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For
example, neither the inductive method nor the deductive method are
known by way of induction or deduction. That would be a viciously
circular argument (for example, one could only deductively argue for
modus ponens by use of modus ponens). Thus, on the unbeliever's
presuppositions, induction and deduction are just assumed by faith and
cannot be said to be known. Further, the unbeliever being an
"epistemological loafer" willfully ignores the<i> ground</i> for these
in his worldview. They are taken as brute unexplained facts, and hence
are not known -- this is the anti-metaphysical bias of modern "science."
So, when considered in this light, the challenge to show how I <i>know</i>
is self-defeating and impotent on the unbeliever's viewpoint (his
"theory of knowledge"). It is in this regard that Van Til stated that
unless God exists nothing is provable.</span> <a href="#top2"><sup>↩</sup></a>
<br />
<a href="#3" name="3"><b>3</b></a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">To
deny this is to smuggle in a principle of "discontinuity," contrary to
the atheist's faith commitment to a presumed "uniformity of nature." On
the other hand, the unbeliever maintains allegiance to his "uniformity
of nature" to deny Christian miracles (cf. <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2010/09/atheists-miracle.html">An Atheist's Miracle</a>). </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><a href="#top3"><sup>↩</sup></a>
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1112751427804606457#4" name="4"><b>4 </b></a>In comparing Biblical Christianity to Euclidean geometry the point of contact I am making is that they are both systems of thought and that the Bible is integral and necessary to the complete system of Christian theism as are the Euclidean axioms to that complete system. I am not suggesting that the Bible is taken as a mere axiom.<a href="#top4"><sup>↩</sup></a>
<br />
<a href="#5" name="5"><b>5 </b></a>
On this point it is worth paraphrasing Greg Bahnsen's challenge to the unbeliever to explicate how they know that their claimed standard is the right standard. The unbeliever has the following options: (1) He can admit that his standard of evaluation has no justification. In this case, his position is arbitrary and irrational; (2) he can argue that his standard is established by some standard outside of itself. In this case he is admitting that a new standard is more ultimate, contradicting his previously claimed "ultimate" standard. Finally, he can keep seeking a more ultimate standard. In this case he is trapped in an infinite regress with the result that his standard is unknown and unknowable, and thus futile; or (3) he can point to a truly ultimate, intelligible and self-verifying standard that explains all else, in that it is the ultimate standard beyond which no appeal can be made (as in Christianity which points to God, Hebrews 6:13). The point is that the respondent's challenge is <i>groundless</i>. [cf. <i>Pushing the Antithesis</i>, pp. 121,2]
<a href="#top5"><sup>↩</sup></a>
<br />
<a href="#6" name="6"><b>6 </b></a>
In <i>Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended</i>, Greg Bahnsen states it this way: “There is no way to use non-Christian language and logic to arrive at Christian utterances, conclusions, and behavior.”
<a href="#top6"><sup>↩</sup></a>
</span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-12905743420268124212016-09-06T15:37:00.000-07:002016-09-06T19:50:20.837-07:00Presuppositionalism Resource: Download PDF files of Van Til's WritingsThe website <a href="https://presupp101.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Presuppositionalism 101</a> provides a valuable literary trove of <a href="https://presupp101.wordpress.com/downloads/" target="_blank">PDF files of books by Van Til.</a><br />
<br />
Van Til is the father of the rigorous presuppositional approach to defending Christian Theism. His approach is thoroughly Christian and scriptural based. If you haven't read some of these due to general availability, I encourage you to take the time to do so. Reading Van Til in his own words is rewarding and profitable!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-8779453657335460682016-08-29T12:11:00.001-07:002016-08-29T12:11:47.920-07:00Humanism Made Silly by a HumanistA few months back I came upon this humanist propaganda video. Of course, Humanism is a subjective dogma of atheists. What is funny is that it contains the refutation of Humanism within the narrative. Watch the video.
</br></br>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tvz0mmF6NW4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</br></br>
Did you catch it? In particular, note the self-defeating relativism at 1:15.
The self-defeating claim is that there is no single "meaning" of human life. We all create our own, "different strokes for different folks!" Of course, this means there is no meaning. The video (presupposing an objective morality of the "decent folks") then presents a smorgasbord of benign activities that one of the "decent folks" might choose to be "happy." It is a rather self-serving selection! Cherry picking comes to mind. The reference to "drawing," in particular, evoked me to laughing ridicule.
</br></br>
"How can I be happy?" That's an implicit endorsement of a supposed benevolent epicureanism, hedonism, or egoism -- select a "meaning," take your pick. It's all relative. Individual happiness is the supreme goal. Individual happiness is a matter of individual tastes and a matter of personal opinion. That admission raises the following questions.
</br></br>
Conspicuously absent from the activities are such things as sexual promiscuity; marital infidelity; pedophilia; women murdering their unborn children for the sake of future "happiness;" Hitler Youth; Islamic terrorism and so on. All these are activities that make their practitioners happy and their lives "meaningful" according to their subjective tastes conditioned by external influences. No doubt "decent" humanists will reject some of these as acceptable practices. But they have no objective reason to reject any. In the amoral humanist universe, all "standards" are subjective and arbitrary. The video essentially admits as much.
</br></br>Of course, the humanist will object to the mention of Hitler youth and terrorists (abortionists probably not), since the greatest "value" to a humanist is Humanity. But then, "Humanity" is a rather meaningless term. Its vagueness can be used as a cloak and justification for eugenics, ethnic cleansing and other activities whose goal is the "greater good" of Mankind "on the whole" according to arbitrary principles. Who is to dictate what is "best" for the "universal man," for humanity in the whole? Totalitarianism comes to mind -- the individual is expendable for the sake of "Humanity" in the whole. Of course, the benign benevolent humanism of the video (which leans to a libertarian view with potential anarchistic tendencies) conveniently ignores such philosophical problems that undermine its own foundations. It presumes an objective morality that Humanism cannot provide. To the extent that a Humanist adheres to true morals, he does so by borrowing them from the objective morality of Christian theism.
</br></br>
In summary, if "meaning" and happiness are subject to individual preference (shaped by influences external to the person, according to the video) then nothing is off limits according to Humanism -- including those who reject Humanism as the basis of a "meaning" of life. Humanism is a bankrupt philosophy with no foundations. The video admits as much when it says: "Humanists do not see any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it." The base ingredients of Humanism -- mere chunks of the universe interacting with other chunks of the universe within a Godless and amoral evolutionary universe ruled by "chance" -- provide no ground for any of Humanism's unargued presuppositions.</br></br> The video ends with "That's Humanism!" What it shows is that Humanism is intellectually foolishness. How appropriate that it was narrated by a comedian, Stephen Fry.
Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-30062100949772135122015-12-03T13:18:00.002-08:002017-08-20T14:46:21.960-07:00The Swindle of EmergentismThe inaugural post for <i>Scripta Scientificae pro Christiana Apologeticum</i> is now available. You can read it here: <a href="http://scientifcnotesforchristianapologetcs.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-swindle-of-emergentism.html">"The Swindle of Emergentism"</a>. Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-83988061698536077832015-10-23T11:43:00.000-07:002017-08-20T14:47:08.593-07:00Village Atheism and Magical Configurations of Matter.A discussion on social media yielded this claim by a village atheist:
<blockquote>"...but when I die, just like you, I will be nothing more than space dust and all the molecules of matter..."</blockquote>
Such statements are wide-spread and betray the philosophical naivety and unexamined assumptions of the typical village atheist. </br></br> Do you see the incoherence of this claim of an atheist material monist?
He says he "...<b>will be<i></i></b> nothing more." This atheist's language betrays his belief that he is currently something <i><b>more</b></i> than molecules.
<br><br>
However, on the material monist view and his assumption of the <i>uniformity</i> of nature he <i>was</i>, <i>is<b></b></i> and <i>will always be</i> nothing more than matter. To be perfectly clear, according to material monism, this atheist is at present nothing more than molecules. This is a matter of logical consistency. The atheist's faith commitment to the uniformity of nature requires this conclusion.
Of course, it is true that his current <i><b>configuration</b></i> of molecules is different than those of a dispersed configuration of those molecules, and as such, they exhibit different properties than the dispersed molecules. This is no more puzzling than Hydrogen molecules and Oxygen molecules having different properties than water when they are combined chemically to produce H<sub>2</sub>O. But such properties, sometimes termed "emergent," are not autonomous properties.<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> All of the properties of water are reducible to the underlying laws of matter by way of the equations of quantum mechanics. The behavior of water is determined by the underlying quantum mechanical properties of the ultimate material constituents (the quantum fields which we have discussed <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2015_09_01_archive.html">here</a>). This is the case for all configurational properties of matter, they are all reducible to the underlying physics. In fact, according to material monism and the uniformity of nature <i><b>they must be</b></i>. This is the scientific ideal of atheistic science -- all of reality must ultimately come within the purview of physical causal laws. After all, it is called<b> material <i>monism</i></b>, right? Reality is <i>closed</i> with respect to matter and its motions via physical causes. According to the myth of macro-evolution, the physical processes that produced the stars, galaxies, solar systems, planets then ultimately life, then conscious life along with the human intellect, are necessarily, by continuity, the same processes producing the present behaviors of particular molecular configurations called "man." Any "mental" properties of this particular configuration of molecules are determined by the dance of the quantum fields, <i>not the other way around</i>. So much for free rational thought. Ironically, these philosophies and theories are the products of self-styled atheist "free thinkers!"
<br><br>
This atheist, like all village atheists, maintains the mutually incoherent assumptions of human autonomy, uniformity of nature (their principle of necessity) and the ultimate chance character of reality. These are uncritically examined presuppositions of the typical unbeliever. To maintain human autonomy in the face of material monism is to believe that humans are magical configurations of matter. In a solely material universe human autonomy would not exist. Nonetheless, village atheist Richard Dawkins unabashedly believes in atheist miracles.<a href="#2" name="top2"><sup>2</sup></a> "Consistent" atheists like Provine, Rosenberg and Harris (as discussed <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2010/06/honest-atheist-not-quite.html">here</a>, <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-atheists-guide-to-reality-self.html">here</a> and <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2011/07/invasion-of-atheist-robots-part-ii.html">here</a>) can clearly see the logical conclusion of their faith in material monism and the uniformity of nature and thereby deny human rational autonomy -- even though it reduces their epistemology and ethics to absurdity. It follows from their presupposition that they know nothing, despite their claim to "scientific" knowledge, and they acknowledge the total amoral character of reality.
