Sunday, April 17, 2016

Craig: No Explanation Needed


There has been much discussion lately about the need to bring a measure of sophistication to the table when discussing philosophical issues.  I get it.  It is annoying to hear creationists insist that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics.  This is sheer ignorance.  I have no doubt that trained philosophers feel the same way when they hear some of the things I say.  But there is a difference between scientific and philosophical ignorance.  Scientific facts are not matters of opinion, and are not matters of debate.  The creationist is not only ignorant about thermodynamics, but he is demonstrably, factually wrong.  Period.  On the other hand, someone who asks the question "Who made God?" may be philosophically ignorant, but he's not factually wrong.  The necessary being or the self-explanatory nature of God is not a demonstrable fact.  It's something that one can reasonably reject.  It is a matter of debate.

Many people think that Richard Dawkins asked "Who made God?" in response to the Cosmological Argument, and they heap scorn upon him for his philosophical ignorance .  Actually, Bertrand Russell asked that question in his essay Why I Am Not A Christian, while discussing the Cosmological Argument.  Russell is not usually regarded as being ignorant of philosophical matters.  But then, Bertrand Russell was not a "New Atheist".  He apparently believed it was reasonable for someone who doesn't accept theological assumptions about the nature of God to ask such a question.  When these charges of ignorance are leveled against someone like Dawkins, it seems to be under the assumption that he doesn't think the philosophers who formulated these arguments had ever considered questions like that before.  But why make such an assumption?  Why not be a little more charitable and assume that like Russell, Dawkins simply doesn't accept the answers (or non-answers) they give.  And so the question remains worth asking.

In The God Delusion, Dawkins actually raised the question of who made God in response to the Teleological Argument of Aquinas, who postulated that an intelligence is needed to explain complex order and purposeful functionality.  Dawkins reasons that if this postulation is true, then the designer would also require a designer.  If one accepts the idea that there must be an uncaused cause for the world, that still doesn't imply that it must be intelligent.  So this is a different issue from the Cosmological Argument.  The question posed by Dawkins is not about first cause, but in response to the postulation that only an intelligent designer can explain the existence of functional complexity.  If that's true, then it seems reasonable to ask "Who designed the designer?"

William Lane Craig is one of those sophisticated philosophers who has been vocal in his criticism of Dawkins.  But I have to give him credit in this case, anyway.  While most theists seem to think that Dawkins asked "Who made God?" in response to the Cosmological Argument, Craig at least correctly recognizes which theistic argument Dawkins was addressing, and he accords it a measure of legitimacy by responding.  But in my opinion, his response is exactly the kind of unsatisfying non-answer that justifies people like Dawkins or Russell continuing to ask "Who made God?"  Craig's reply to Dawkins is: The explanation (God as designer) doesn't require an explanation.

But sophisticated philosophy notwithstanding, this isn't a real answer. This is evading the question.  If you reason that all complex things are explained by an intelligent designer, but then say that the designer is exempt from the same reasoning, then your reasoning is not self-consistent.  It's called special pleading.  It is providing a special exemption to the rule that you say should apply to everything else. 

I'm sure most theists believe in the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which says that everything must have an explanation.  And now Craig is claiming that that's not true.  But Craig, in an effort to avoid the appearance of special pleading, tries to make the case that explanations are generally not required.  This is his specific claim: 
In order to recognize that an explanation is the best, you don't have to be able to explain the explanation.
And he backs it up by giving some examples, including this:
Suppose astronauts were to find on the backside of the moon a pile of machinery that had not been left there by American or Russian cosmonauts.  What would be the best explanation for that machinery?  Clearly it would be some sort of extraterrestrial intelligence that had left that machinery there, and you don't have to have an explanation of who these extraterrestrials were or how they got there ...
Really?  According to Craig, the discovery of alien artifacts on the moon would be explained by "some sort of extraterrestrial intelligence", and then everyone would be happy, and no further questions should be asked about who they are or where they come from.  Our philosophical explanation, "some sort of extraterrestrial intelligence", needs no further explanation, and it would be stupid for some philosophically ignorant scientist to ask "Where did they come from?"  Craig is conflating two very different things.  One is the idea that there is no possible explanation for what is postulated, and the other is that the explanation is unknown at present.

This is what passes for philosophically sophisticated logic in the land of the theistic delusion, but I don't buy it.  There is no explanation for the omniscience of God, and they know it.  Nor is there any good reason to think that such a thing is required to produce the world as we know it, given our scientific explanations of how complex order arises without the involvement of any intelligent designer.  The theist, having no solid basis for postulating God as the intelligent designer, is left with trying to discredit those who would dare to cast doubt on his reasoning.  There's an elephant in the room that he refuses to acknowledge.  It's called science.

26 comments:

  1. Skep, under which bush have you been hiding your erudition and your well-informed intellect all these years? I am so very pleased that you chose to create this site and to publicly publish your contributions. It is truly a welcoming breath of fresh air.

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    1. I think that may be overstated. Thank you for the kind sentiment.

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  2. the existence of God is not a demonstrable fact but the aseity of God (necessary being) is a priori the concept thus can[t be challenged as such, you can't say prove God is necessary anymore than you could say prove numbers are mathematical.

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    1. Joe,

      I didn't ask you to prov it. What I said is that one need not accept it. If the natural entity that spawns the universe (call it a "superverse") exists outside of space-time, which it must, then it is eternal, and needs no cause or explanation. Thus, the existence of God is absolutely unnecessary.

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    2. sure but in that case it's no different than questioning God's existence. That's is something with which I disagree but I would not call it stupid. I do call 'who created God" stupid.

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    3. It is questioning God's existence.

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  3. call it a "superverse"

    I prefer the term omniverse.

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  4. Graig's God reminds me of mathematical axioms, which cannot be proven but are assumed in order to get on with the job., e.g. x + y = y +x or y exp3 X y exp2= y exp5. [ y exp2 is y squared] I tried to superscript the numbers with a sup tag. God said: "Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed: SUP".

    After a millennia or two of settling down, math axioms have proved useful and consistent give predictable results. Can the same be said of Graig's, or anyone else's, God.

    Another point: Why does Craig think there was only one designer of everything, not two or more?

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    