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>Philosopher John Searle's favorite example of emergent properties is digestion. He correctly points out that digestion is not a property of elementary particles. However, it is obvious that such an emergent biological property is not autonomous and is reducible to bio-chemistry, then to physics and quantum mechanics. To deny that would be to destroy the continuity of nature and the entire atheist reductionist "scientific" enterprise. Reductionism is a necessary corollary of material monism. And bottom-up physical causation is the only causation in town.<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br>
<a href="#2" name="2"><b>2 </b></a>Discussed <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2010/09/atheists-miracle.html">here</a>. Dawkins, by maintaining human autonomy, is apparently unaware that he has implicitly thrown out the uniformity of nature. Hence, human autonomy to Dawkins is an irrational miracle.<a href="#top2"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br>
</span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-52605265206291785242015-09-24T15:48:00.000-07:002016-05-14T10:19:15.483-07:00Mind and Cosmos: Nagel's Unprincipled Principles, Part 2. Who's Afraid of Dualism?In my <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2015/07/mind-cosmos-nagels-unprincipled.html" target="_blank">previous blog</a>, I mentioned the mysteriousness of the photon-electron interaction. It is an example of a purely physical interaction, and thus deemed to be "unproblematic" by a material monist. As we will see, this material monist view is unwarranted.
<br /><br />
Last time we ended with this graphic.</br></br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXTcXBllZowfNReib4xJ8abAMkgiJSiIkSkh6VGKfHI5B1ofVXkLl5DrDAm5R3r9QRNyilHLSkDvaLJXkigp43cEH3b9U4Ld0UXFnrwLLveaZje-VxRBzUnMDrbr_0aw7ydXc9-OeAbvz/s1600/EM_Vertex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXTcXBllZowfNReib4xJ8abAMkgiJSiIkSkh6VGKfHI5B1ofVXkLl5DrDAm5R3r9QRNyilHLSkDvaLJXkigp43cEH3b9U4Ld0UXFnrwLLveaZje-VxRBzUnMDrbr_0aw7ydXc9-OeAbvz/s320/EM_Vertex.jpg"></a></div></br>
That graph shows a <i>purely physical</i> interaction. It depicts a physical electron ("e")
interacting with a physical photon (wavy line) -- matter interacting with matter. It would seem there are no
difficulties there, right? Nothing like that mysterious mind-matter
interaction "problem?" Wrong!
Merely saying this is matter interacting with matter is a mere
linguistic swindle of the material monist. As we have mentioned,
modern material monism is <i>attributive</i> monism -- all of this matter
"stuff" is not as similar as calling it all matter seems to imply. The
many fields of quantum field theory (QFT) all have varying and differing attributes (charge, spin, mass, etc.) -- hence the term <i>attributive</i> monism. It's a
jungle out there! The vocabulary of modern physics speaks of particle
species and the particle zoo.
</br></br>
In the "innocent era" of pre-quantum theory, people viewed matter as
all that "hard" stuff. Material interaction is no more mysterious than
the collision of billiard balls -- what's so hard about that? Well, that
simplistic picture which still seems to infect the thinking of the naive material monist isn't
what is going on.
</br></br>
Even this simplistic and "common sense" view of causality was roundly criticized by Hume, who correctly noted that one could not observe such causation but only the "constant conjunction" of events. That conditions of "such and such" were invariably followed by "such and such."</br></br>
But there is more. Physics says nothing about <i>why</i> there is such an interaction between electrons and light or <i>what is going on</i> at that vertex. In fact, it doesn't even say <i>when</i> such an interaction takes place -- it only computes probabilities that such particle events transpire.<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> Yet, the basic interactions are mediated by something far less "solid." The basic ontology of the physical universe is the fields! And these fields are everywhere and "in contact" at every point (provided they mutually interact; more on this below.) These fields are not what one would call solid and impenetrable. Every school kid has experience with fields -- case in point, iron filings being moved about by magnetic <i>fields!</i> Stuff like that "spooky" magnetic field is what the physical universe is. So the universe is more spirit-like than matter-like than most believe -- more ethereal than solid.
<br />
<br />
In spite of the modern field theoretic view of the material universe, as mentioned above, proponents of material monism seem to entertain an antiquated and superficial muddle-minded notion of material causation. This is the old atomistic and mechanistic physics where causation is something similar to the collision of billiard balls -- solid things impacting solid things and recoiling along with attendant conservation laws of energy and momentum. Causal interaction through contact.<a href="#2" name="top2"><sup>2</sup></a> This false perception is, no doubt, encouraged by the observations of particles -- they being viewed as tiny solid granular bodies.
<br /><br />
Examples of such muddle-mindedness in regard to physical causation are evident in the writings of (dare I say all?) most modern atheist philosophers of mind.<br />
<br />
In addition to Nagel, another example is Jaegwon Kim, who wrote: "For substance dualism, it is, at bottom, the <i>extreme heterogeneity</i> of minds and bodies that makes causal relations between them prima facie problematic." (emph. added)<a href="#3" name="top3"><sup>3</sup></a>
There are a lot of unwarranted assumptions and question begging in such an assertion. It certainly betrays an ignorance of modern physics. The assumption that matter itself is "homogeneous" in kind is certainly false. Matter is not homogeneous in spite of the fact that it is called matter, and it is not a pure monism in spite of being called material<i> monism</i>. Contra Kim and others, matter too is extremely heterogeneous. To elaborate, I return to our figure of my prior blog.
This figure is supposed to be credible to the monist. But it shows two heterogeneous types of matter interacting - a photon (a massless, neutral, spin one boson) and an electron (a massive, electrically charged, spin 1/2 fermion).<br />
</br>
The complete (omitting only gravitation) set of fields (and associated
particles) is shown in the following diagram found in the Wikipedia
entry on the<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model" target="_blank"> Standard Model</a>. The diagram shows the particle view of a quantum field. The blue lines show the interactions between the fields/particles. Fields not connected by a blue line do not interact directly; they can only interact indirectly. So in particular -- and quite amazingly -- electrons (the "e" within the lepton box) do not interact with other electrons except indirectly by an "exchange of photons." (Note: There is no blue line that loops from the electron "e" back to itself.) So much for "like stuff" interacting with "like stuff!" The only fields that have self interactions (other than gravity) are the fields with nonlinear free field equations. These are the gluons, Higgs boson, and weak bosons (indicated by the closed blue loops). One should note: all fields of QFT are "co-located;" they mutually exist at every space-time point (i.e. at every spatial location and for all time).<a href="#4" name="top4"><sup>4</sup></a> Yet, amazingly, the leptonic and quark fields though everywhere co-located are oblivious of each other (note: there is no blue line between the leptons and quarks)! That is a rather embarrassing situation for the philosopher who argues for material monism. On the basis of the material <i>monist</i> principle, it would seem the monist should assert that all matter must interact with all other matter. The absence of direct lepton-lepton interactions (for one among others) should be a mystery to them. But such questions seem not to worry their limited epiphenomenal "minds."<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlJf_qnNOtOCKxsDYDPSa3MCpdGh1UtzkkATbp1G-5sdIX0J1YgpJA7sAFmCMM9iqsRE4KFfmlUYbprYybYLGBNJT72Io-EJvmt3NNqaezVszfrsMSZQmoK0YUJFNihr3EBVAL1SvrMp-s/s1600/Elementary_particle_interactions_in_the_Standard_Model.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlJf_qnNOtOCKxsDYDPSa3MCpdGh1UtzkkATbp1G-5sdIX0J1YgpJA7sAFmCMM9iqsRE4KFfmlUYbprYybYLGBNJT72Io-EJvmt3NNqaezVszfrsMSZQmoK0YUJFNihr3EBVAL1SvrMp-s/s320/Elementary_particle_interactions_in_the_Standard_Model.png" width="320"></a></div><blockquote>[graphic from Wikipedia]</blockquote>
</br>
So then, the material monist can no more explain or account for material interaction (and amazingly the absence of interactions between different types of matter) among the various fields than a dualist can explain mind-body interactions. The complaint of Nagel, Kim and all material monists against dualism is superficial and is yet another example of atheist special pleading.<a href="#5" name="top5"><sup>5</sup></a> As the saying goes, "That which is a problem for everyone is a problem for no one." So then, the monist's reason for accepting "monism" is based on a false principle that does not support their belief.<br />
<br />
In closing, we should note that the diagram represents the "god" of the materialist. For the atheist, this immutable and eternal complex <i>plurality</i> of fields is a brute fact and accounts for <i>all</i> of reality. That is a most fantastic and incredible belief. It claims that human autonomy, rationality and morality are mere accidental configurations of these fields. It should be obvious to all not in the grips of irrational ideology that any such "emergent" properties are determined solely by the dance of these fields. Every future (probabilistic) state of the fields is determined by the current state via partial differential equations. Equations in which the only elements are quantities describing the <i>configurations</i> of the fields, and <i><b>nothing more</b></i> enters the equations. So much for human autonomy.
</br></br>
As Christians we know that this intricately <i><b>plural</b></i> and elegant unified structure of material reality is designed by God. The material creation does not account for all of reality -- it in no way accounts for the souls, spirits and minds, human rational autonomy, abstract entities and morality. These are things for which no material monist has supplied anything close to intelligible accounts. As detailed here, Nagel's attempt is superficial and fails utterly. In fact, the so called underpinnings of the material monist principles are found to be wanting philosophically and scientifically (engaging in unanalyzed question begging and special pleading).</br></br>
</br>
<hr width="80%" />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>For example, quantum transition amplitudes typically involve integrals in which the time of the interaction is taken to be any time from the remote past to the remote future. Usually the integration over time is specified using the mathematical fiction of negative infinity to positive infinity.<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#2" name="2"><b>2 </b></a>Newtonian gravity and early electromagnetic theories first introduced the rather scandalous concept of unmediated <i>action at a distance</i>. That concept slowly gave way to the concept of physical fields and the first steps towards modern physics. See the Wikipedia entry <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_at_a_distance">action at a distance</a>.<a href="#top2"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#3" name="3"><b>3 </b></a>Jaegwon Kim, <i>Philosophy of Mind</i>, Westview 1998, p.133.<a href="#top3"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#4" name="4"><b>4 </b></a>This feature of the fields is contrary to the old concept of matter as having the property of impenetrability or that which cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In modern physics, the closest property to this idea is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_exclusion_principle">Pauli exclusion principle</a> which only applies to like fermions. Even in this case two electrons can be in the same location as long as their other properties differ (such as one being "spin up" and the other "spin down." From the Wikipedia entry: "This effect is partly responsible for the everyday observation in the macroscopic world that two solid objects cannot be in the same place at the same time." <a href="#top4"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#5" name="5"><b>5 </b></a>It is special pleading since material interactions are also mysterious. So the rejection of dualism because it is mysterious applies equally to materialism. The supposed foundation of the entire material monist philosophy is built on a fallacy.<a href="#top5"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
</span>
Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-89215257798605563572015-08-17T21:27:00.001-07:002015-08-24T21:22:54.950-07:00Reasoning by Presupposition: The Bahnsen-Smith DebateI was perusing the apologetic blogs a few months back when I came across a comment by an atheist who claimed Christians never refer to the Bahnsen-Smith debate (although that interchange was more a moderated conversation than a debate). Well, that claim is not true. To rebut that claim, <a href="https://vimeo.com/28294833" target="_blank">here</a> is a link to the audio of that debate. A transcript of the audio can be found <a href="http://rfforum.websitetoolbox.com/file?id=1070543" target="_blank">here</a>. Another post of the dialog can be found <a href="http://www.anthonyflood.com/bahnsendebatesgeorgesmith.htm">here</a>. This dialog is well worth studying to understand Bahnsen's use of the presuppositional apologetic.
Apparently, that atheist thought Smith bested Bahnsen in that encounter. Incredible! Such an opinion, as we will see below, betrays superficiality and an unstudied philosophic naivete. Smith,and a caller-in named Max, clearly had no clue as to what hit them.
Bahnsen's irenic answers rebutted all of Smith's claims. <br />
<br />
<ul>
</ul>
One particular point, that has prompted the title of this article, was when Max charged that Bahnsen <i><b>merely</b> presupposed God</i>. Of course, it is not the case that we <b><i>merely</i></b> do so (as if, the presupposition of Christianity is a fideistic and unargued assumption). Bahnsen's reply that atheists presuppose atheism was priceless. This is a perennial blind spot of atheists -- they think they are devoid of presuppositions and are staunch advocates of non-circular reasoning. Nothing could be further from the truth. Atheists, in fact, argue <i>presupposing atheism</i> (consequently, this atheist's charge against Christians commits the <b>fallacy of special pleading</b>, sometimes called "the double standard fallacy"). However, the fact that both sides have presuppositions does not reduce the debate to a stand off. Not all presuppositions are "created equal." The problem for the atheists is that they have a multitude of unintelligible contradictory assumptions and viciously circular arguments, none of which are mutually coherent, and none which they can make good. This fact renders the atheist's presupposition(s) false and destroys his pretense to knowledge of any sort. This fact is evident in the many debates of presuppositionalists with atheists. Some atheists will even admit (on the basis of <i>their</i> assumptions, of course!) there is no certain knowledge or express doubt that knowledge is possible (not realizing the inherent self contradiction in such claims -- since they must know something in order for their language to intelligibly express their doubt. To put it ironically: "Why should anyone listen to someone who believes he doesn't know what he's saying?") On the other hand, the Christian presupposition is intelligible and provides the necessary grounds for knowledge and for the intelligibility of all of human experience. So again, there is no "stand off."<br />
<br />
Here are a few more of the high points in the dialog: <br />
<ul>
<li>Max claimed reason is "natural!" Another priceless moment. Bahnsen pressed the point that abstract entities are not natural.<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> All Max said by way of "rebuttal" was a repeated "Oh boy!" Bahnsen challenged atheists to live according to<i> their presuppositions</i> -- something they never do.</li>
<li>Smith assimilated physical causation and logical laws (logical "law of identity" for instance). Bahnsen succinctly pointed out that such is a<b> major philosophical error</b>.<a href="#2" name="top2"><sup>2</sup></a> For starters, matter does not move according to abstract laws of rational thought (logic) -- matter obeys <b>inviolable</b> physical laws based on the properties of matter. The material universe is completely oblivious to abstract laws of logic. Laws of logic are standards of rational <i><b>thought</b></i> -- laws that can be <b>violated</b> by flawed reasoning. As we have mentioned repeatedly, laws of logic presuppose minds with rational freedom (independent of material causation) and mental causal efficacy -- something totally antithetical to a universe composed solely of matter moving according to chance and causally inviolable physical laws. (In the materialist universe the only causality is, de facto, physical.) To put it another way, laws of logic are necessary and non-contingent; on the other hand, the physical world is contingent and the laws of physics are not necessary. (If they were, empirical science and experiment would be unnecessary.) This is usually stated succinctly by the phrase "logic says nothing about the contingent world." We should also point out that physicists can construct a multitude of consistent theoretical models of the material universe with existing and hypothetical entities, differing mathematical structures, different causal interactions, different values of fundamental constants, and so on. All of which show that the actual physical reality in which we live is not necessitated by logic. To summarize, logic and physics are categorially distinct. Contra Smith, <i>logic cannot be reduced to physics.</i></li>
<li>Smith trotted out the tired and fallacious "Euthyphro dilemma" to counter Christian moral claims. Bahnsen succinctly rebuffed Smith by pointing out that Christian moral claims are rooted in the character of God Himself. In Christian theism, God is <i>ne plus ultra</i><a href="#3" name="top3"><sup>3</sup></a>. There is no "super-reality" above God; no laws above God.<a href="#4" name="top4"><sup>4</sup></a> </li>
</ul>
In summary, Bahnsen began the dialog by engaging Smith on the three fundamental areas of philosophy: (1) What exists? What is real? What are the constituents of reality? (Metaphysics/ontology); (2) How does one know what one knows? (Epistemology) and (3) How should we lead our lives? (Ethics). Beyond Smith's philosophical naivete and reasoning errors, Smith, like all atheists, did not even begin to provide intelligible answers, based on his godless reality, in any of these areas. Smith's materialist atheism is: (1) metaphysical irrationalism (espousing the ultimate chance nature of reality); (2) provides no self-attesting theory of knowledge (rendering knowledge impossible, and thereby, Smith has no ground from which to criticize anyhthing); and (3) provides no basis for the existence of absolute morality or ethical truth (morality is not a property of material systems). All through the debate, Smith argued in vicious circles and merely assumed the existence of human rational freedom (which is incompatible with the assumption of material monism), logic, moral laws, abstractions, conceptual reasoning -- all of which inexplicably spring out of chance and physical (material) causation (or, alternatively as in platonistic pluralism, are an incoherent plurality of independent and ultimate brute entities suspended in the "void"). As Bahnsen pointed out, all of these are problems in Smith's atheist universe, but not for Christianity. (In fact, Smith is assuming facts that are borrowed from Christian theism.) Smith's atheist presuppositions thus have been shown to be incoherent and self-contradictory on the atheist's own ground, while the Christian presupposition and Christianity is vindicated.
<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Postscript</b><br />
<br />
During the call-in section, Smith responded to a question regarding the Bible. Smith responded, "Well, I mean there are some <i>decent</i> things in the Bible, sure. There are some
elegantly expressed <i>moral</i> maxims, that sort of thing." (emph. added.) Bahnsen, probably due to lack of time, didn't respond to this but the reply to this sort of remark is: "On what standard does Smith rely to determine morals?" Would he claim that standard is absolute and knowable? On Smith's view the moral statements of Christ would be no more authoritative than those of any other; merely subjective opinion and non-absolute. The fact that Smith likes some of them is not a basis for absolute morality. Some people like Coke, others Pepsi. Smith, like all unbelievers, is his own ultimate, and arbitrary, standard.
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<hr width="80%" />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>Abstract entities, such as the laws of logic, are immaterial and not extended in space. As, such they are not empirically accessible; they are not natural objects perceived by the senses. For example, the law of deduction called "modus ponens" cannot be seen with the eyes. The question of the reality of abstract entities (especially universal and invariant concepts such as mathematics and logic) and <i>conceptual</i> knowledge lies at the root of the well known failures of rationalism, on the one hand, and empiricism, on the other, to provide a foundation for human knowledge. Both schools ended in skepticism regarding human knowledge. One should also consider that the modern phrase "logical empirical method" merely linguistically conjoins the two philosophical schools and thereby glosses the problems of both without solution, yet admits the distinction between the abstract and the natural. Stated in other terms, this dichotomy is also the distinction of deduction (necessary truths of reason) versus induction (contingent truths derived from generalizations of particular sense data). Bahnsen's point is that the atheist "universe" provides no intelligible account for either reason (human rational autonomy and conscious thought independent of material causation, existence and reality of universal laws of logic, etc.) or empirical knowledge/induction (given the atheist's commitment to ultimate chance and the irrational nature of the universe as embodied in quantum mechanics). On the atheist view, there is no bridging of the gap between the immaterial transcendent and unchanging truths of, say, logic or arithmetic, and the immanent and ever changing world of material flux. The problem that the atheist has with providing a justification of induction is well known -- it is a principle that cannot be deduced nor inductively derived (which is vicious circular reasoning and question begging). On the other hand, the transcendent God of Christian theism provides the intelligible answer to both deduction/reason (man is created in the image of God, the ultimate rational being and the source of man's reason -- behind the mind of man is the mind of the eternal God) and induction (God has created and faithfully sustains the cosmos ("...in Christ all things consist." Colossians 1:16-7). Further the existence of universal abstract entities, in that they are the contents of thought, are not eternal self-existent things existing in a mind-independent platonic world of ideas, but rather, the thoughts of the eternal God. They are real; and man, as the rational image of God, is to "think God's thoughts after Him," as Van Til has said.
<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#2" name="2"><b>2 </b></a>Smith fallaciously used the example of the "Law of Identity" as "support" for his claim. Rather than the law of identity, one might think that the material conditional of logic ("if P then Q") would provide a more plausible support. However, it is generally known that the material conditional does not represent the concept of causality. See, for example, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradoxes_of_material_implication">Paradoxes of Material Implication</a> (in particular, see the example of switches in a series circuit in the section on "Simplification"), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_conditional">Material Conditional</a>; and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality">Causality</a> (section titled, "Causality contrasted with conditionals"). Incredibly, Rudolph Carnap (a logical positivist) makes the philosophical error of representing causal laws via the material conditional in chapters 1 and 20 of <i>An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science</i>.
<a href="#top2"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#3" name="3"><b>3 </b></a>Latin, literally,"no more beyond."
<a href="#top3"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#4" name="4"><b>4 </b></a>Amazingly, Michael Martin also fatuously uses a version of the "Euthyphro dilemma" in his flawed TANG ("Transcendental Argument for the Non-existence of God"). The Euthyphro dilemma presupposes a mythological platonic reality of ultimate abstract moral laws to which all the "gods" and man are equally subject (and of which laws they somehow have knowledge) -- as such, it is contrary to the claim of Christian theism that God is ultimate. Thus Martin's counter does not apply -- it is a straw man. It is a logical fallacy of the most egregious type to assume the truth of "not A" to refute "A." TANG as a refutation of TAG is an utter failure. TANG is not even analogous to TAG. To be analogous, TANG would need to show: (1) that the Christian conception of God is contradictory and (2) that atheism (whether materialist or platonic pluralism) provides the necessary and coherent conditions for all of human experience -- including intelligible accounts of possibility of knowledge and existence of moral absolutes. This, of course, is something that neither Martin nor millennia of failed atheist philosophy and science has done. In short, TANG is not a transcendental argument and Michael Martin does not understand transcendental argumentation (at least, he fails to understand TAG).
<a href="#top4"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
</span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-77414605194609111942015-07-29T12:09:00.000-07:002015-09-24T15:51:50.981-07:00Mind & Cosmos: Nagel's Unprincipled PrinciplesHaving finally read Nagel's <i>Mind and Cosmos</i> -- previously discussed briefly <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2013/09/doug-wilsons-review-of-thomas-nagels.html">here</a> -- I had planned to write a more thorough and complete analysis of it. Other more important duties have precluded that goal. So instead, I plan to write a few shorter articles covering various problems in Nagel's philosophy. Here, belatedly, is my first installment of the promised analysis.
<hr width="80%" />
</br></br>
Nagel's motivation for his philosophy of neutral monism is that material monism provides no basis for key characteristics of human experience, such as mind and consciousness. With this correct assessment, Christian theists will agree -- although we extend the list of features to include invariant abstract objects (such as mathematics and logic) and absolute moral laws. (Nagel's version of neutral monism<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> provides no metaphysical foundation for these either.)
</br></br>
Nagel rejects, therefore, materialism but he equally rejects theism. He wants to invent a "middle ground;" though he doesn't get near a putative "middle." Instead, what he posits is just a new version of attributive monism in which all "matter" (with its many usual physical attributes such as mass, charge, spin and so on) is also endowed with mental attributes. This is just as reductionistic as old-fashioned monism. It's a monism differing in degree, not kind.
</br></br>
Nagel asserts that dualism is not a serious option since it posits an inscrutable and a mysterious (at least more so to "naturalists") interaction between mind and body. To this end, then, Nagel resorts to postulating that all material of the cosmos has a property of mind attached. Every piece of stuff in the cosmos is intrinsically "mental" in some sense, in addition to being material.
</br></br>
This theory is tantamount to adding (in physicist terminology) a "psychic" quantum number to every quantum field. Of course such a psychic interaction has never been observed in particle-scattering experiments. Also, Nagel doesn't touch the issue of the quantity of psychic stuff attached to all matter. To be compatible with quantum field theory, there is a multitude of technical and mathematical issues that Nagel doesn't even begin to address. I won't delve into this in anymore detail at this point, but that alone deprives Nagel's theory of any shred of scientific credibility.
Nagel, by mere verbal wishful thinking, expands on his "solution." Nagel postulates that though each particle is not conscious, one can hope to produce conscious brains by assembling enough of this psychically endowed stuff in sufficiently complex arrangements. A major defect of this theory is that the "mind" so produced is a composite of psychically endowed fields, and as such, still subject to bottom-up causation. All of the properties and "twitching" of this composite brain are the result of the interactions of the basic fields/particles. Such a mind is still physically determined. Thus, human rational freedom still does not exist. Such a theory is thereby a contradiction of most atheists' assumption of human autonomy. One can easily write the <i>form</i> of the equation that such a brain, and consequently the attached "mind," must satisfy. One does not need to know the exact details of the functional dependence of this composite mind on its constituents to draw the conclusion that such a brain is causally closed with respect to the underlying matter. Such an "emergent" mind is to the brain as pressure is to molecular motion - and, thus, has no causal autonomy. Case closed.
</br></br>
These, in brief, are some of the problems with Nagel's philosophy, but in a following blog I will look at the contradictory nature of Nagel's superficial rejection of dualism and proposing neutral monism. Nagel's principle, mentioned above, is that dualism is too mysterious and "unexplained" and that monism (and in particular his neutral monism that purports to explain "mind" and mental interactions) is not mysterious. But is it? Hardly. For a hint at what is coming, some might want to ask the question regarding the graphics below: "What exactly is going on at this electron-photon interaction?" (The straight red line is an electron of charge "e" and the black wavy line is an emitted (or absorbed) photon. The diagram represents the fundamental interaction of electrons and light.) </br> </br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXTcXBllZowfNReib4xJ8abAMkgiJSiIkSkh6VGKfHI5B1ofVXkLl5DrDAm5R3r9QRNyilHLSkDvaLJXkigp43cEH3b9U4Ld0UXFnrwLLveaZje-VxRBzUnMDrbr_0aw7ydXc9-OeAbvz/s1600/EM_Vertex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXTcXBllZowfNReib4xJ8abAMkgiJSiIkSkh6VGKfHI5B1ofVXkLl5DrDAm5R3r9QRNyilHLSkDvaLJXkigp43cEH3b9U4Ld0UXFnrwLLveaZje-VxRBzUnMDrbr_0aw7ydXc9-OeAbvz/s320/EM_Vertex.jpg" /></a></div>
</br></br>Continue to <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2015/09/mind-and-cosmos-nagels-unprincipled.html">part 2</a>.
</br></br>
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<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>Neutral monism asserts that the ultimate constituents of reality are neither material (as in material monism) nor mental (as in idealism) but a neutral third kind of "stuff." For more details see <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/">Neutral Monism</a> at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br /></span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-48523528855075534792015-06-22T12:34:00.000-07:002015-06-22T13:13:17.202-07:00Companion BlogI'm starting a new blog, <a href="http://scientifcnotesforchristianapologetcs.blogspot.com/">Scripta Scientificae pro Christiana Apologeticum</a>, where I'll occasionally post technical writings on the physics and mathematics that bear on presuppositional Christian Apologetics. First off, I'll be giving a more technical discussion on Lawrence Krauss' schlock philosophy and physics which I discussed in <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2014/09/heideggerian-nonsense-redux-nonsense-is.html">Heideggerian Nonsense Redux</a>. For those with a scientific background and mathematical skills, stay tuned.
Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-65449123019781999812014-10-24T16:20:00.000-07:002014-10-24T16:20:19.700-07:00More on TAGA correspondent has asked, "Is 'logic' a premise of TAG (The Transcendental Argument for God)?"<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a><br />
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This question underscores the typical unbeliever's inability to grasp the issues in the debate between totally antithetical worldviews. It also suggests a general unfamiliarity with transcendental argumentation -- as it construes TAG as a deductive argument, and it seems to lapse into a standard "deductivist" view of proof, so prevalent among many unbelievers.<br />
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First, TAG is not formally a deductive argument. Deductive arguments necessarily <i>presuppose</i> logic. Without logic, deductive arguments could not even get off the ground. So, the answer is, no, logic <i>per se</i> is not a premise of TAG.<a href="#2" name="top2"><sup>2</sup></a> In the presuppositional defense of Christianity, we do not presuppose a merely abstract and <i>autonomous logic</i>, nor do we posit it as a premise of a deductive argument leading to a conclusion of a God of indeterminate character or an abstract "God of the philosophers."<br />
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Second, when it comes to the issues of the existence of logic, abstract objects, and conceptual reasoning, in general, the point of TAG is that the godless reality of atheism, <i>on the basis of its own metaphysical presuppositions</i>, cannot account for their existence. For instance, the existence of logic and material monism are contradictory. Laws of matter and the ultimacy of chance do not produce mentally free, conscious beings who are capable of abstract thought. Materialism cannot account for the existence of immaterial abstract entities of any type (be it logic, mathematics, or moral laws).<a href="#3" name="top3"><sup>3</sup></a> <b><i>The existence of logic, then, is a problem, and failure, of the atheist worldview.</i></b> As I have written before, atheists cannot give a "reason for reason." As such, atheists have no metaphysical ground for their presupposition of logic. Atheists, being "epistemological loafers" as Van Til put it, will not acknowledge this. Even in the face of continued prodding, they continue to use a merely assumed autonomous logic and reason, that is, just "take it for granted." But that is question begging and an intellectually empty response. Yet, on the other hand, they will assert that man and his mind was produced by (and thereby, still ruled by) ultimately random material processes. Atheism -- by asserting the autonomy of man (and thereby, the ultimacy of the human mind) along with the ultimately chance nature of temporal facts -- is self-contradictory. Atheism provides no grounds for any of its beliefs (articles of faith, as it were); it can only be adhered to by a willful intellectual blindness.<br />
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The positive <i>presupposition</i> of TAG is the existence of the Triune God of Christianity who has revealed Himself in the Bible, in nature, and within man himself. God is the metaphysical ground from which all human experience is intelligible. Logic (and other abstract objects) is not a problem for the Christian theist. Behind man's reasoning is the mind of God.<br />
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To reiterate the point: logic is a problem for atheists and agnostics; it is no problem for the Christian theist.<br />
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In response to the correspondent's question, I pointed out the following as an example of presuppositions: The laws of logic are laws of rational <i>thought</i>; as such logic<i> presupposes</i> a <i>thinking <b>mind</b></i>. In Christian theism, that ultimate mind is the mind of the eternal and personal God. Though this may be wrongly interpreted as if it were a deductive argument, it is not. It is an illustration of a presupposition that underlies and is the metaphysical ground of human logic.<br />
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The correspondent responded with the question, "Why can't that mind be mine?" Indeed,<b><i> that</i></b> is the question <i>for him</i> to answer based on a presumed godless reality! Many questions come to mind. For example, where or from what did his mind originate? Did immaterial minds irrationally spring forth <i>de novo</i> from matter in motion (If indeed there be minds as opposed to mere physically determined material brains)? Was there a first mind? Or, is there an infinite past of finite individual minds begetting new minds, (coming into being at birth, then vanishing into nothingness at death)? Is his mind ultimate? If not, what produced his mind? Is his mind free from physical determination (i.e., does he have rational freedom and volition)? How many unrelated (material and perhaps non-material) causal principles does the unbeliever invent to account for the existence of minds? Are those causal properties, along with matter and minds, of which they are properties, eternal, uncreated, ultimate constituents of reality? In addition, for a materialist the question is (a) how all the biochemistry going on in every human skull (different processes in different locations) gives rise to objective non-material abstractions, such as logic, or, if not a materialist, (b) from whence all these contingent minds emerged equipped with innate and invariant logic. Those are just a few problems for starters.<br />
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Again, the question remains for atheists and agnostics to answer on the foundation of their metaphysical presuppositions. Answers that millennia of atheist philosophies have failed to supply.</br></br> I've already given the Christian answer: Mind is not his alone. The ultimate mind is the mind of the eternal God of Christian theism.
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<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>The historical connection of logic to TAG stems from Greg Bahnsen's use of the presuppositional apologetic in his debate with atheist Gordon Stein where Stein couldn't support the existence of, or use and reliability of, logic on the basis of his materialism. This was a defining moment for public awareness of presuppositionalism. In a way, it is a bit unfortunate that the debate paved the way for some, including Christians, to think that the existence of logic is the only or main element of TAG (thereby focusing attention mainly on logic in conjunction with TAG). But such is not the case. TAGs challenge to unbelief is that it cannot make sense (on its own presuppositions) of <i>any fact</i> of human experience. Thus, one can start with logic, or language, or mathematics or moral laws (among others) to expose the unbeliever's internal contradictions and refute the unbeliever's worldview or total view of reality.
<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br /><br />
<a href="#2" name="2"><b>2 </b></a>What is at issue in the debate between Christians and unbelievers is not merely "logic," but the conception of logic that each participant in the debate holds. Logical reasoning is necessary -- for both parties -- in the encounter of belief with unbelief. When we reason with unbelievers we, of course, employ our God-given capacity for logical thinking. The unbeliever will likewise employ logic in the debate while all along denying God. However, the unbeliever typically does not question his capacity to reason, nor ask what is the metaphysical ground of the human ability to think and reason according to abstract laws of logic. The "logic" to which the unbeliever appeals (and which is his ultimate authority) is an autonomous "logic" that exists in a void. So an appeal to a common conception of "logic" is illusory. The totally antithetical conceptions of logic (among a host of other things) are at the core of the debate.
Van Til addresses this issue:
<blockquote>"It appears then that if there is to be any intelligible encounter between the Christian and the non-Christian, it must be in terms of the two mutually exclusive visions that each entertains. To appeal to the law of contradiction and/or to facts or to a combination of these apart from the relation that these sustain to the totality-vision of either, the believer or the unbeliever, is to beat the air. <b>It is well to say that he who would reason must presuppose the validity of the laws of logic. But if we say nothing more basic than this, then we are still beating the air.</b> The ultimate question deals with the foundation of the validity of the laws of logic. We have not reached bottom until we have seen that every logical activity in which any man engages is in the service of his totality-vision." (Emph. added) Cornelius Van Til, The Case for Calvinism. The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Philadelphia, 1964. (Quoted from The Works of Cornelius Van Til, Logos Digital Edition).</blockquote>
As to the question of logic in the debate between totally antithetical worldviews Bahnsen writes:
<blockquote>"The antithesis (in principle) between the philosophical systems of unbelievers and the philosophical system of believers is so broad and basic that it even affects the way they deal with central philosophical notions like logic, possibility, and objectivity (to mention but a few). This observation should not be misunderstood. The presuppositionalist does not say that Christians and non-Christians inevitably accept and operate with completely different, specific laws of logic in their practical exercises of reasoning. Yet they do clearly disagree with each other concerning the nature, source, and authority of the laws of logic. Both worldviews may endorse and utilize the disjunctive syllogism or De Morgan's theorems, but when we inquire into what they are talking about, the evidence that is appropriate or persuasive for their claims (about syllogisms, theorems, etc.), or the necessity of the truths about logic, we get radically different answers -- which almost always betray differing convictions regarding metaphysics." (Greg Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis, The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Philadelphia, 1998. p. 280)<a href="#top2"><sup>↩</sup></a></blockquote><br />
<a href="#3" name="3"><b>3 </b></a>It is true that there are some atheists who are not material monists -- but they are few and far between. There are idealistic monists (mind is the fundamental stuff of reality) and there are others usually referred to as "pluralists" who believe in a plurality of co-ultimate things (Roger Penrose, for example). But, in the case of the pluralists, merely asserting the existence of minds and a plurality of immaterial "platonic" entities with no coherent unity among them is question begging and provides no intelligible ground for human knowledge. In addition to being no answer to the problem of the one and the many, no atheist has given the account of what bridges the gap between the particulars of the atheist's material world with its basic chance characteristics and their eternal unchanging realm of universal "platonic" entities. As mentioned above, the existence of human minds in this worldview is also a major problem -- especially on the macro evolutionary account that human minds are no more than material brains assembled by (and thereby still controlled by) random physical processes. The dual atheist principles of human autonomy and the ultimacy of chance are contradictory. </br></br>The many problems of a platonistic conception of reality are well known, which explains why few advocate it, and won't be dealt with here. As to the idealists, which were more in vogue during Van Til's time, Van Til's writings, in particular <i>A Survey of Christian Epistemology</i>, provide a wealth of information on the internal contradictions of the idealists.
<a href="#top3"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
</span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-27293837424927024682014-09-25T14:33:00.002-07:002023-06-14T10:17:28.314-07:00Heideggerian Nonsense Redux: Nonsense is still nonsense and nothing still yields nothing.I received a reply to this <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2013/08/heideggerian-nonsense-asking-wrong.html">prior post</a> which began by providing this link to the Wikipedia page on Krauss' book <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Universe_from_Nothing" target="_blank">A Universe from Nothing</a> -- whose title itself is philosophical sophistry. The writer supplied this without analysis to my discussion of Heidegger's question. Unfortunately, there are some (Richard Dawkins, for one<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a>) who believe Krauss has <i>something</i> relevant to say to that question. As we will see, Krauss has <i>nothing</i> to say about that question. As discussed below, Krauss is both a philosophical charlatan and also, on occasion, exhibits incompetence in his physics descriptions . Krauss' book is rather old news, and I suspect my interlocutor probably did not "drill down to" David Albert's devastating critique of the book: <a href="https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2012/03/on-the-origin-of-everything.html" target="_blank">On the Origin of Everything.</a>
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In any event, Krauss' book certainly adds <i>nothing</i> to the philosophical discussion of Heidegger's nonsense.<br />
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As it turns out, even Krauss is not so dim as to believe that something comes from absolutely nothing -- even though he promotes this idea in cloaked words, as if that were the case (so much so that Richard Dawkins foolishly takes the bait). Krauss, in his lecture <a href="https://youtu.be/7ImvlS8PLIo?t=19m36s">here</a>, remarks (my punctuation added): "By 'nothing' I don't mean nothing I mean 'nothing' " Exactly so. (Of course, putting scare quotes in the title would not be as sensational.) The quantum vacuum of quantum field theory (QFT) is called the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum">particle vacuum</a></i>: it is the <b><i>ground state</i></b> of the fields (and that is <i>something</i>) in which no particles are detectable. The Wikipedia entry states: "[I]t is a mistake to think of any physical vacuum as some absolutely empty void." David Albert has remarked on this in his review of "A Universe from Nothing" (supra). I have made similar analysis on Hawking here: <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2010/09/hawkings-grand-design-new-sub-platonic.html" target="_blank">Hawking's "The Grand Design" -- a new sub-Platonic Cosmogony for Itching Ears</a> and here: <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-on-hawkings-grand-design-and.html" target="_blank">More on Hawking's Grand Design. </a><br />
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To summarize: In quantum field theory, the fields are everywhere, particles are not. One can have fields with no particles, but not particles without the fields. The fields are fundamental; they are the matrix of the particles. Particles are the quantized manifestation of excitations of the field -- i.e. discrete vibrations of the field.<br />
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It bears repeating. The main point is that in all physical theories, the material is presupposed by atheists as eternally existent -- there is no explanation for their existence. The quantum fields are merely posited as uncreated and eternal. Krauss should have titled his book: <i>A Universe from "Nothing"</i> -- but the scare quotes would be less sensational and no doubt "scare off" some potential book buyers. As titled, it is a marketing hook that certainly aids in attracting the naively gullible atheists, of which, Richard Dawkins is one. Richard Dawkins interprets Krauss' "nothing" to be <i>literally nothing</i> but yet a sophisticated <i>something</i> (!) (as we see in this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v34QjYPuiEA">humorous video</a> in which Dawkins earns his dunce's cap. "The fool has said in his heart there is no God").<br />
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In closing, I point out that Krauss believes his mythology so deeply that it even seduces him into loose statements in his lectures. <a href="https://youtu.be/7ImvlS8PLIo?t=21m28s">Here</a> is an example from the video above at time 21:28 where he displays a simulation of his so-called "empty" space between quarks. He says the simulation shows the <i>fields</i> "popping in and out of existence." It shows no such thing. As presented (by what it "shows" and what it omits) the simulation is an example of atheist propaganda. (If that simulation shows fields popping in out of existence, then <a href="http://youtu.be/VoQr4CBZsYc" target="_blank">this video</a> shows a drum head popping in and out of existence! Absurdity!) There is another remark around 18:00 where he describes this "empty" space as that which you get if you remove "<i>absolutely</i> <i>everything" -- </i>well, Krauss' subsequent discussion contradicts that. The <i>quantum fields</i> are still there; so much, for "<i>absolutely</i> everything." Krauss is<i> absolutely wrong</i>.<br />
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Krauss should know better. <b>The quantum fields <i>do not</i> pop in and out of existence</b>. The fields exist eternally (in the atheist's philosophy) and everywhere. The amplitude of the fields (like the displacement of the vibrating strings on a violin or the membrane of a drum head) vary with time and position according to the relativistic wave equations, but that does not mean the fields are popping in and out of existence (anymore than the node on a violin string means the string has popped out of existence at the node). Krauss has made the embarrassing mistake of blurring objects and attributes of objects. One should also consider the simulation itself. In describing the fields between the quarks, the simulation has program variables that hold the values of the fields at each instant and at each spatial point between the quarks -- those values can be zero at some points and times while the simulation is running. But that does not mean the variables (and the fields they describe) in the program cease to exist!<a href="#2" name="top2"><sup>2</sup></a>
Those variables are programmed to obey a numerical representation of the relativistic field equations. Well to be fair, if you observe Krauss' chartmanship you will have noted that the slide title is "Empty space not empty." That is loose (and self contradictory as written), but fits his atheist talking point. The slide should read: "Empty" Space is not Empty -- or, better: Space is not empty. <br />
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Finally, Krauss is wrong on so many levels when he talks about "empty" space. Consider: the four-dimensional space-time itself is something (even if it is a four-dimensional slice of a higher-dimensional "bulk" as in string theory -- the bulk, too, is something). The four-dimensional space is described by the metric (gravitational) field of general relativity. This field itself has the properties of distinguishing between the three spatial dimensions and time. It also mysteriously, and without explanation, encodes the value of the fundamental speed of light! Finally, we should mention that the omnipresent <a href="http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_field" target="_blank">Higgs field</a> is also in Krauss' so-called "empty" space. From the Wikipedia <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The Higgs Field is an invisible energy field that exists <b>everywhere</b> in the universe" (emph. added).</blockquote>
So then, Krauss' "empty" space is most certainly something filled with a <i>plurality</i> of more unexplained eternal things interacting via equally mysterious "quantum interaction vertices." Krauss has swept a lot of mystery dirt underneath his atheist rug called "nothing." Unfortunately, Krauss' atheist philosophy is the stuff that passes as "science" and that permeates the writings of many of the current crop of pop celebrity atheist scientists; and fervently believed by many of the gullible public.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools... Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator." (Romans 1:22,25)</blockquote>
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<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>Richard Dawkins mistakenly states that Krauss has answered the <i>theologian's</i> "trump card": "Why something rather than nothing?" But no competent Christian apologist raises that question. Certainly no presuppositionalist would ask that question. That question, as stated, is nonsense.<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a> <br />
<a href="#2" name="2"><b>2 </b></a>One should consider: If <i><b>absolutely everything</b></i> was removed between the quarks, as Krauss remarked, then there would be <i>nothing</i> for the program variables to simulate. There would be no need for a program, period!<a href="#top2"><sup>↩</sup></a>
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</span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-19947208245929101782014-08-26T21:35:00.001-07:002014-09-07T10:55:21.347-07:00They Don't Know What They Are Talking About!In presuppositional apologetics, we show that the presuppositions, or the fundamental beliefs, of all who reject Christian theism are riddled with self-contradictions. Their metaphysical assumptions ("view of what exists and is real") provide no coherent foundation for their epistemology ("how they know") and ethics ("how they should live their lives"); and, considered jointly, their metaphysics, epistemology and ethics are mutually incoherent. This is a fact that most unbelievers do not confront, as they refuse to engage in self-reflection and critical examination of their beliefs. Even when confronted with these contradictions, unbelievers, unless convicted of their sin by the Spirit of God, will continue to irrationally hold to their self-styled "rational" unbelief, rather than turning to the only rational position, Christian theism. <br />
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For instance, unbelievers -- on the basis of the presupposed properties of a godless universe -- cannot give coherent accounts of their "knowledge," in general, or of their moral judgments.<br />
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In particular, when it comes to morals, the unbeliever has no basis whatsoever for making moral pronouncements. This follows directly from the typical <i>belief</i> of the so-called "scientific" worldview that only science yields knowledge. This viewpoint is called <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism">scientism</a></i>. In that epistemology (based on the so-called "logical-empirical approach"), only things that are empirical or can be logically deduced are known<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a>. Ipso facto, that belief excludes moral knowledge.<br />
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First, moral laws are not perceived via the senses (empirically). One cannot see, touch, taste, hear or smell moral laws. Moral laws (like laws of logic) are immaterial, they are not natural. They are not discovered "in a test tube." Second, moral laws are not logical tautologies. Thus, by the atheist's espoused (and non-self attesting) epistemology, moral laws are inaccessible to human knowledge. Moral laws are unknowable and unknown. This reduces the atheist to absolute moral skepticism. <br />
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The result is that for the unbeliever, moral pronouncements are arbitrary and matters of subjective opinion. Moral laws are, then, just social constructions, whether by custom or legislation. In the case of legislation, they are established by power -- either a consensus of a majority in democracies (<i>political power</i> then determines the morality of the age) or by brute force in totalitarian regimes and dictatorships. There are American secular norms; there are Islamic fascist norms, communist norms, Nazi norms -- all of which, inter alia, are arbitrary. <br />
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So far, we are discussing the self-contradiction of those who believe in "morality;" albeit an unknowable, subjective, non-absolute code of conduct. Of course, this means there really is no morality in any sense; there is only legality as encoded in arbitrary legislation and conformity (or non-conformity) to changing social customs dictated by individual tastes. Today's "evil" may be tomorrow's "righteousness." This further means the unbeliever has no basis for making a "legal/moral" dichotomy or the claim that there are "unjust laws" ("That may be legal but it is morally suspect").<br />
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In addition, we should mention that those who espouse the epistemology of scientism typically hold to some form of materialism. In that case, not only are moral judgments unknown, but morals would not exist. Morality does not exist (or inhere) within the laws of physics. So metaphysically, there is no foundation for morals in a materialist universe. It has oft been correctly stated that one cannot argue from "what is the case" (mere descriptions of the natural state, which is all science ever does) to "what ought to be." There is no "ought" in the laws of physics. All that "is" follows solely from physical processes obeying inviolable physical laws. In the atheist universe, everything "does what comes naturally." No "wrong" ever occurs; "right" and "wrong" are not properties of matter.  Everything is merely matter in motion. [We should add that no mental freedom, volition, or rationality would occur either, as all "thoughts" and vocalization of such would also be the inviolable results of "what comes naturally."] The moral theory of the atheist is bankrupt, both metaphysically and epistemologically.<br />
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In conclusion, all of the above destroy the pretense of atheists and agnostics who claim to make "moral" pronouncements. When you hear a proponent of scientism make pronouncements on moral judgments, just remind him (that on his own terms): "You don't know what you are are talking about."<br />
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<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a> Of course, this presupposition of scientism is neither an empirical observation nor a logical tautology. It is, therefore, not a scientific statement and, thus, not an object of knowledge. It is self-refuting. <a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a>
</span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-63126635328023542392013-09-27T14:38:00.001-07:002015-07-29T16:37:59.375-07:00Douglas Wilson's Review of Thomas Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos"Wilson wrote: <br />
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-Conception/dp/0199919755/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378006610&sr=1-1&keywords=mind+and+cosmos">"Mind & Cosmos</a> is subtitled 'Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False.' When a book with this kind of subtitle comes out, written by a philosopher of Nagel’s caliber, and published by Oxford University Press, there should be no astonishment that it caused a stir. I wanted to note two very admirable traits of this book, and then engage at a couple of places where I think engagement could be profitable."</blockquote>
You can read Wilson's full review <a href="http://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/book-of-the-monthseptember.html#more-105170" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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I think I'll be adding this book to my reading list. The "<i>almost</i> certainly false" is rather amusing. Nagel raises the right question concerning the failure of materialism: inability to account for consciousness, cognitive capacities, values and morals. So, I'm curious to see what false "hope" he holds out for materialism -- but such qualification is typical of the skepticism of unbelieving professional philosophers (it certainly keeps the profession going, <i>for what that's worth</i>).<br />
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Perusing the "Search Inside" feature at Amazon, I noted that Nagel (p. 4,5) is leaning to "<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/" target="_blank">neutral monism</a>," a view posited by radical empiricist Ernst Mach. Neutral monism is, at heart, a mere terminological shift -- it is just another more complicated version of attributive monism. Some assert that neutral monism is the same as, or a very near kin of, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism" target="_blank">idealism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenalism" target="_blank">phenomenalism</a>, or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism" target="_blank">panpsychism</a>. In any case, none of these can account for actual values and absolute morals (let alone unity/diversity, universals/particulars, individuals, space and time, among many others).<br />
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I plan to write on this version of "monism" in a future post.
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Update:
The promised follow-up can be found <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2015/07/mind-cosmos-nagels-unprincipled.html">here</a>.Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-17202006328351134772013-09-25T11:58:00.000-07:002013-09-25T12:02:29.060-07:00Van Til on the Antithesis of Christian and anti-Christian PhilosophyThe following excerpt from "My Credo" (in <i>Jerusalem and Athens</i>: Critical discussions on the theology and apologetics of Cornelius Van Til. 1971, E. R. Geehan, Ed. The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Nutley, NJ.) is Van Til's summary of the presuppositional apologetic. <br />
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Paragraphs B.4, C.4 and C.5 are a concise description of the approach of the transcendental argument. Paragraph B.4.a is the positive argument ("The God of Christian theism is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of all of human experience"). Paragraph B.4.b summarizes the negative argument (self destruction of anti-Christian philosophy, "Christian theism is true because of the impossibility of the contrary"). The outline also includes the summary of all anti-theistic philosophies: they presuppose the dialectic of "regularity" (necessity) and "chance" and the antithetical presupposition of human autonomy<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a>.<br />
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"B. My understanding of the relationship between Christian and
non-Christian, philosophically speaking.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. Both have presuppositions about the nature of reality:</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
a. The Christian presupposes the triune God and his redemptive plan
for the universe as set forth once for all in Scripture.<br />
b. The non-Christian presupposes a dialectic between “chance” and
“regularity,” the former accounting for the origin of matter and
life, the latter accounting for the current success of the
scientific enterprise.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
2. Neither can, as finite beings, by means of logic as such, say
what reality must be or cannot be.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
a. The Christian, therefore, attempts to understand his world
through the observation and logical ordering of facts in
self-conscious subjection to the plan of the self-attesting Christ
of Scripture. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
b. The non-Christian, while attempting an enterprise
similar to the Christian’s, attempts nevertheless to use “logic” to
destroy the Christian position. On the one hand, appealing to the
non-rationality of “matter,” he says that the chance-character of
“facts” is conclusive evidence against the Christian position. Then,
on the other hand, he maintains like Parmenides that the Christian
story cannot possibly be true. Man must be autonomous, “logic” must
be legislative as to the field of “possibility” and possibility must
be above God.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
3. Both claim that their position is “in accordance with the facts.”<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
a. The Christian claims this because he interprets the facts and his
experience in the light of the revelation of the self-attesting
Christ in Scripture. Both the uniformity and the diversity of facts
have at their foundation the all-embracing plan of God.<br />
b. The non-Christian claims this because he interprets the facts and
his experience in the light of the autonomy of human personality,
the ultimate “givenness” of the world and the amenability of matter
to mind. There can be no fact that denies man’s autonomy or attests
to the world’s and man’s divine origin.</blockquote>
4. Both claim that their position is “rational.”<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
a. The Christian does so by claiming not only that his position is
self-consistent but that he can explain both the seemingly
“inexplicable” amenability of fact to logic and the necessity and
usefulness of rationality itself in terms of Scripture.<br />
b. The non-Christian may or may not make this same claim. If he
does, the Christian maintains that he cannot make it good. If the
non-Christian attempts to account for the amenability of fact to
logic in terms of the ultimate rationality of the cosmos, then he
will be crippled when it comes to explaining the “evolution” of men
and things. If he attempts to do so in terms of pure “chance” and
ultimate “irrationality” as being the well out of which both
rational man and a rationally amenable world sprang, then we shall
point out that such an explanation is in fact no explanation at all
and that it destroys predication.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
C. My proposal, therefore, for a consistently Christian methodology
of apologetics is this:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. That we use the same principle in
apologetics that we use in theology: the self-attesting,
self-explanatory Christ of Scripture<br />
2. That we no longer make an appeal to “common notions” which
Christian and non-Christian agree on, but to the “common ground”
which they actually have because man and his world are what
Scripture says they are.<br />
3. That we appeal to man as man, God’s image. We do so only if we
set the non-Christian principle of the rational autonomy of man
against the Christian principle of the dependence of man’s knowledge
on God’s knowledge as revealed in the person and by the Spirit of
Christ.<br />
4. That we claim, therefore, that Christianity alone is reasonable
for men to hold. It is wholly irrational to hold any other position
than that of Christianity. Christianity alone does not slay reason
on the altar of “chance.”<br />
5. That we argue, therefore, by “presupposition.” The Christian, as
did Tertullian, must contest the very principles of his opponent’s
position. The only “proof” of the Christian position is that unless
its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of “proving”
anything at all. The actual state of affairs as preached by
Christianity is the necessary foundation of “proof” itself.<br />
6. That we preach with the understanding that the acceptance of the
Christ of Scripture by sinners who, being alienated from God, seek
to flee his face, comes about when the Holy Spirit, in the presence
of inescapably clear evidence, opens their eyes so that they see
things as they truly are.<br />
7. That we present the message and evidence for the Christian
position as clearly as possible, knowing that because man is what
the Christian says he is, the non-Christian will be able to
understand in an intellectual sense the issues involved. In so
doing, we shall, to a large extent, be telling him what he “already
knows” but seeks to suppress. This “reminding” process provides a
fertile ground for the Holy Spirit, who in sovereign grace may grant
the non-Christian repentance so that he may know him who is life
eternal."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<hr width="80%" />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">
<a href="#1" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>The atheist "robots," such as Rosenberg, Provine and Harris, deny human autonomy but inconsistently claim rationality and possession of "truth." In other words, they assert that it is true that they are devoid of free agency (i.e. "robots." cf. <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2011/07/invasion-of-atheist-robots-part-ii.html">Invasion of the Atheist Robots</a>) yet claim this conclusion is rationally and logically derived.<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a>
</span>Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-30005269057944858832013-09-16T21:41:00.000-07:002013-09-24T16:33:34.520-07:00The Apologetic Situation: Claims to Knowledge<br />
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
In an apologetic
debate, the situation is not that both unbeliever and
believer have shared epistemological standards, and that we
are just to argue from supposed brute facts to a "best" or
"probable" conclusion concerning the existence of God. But,
sadly, this is the typical approach used by Christian
evidentialists in their approach to apologetics. In so
arguing, they have adopted the unbeliever's non-self-verifying standards and have adopted an antitheistic
presupposition. They have reduced themselves to the
skeptical position of the unbeliever in which there is no
certain knowledge of anything.<br />
<br />
To be sure, there is a purely formal agreement between
belief and unbelief regarding deduction, induction, and the
scientific method -- but the similarity ends there. The
disagreement is over the nature, source, and authority of
these. <i>The unbeliever has no justification for his
principles of deduction or induction or why the scientific
method works</i>. They are all merely <i>assumed </i>in
his worldview. They are also epistemological
presuppositions that do not comport with his espoused
metaphysics (e.g., how immaterial, abstract, unchanging laws of
thought arise out of ever-changing material in flux.). The
unbeliever can provide no <i>reason for reason</i>.<br />
<br />
For instance, the unbeliever must assume the future will be
like the past (uniformity of nature) in order for induction
to proceed, but he has no proof of such. It is not a
necessary truth, it cannot be deduced or demonstrated.
Induction itself cannot be invoked to support induction.
It is a circular argument. <i>Past</i> and <i>present</i> evidence provides no basis for
extrapolation to the<i> future</i>. The only appeal is "so far, so
good." It is a <i>faith</i>
commitment. Hume's skeptical argument regarding induction
remains unanswered. Further, the unbeliever cannot even
assign a probability to the uniformity of nature. That
would require him to know everything -- to have been
everywhere for all time -- to be God.<br />
<br />
The same problem exists with causation. Causation (continued
necessary conjunction of causes and effects) itself assumes
the uniformity of nature. This is a <i>faith</i>
commitment. Unbelievers of a superficial scientific bent
(which is the majority of unbelievers in this modern age of
technology) have repeatedly said things of the sort: <i>nature
appears to be orderly, let's assume it's so.</i> <br />
<br />
Let's not. As Christians we do not. To assume this <i>in
vacuo</i> is to assume the atheist presupposition that the
material universe is the totality of reality --
self-existent with eternal inherent properties. This is the
atheist's circular (and self-contradictory) faith
commitment. The morally culpable unbeliever worships the
creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). But, the
universe is not the totality of reality, it is not
self-existent, and the idea of eternal physical matter is
self-contradictory. <br />
<br />
According to modern physics, the world is not quite as
orderly as the scientifically naive say. The modern view of
naturalistic science is that reality is a combination of
both law (supposed invariant properties of matter) and
lawlessness (irreducible and unknowable chance, i.e.,
metaphysical irrationalism). On this basis, the claim that
nature is uniform is completely undermined since what occurs
is, in fact, given by ultimate lawlessness (lack of
causality) filtered through inexplicable law-like patterns
(properties of matter). Some even assert that the laws
themselves are also "flukes" and not necessarily invariant
(e.g., John A. Wheeler's remark: "The only law is the law
that there is no law," quoted in James Gleick, <i>Genius:
the Life and Science of Richard Feynman</i> (1993),
p.93). The unbeliever doesn't even know if additional
undiscovered forces are "lurking in the unknown mysterious
universe," only to be triggered by some catastrophic <i>uncaused</i> random
event. In any case, the unbeliever, in the face of such,
is devoid of knowledge. He cannot even claim he has a
mind engaged in volitional reasoning. Whatever physical
processes are occurring in his physical brain are also
lawless random events filtered through a maze of patterns.
His brain is nothing more than a quantum mechanical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko" target="_blank">pachinko machine</a>, in which every "thought" is nothing more than random
effects -- the clatter of random motions of pachinko balls.
There is nothing in those random processes that can be
called a "mind" or the free exercise of "reason." There is
nothing in his brain that corresponds to a <i>self</i> that
is making arguments and logical choices. Yet, in the face
of such analysis, the unbeliever asserts his freedom (autonomy) and personality, and holds that rationality is
accounted for by the (nonexistent) mind of man -- not the
mind of God. The unbeliever then presumes to argue against
Christ by way of his (nonexistent in his worldview)
"autonomous reason." An incredible example was
Christopher Hitchens: "Nonetheless, here I am reasoning."
[Hitchens-Wilson interview Imus in the Morning.] It is in
the light of such evidence (atheists actually arguing
against Christianity) that Bahnsen remarks that "if
naturalism is true, the naturalist has no reason to believe
it" and that the atheist has already lost the debate by
showing up at the debate. That is: The unbeliever's
worldview is self-contradictory and his actions do not
comport with his metaphysical presuppositions.<br />
<br />
So then, the unbeliever cannot account for and neither does he<b><i> </i></b><i>know</i> these
things (induction, uniformity of nature), and since he has
no knowledge of them, anything derived from them is not <i>knowledge</i>.
Therefore, with no knowledge, there is no certain foundation
from which he can conduct a case to judge <i>any</i>
fact or prove <i>anything</i>. In short, nothing
in the unbeliever's worldview yields certain knowledge of
the external world. And with that goes the claim of
scientism: "only science yields knowledge." A claim that,
we have mentioned before, is itself not a scientific truth,
since it is neither deducible nor empirically observed. Thus, not being science, the claim declares itself to be not known.<br />
<br />
The Christian does have justification for each of the above
(deduction, induction, the uniformity of nature) in the
absolute transcendent God, the eternal Sovereign Creator of the
cosmos. <br />
<br />
God has created man in His image with volition and a mind
that has the capacity to think rationally according to the
abstract laws of thought ("logic"). These laws of logic as
constituted in man are a reflection of God's thoughts. <br />
<br />
The law of induction works because God is the author of
physical causation and the uniformity of nature, and
according to his unchanging character, He maintains the
creation; the laws he has created will be the same tomorrow
as they are today and were yesterday. Only on the
presupposition of the absolute personal God revealed in the
Bible can a scientist make the claim to knowledge. Only on
the basis of Christianity is there knowledge, and that
knowledge is rooted in the certain knowledge of God.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and
that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: <i>all
things were created by him</i>, and for him: And he is
before all things, <i>and by him all things consist</i>.
(Colossians 1:16-17)<br />
<br />
God... hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he
made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and
the express image of his person, <i>and upholding all
things by the word of his power</i>, when he had by
himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on high; (Hebrews 1:1-3)<br />
<br />
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with
God. 3<i> All things were made by him; and without him was
not any thing made that was made</i>. (John 1:1-3)</blockquote>
So then, the unbeliever, in sinful rebellion, takes himself as the final authority
and presumes to explain reality by means of his own <i>
merely assumed </i>and inexplicable non-self-verifying
principles. He rejects God's revelation surrounding him
and within him by his assumed incoherent philosophy of
necessity, chance, and his own autonomy. As his own final
authority, he asserts his freedom and personality. He presumes to interpret himself, his existence
(as uncreated by God), and the facts of a godless and impersonal random
universe (of which he, too, is just a random fact). He falsely takes himself as an innocent truth seeker and in no need of a Redeemer.
Christians believe none of that. Our final authority is the
self-attesting and self-authorizing absolute God who is the Creator
of man and the cosmos; it is in terms of God's revelation in
the Bible and in nature that we interpret ourselves and the
cosmos. From that we have the assured basis of true knowledge, human
reason, deduction, induction, and the scientific method. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-4057734979219292802013-08-21T10:13:00.000-07:002013-08-30T22:28:15.087-07:00The Atheist’s Guide to Reality. The self-destruction of material monism.<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
A few weeks ago, I was contemplating why there are no atheist
works on "systematic atheology" (at least I was unaware of any.) After all, there are many
Christian works on systematic theology that lay out the basis
and scope of Christian beliefs. My interest in such a "systematic
atheology" was that, should such a work appear, the self-contradictory nature of
atheism would be laid bare -- straight from the horse's mouth.
<br />
<br />
As it turns out, there has been an attempt, of sorts, in <i>The Atheist's
Guide to Reality </i>by Alex Rosenberg. The book lays out the hard-line implications of his particular denomination of
atheism: material monism (matter is all there is) with scientism as his epistemological article of faith.
Many of the absurdities of atheism are exposed to the light of
day. (And there is a final absurdity that Rosenberg says
implicitly, but does not utter, which we will examine
below.) Some of the conclusions that follow from material monism
(" a godless material reality" in which the only causation is physical causation) and which Dr. Rosenberg fully embraces are: <br />
<ul>
<li>
The only kind of 'mind' is a brain.</li>
<li>There is no 'free will.' We are all robots moving according to the physical properties of matter.</li>
<li>
There are no objective morals of any sort. Right, wrong, good and bad, they are all the same.</li>
</ul>
<br />
As Christians, we must say 'bravo' to Dr. Rosenberg! If <i>physics fixes everything</i> then the above conclusions would be true. His book
is a brilliant self-refutation of atheistic material monism<i> using its own presuppositions</i>. .
.and, thus, is TAG (Transcendental Argument for God) in brilliant display.<br />
<br />
Dr. Rosenberg takes us down the same path on the implications of
material monism that prominent presuppositional apologists Dr.
Cornelius Van Til, Dr. Greg Bahnsen, and others have marked out
before. As well, some similar analysis has been posted
in this blog.<br />
<br />
Dr. James N. Anderson writes in his review of this book: </div>
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Christian philosophers have been developing and
refining arguments for the existence of God since the earliest
times, but it’s not often one comes across a convinced atheist
making a powerful philosophical case for the existence of God.
Yet that’s precisely what we find—quite contrary to the
author’s intent—in Alex Rosenberg’s book <i>The Atheist’s
Guide to Reality</i>."</blockquote>
Anderson's <a href="http://www.proginosko.com/2013/08/the-atheists-guide-to-reality/" target="_blank">insightful review</a> can be read at his blog.<br />
<br />
I will add just a few observations. A central tenet of
presuppositional apologetics is that all non-Christian
philosophical systems of thought (worldviews) are contradictory and reduce to
absurdity, which Anderson discusses. The coup de grace delivered by presuppositional
apologetics is that non-Christian worldviews, when examined solely on the basis of their presuppositions, lead to the
destruction of truth and knowledge.</div>
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
<br />
Rosenberg's book promotes the conviction that only science
leads to truth ("scientism"). He preaches with fervor the
"truth" that <i><b>everythin</b></i><i><b>g</b></i> consists of
collections of fermions and bosons. This is a scientific "truth." Everything
that is, or happens, is the result of laws of physics (properties of matter). But then
he asserts, after many chapters:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Look, if I am going to get scientism into your
skull, I have to use the only tools we've got for moving
information from one head to another: noises, ink-marks,
pixels. Treat the illusion that goes with them like the optical
illusions in Chapter 7. <i>This book isn't conveying <b>statement</b><b>s</b></i>.
It's rearranging neural circuits, removing inaccurate
disinformation and replacing it with accurate information.
Treat it as correcting maps instead of erasing sentences." (p.
193. emph. added).</blockquote>
There are many falsehoods in that paragraph -- almost as many as there are words. (See Anderson's review, and his remarks on <i>intentionality</i> and <i>aboutness</i>.) But the
final epistemological suicide of material monism lies in these words:<i>
"This book isn't conveying <b>statement</b><b>s</b></i>."
And <i>that</i> is a really strange and fatal statement. Here's why: statements
(or propositions) are the <i>carriers of truth value</i>, which, from
the implications of material monism, his book does not contain.
. . a conclusion of material monism with which we wholeheartedly
agree.<br />
<br />
So then, Rosenberg has told us that his book <i>contains no
capacity to convey truth or knowledge</i> (and that applies, as
well, to: <i>"This book isn't conveying <b>statement</b><b>s.</b></i>").
This is futility and the destruction of knowledge. Nonetheless,
Rosenberg tells us that "scientism" yields "truth," when by his
own mouth he implies it doesn't. Rosenberg's false metaphysics (material monism) supplies no basis for Rosenberg's false epistemology (scientism).<br />
<br />
If material monism were true, then it would be false. It is, therefore, false.<br />
<br />
And that is the end of the <i>matter</i>.
</div>
</div>
Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-77875555087676416312013-08-10T15:18:00.000-07:002013-08-10T16:13:16.653-07:00Heideggerian Nonsense. Asking the Wrong Questions Revisited.In a discussion over the certain existence of the Christian God, an
<span class="st">interlocutor, </span><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">who admitted that his position had been poked full of holes (a refreshingly honest response),</span></span> attempted the diversion: "Rather than
asking about the existence of God, one should ask why there is
something rather than nothing." This is sheer desperation and atheism unadulterated.</span><br />
<span class="st"><span class="st"></span> <br />
That question is Heidegger's famous question (or pseudo-question).<br />
<br />
As Michael Inwood has written in his book <i>Heidegger: A Very
Short Introduction, </i>depending on whom you ask, </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="st"> </span><span class="st">"He [Heidegger] was (with the possible exception of Wittgenstein) the greatest
philosopher of the twentieth century. He was (with the possible
exception of Hegel) the greatest charlatan ever to claim the title of
'philosopher', a master of hollow verbiage masquerading as profundity."</span></blockquote>
<span class="st">To ask Heidegger's question (a <i>prejudicial</i> question that, in itself, presupposes a reality of pure contingency) is to deny it. To ask "why . . . rather than . . ." is to
ask for a causal agency, and such a causal agent is then itself
"something." The question is meaningless and self-contradictory,
pure and simple -- empty verbiage </span><span class="st"><span class="st">masquerading as profundity. </span>The
venerable maxim "Ex nihilo nihil fit"<a href="#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> has no
exceptions. Heidegger was a charlatan.<br />
<br />
So then: The issue is not that there is "something"; the issue is
the <i><b>nature</b></i> of that eternal and ultimate "something." Both sides in the debate have an ultimate. The ultimate
"something" of atheism </span><span class="st"><span class="st">of
the material monist </span><span class="st"><span class="st">variety
</span></span>is eternal impersonal matter</span><span class="st"> <a href="#2" name="top2"><sup>2</sup></a>. Material monism explains
nothing. This worldview of a "godless material universe" is self contradictory (e.g., eternal matter is
incoherent as discussed <a href="http://theophilus-defendingthefaith.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-impossible-hour-glass-and-other.html">here</a>), and further, it cannot account for
immaterial abstract entities such as logic, absolute morality, minds, human free agency, or
rationality. . .none of which can emerge from mere "matter in
motion."<br />
<br />
There are also the atheists of the pluralist sort, those who merely
posit a plurality of eternal, incoherent co-ultimates. This
incoherent reality is populated with such things as realms of
abstract logic and abstract moral laws, chance, matter, minds, space-time,
and a whole host of other <i>brute facts</i>. This is, essentially,
atheistic Platonism. This incoherent philosophy explains
nothing, as well as violates the principle of Ockham's razor,
of which most atheists are very fond -- unless it applies to
them. These Platonic brute-fact worlds of the pluralist interact
magically via Platonic mysteries! These are even more brute facts. This is a great deal of question begging. We will deal with this version of atheism in a future essay.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="st"><span class="st">All varieties of atheism contradict themselves and resort to
question-begging presuppositions and special pleading. They end in futility and destroy the possibility of knowledge. So then, we know God exists because of the impossibility of the contrary (transcendental argument or apagogical argument via internal critique). Since atheism, <b>on its own presuppositions and its epistemological "standard</b>,<b>"</b> is self-refuting, there is a God.<br />
<br />
In Christian theism, ultimate reality is the personal Triune God
who is the Creator and who sustains the universe. He is the
source of all life, morality, rationality and the whole of creation.
Again, it is ONLY Christian theism which is consistent and provides the foundations
for all of human experience.</span> </span><br />
<br />
<hr width="80%"><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
<a name="1"><b>1 </b></a>Out of Nothing Comes Nothing.<a href="#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a><br />
<a name="2"><b>2 </b></a>The term "monism" is actually a verbal ruse, which I
plan to address in a future blog post.<a href="#top2"><sup>↩</sup></a><br />
</span>
Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112751427804606457.post-69683712697601641862013-07-29T12:51:00.002-07:002017-03-14T20:52:50.423-07:00Varieties of Anti-theismIn the not too distant past, my favorite agnostic asserted strongly that
he was not an anti-theist. In the context of the discussion, I knew he
was talking of militant atheists, such as Dawkins, Hitchens, et al.,
and that he was not of their ilk.<br />
<br />
That definition of anti-theism is very narrow. My preference is to
refer to Dawkins as a "militant atheist," and reserve anti-theism for
any position or thought that stands in opposition ("anti") to theism.
That is how I have used the word in my essays.<br />
<br />
For a comprehensive survey of "anti-theism" refer to this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheism">wikipedia entry</a>, particularly the section titled, "Opposition to the idea of
God." There, the Chambers Dictionary defines anti-theism as: "1.
doctrine antagonistic to theism; 2. 'denial' of the existence of a God;
3. opposition to God."<br />
<br />
Within the broader definition of anti-theism in the first definition,
agnosticism and even some religious positions/postures are
anti-theistic.<br />
<br />
A particular case of the latter is the concession to the "myth of
neutrality" on the part of Christian "evidentialist" apologists who
debate atheists on the supposed "neutral" ground of "reason" in an attempt to "reason"
to a probable God. However, to debate in that way is to presuppose
that reason exists in a possibly godless reality -- that presupposition
is anti-theistic. By adopting the epistemological standards of the unbeliever, the evidentialist violates Prov. 26:4, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."<br />
<br />
Here is the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen's discussion of the "myth of neutrality":<br />
<br />
[Greg L. Bahnsen, <i>Van Til's Apologetic Readings and Analysis</i>, p. 146.] <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"... the epistemological disagreements between believers and
unbelievers [can] not be resolved in a neutral fashion, as though the
issue of God's existence and character ... [can] be treated as secondary
and thus temporarily set aside without any commitment one way or
another while abstract philosophical issues [are] debated and settled.
It is often, but vainly, imagined that once we come to agreement on our
epistemology, we can apply those epistemological standards to the
questions of whether God exists, whether miracles occur, whether the
Bible is true, etc. By contrast, Van Til taught that abstract
epistemological neutrality is an illusion and that, given the kind of
God revealed in the bible, imagined neutrality is actually prejudicial
against God. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If God exists and is as the Christian world view claims, then His
existence has an undeniable bearing on how we understand the process of
knowing, the standards of truth and evidence, ultimate authority, and
other crucial matters in epistemology.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"There is no pristine, religiously neutral, abstract 'reason' to
which all men first swear their allegiance, only then to turn to such
secondary matters as man's nature, moral character, relation to God,
destiny, etc. The kind of man who is doing the reasoning already
determines something about the way in which he thinks about reason and
engages in reasoning. Thus Van Til stated, 'It is impossible to speak of
the intellect per se, without taking into consideration whether it is
the intellect of a regenerated person or of a non-regenerated person.'</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Van Til simply called for honesty and realism here. The
metaphysical situation and object of knowledge (e.g., God's existence,
the relation of created things to Him), as well as the
psychological/moral situation and the subject of knowledge (i.e., man as
a knower, someone using reasoning ability), cannot be ignored as we
develop our views of knowing. 'Reason' is simply an intellectual tool,
rather than an ultimate standard of knowledge (more authoritative even
than God), and as such will be affected by the regenerate or
unregenerate condition of the man using it. A person's epistemological
behavior and commitments are ethical in character. According to Van Til,
one's theory of knowledge is not neutral, but subject to moral
assessment in terms of the ultimate authority to which one submits and
which one attempts to honor." </blockquote>
<br />Theophilushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09991200228317236782noreply@blogger.com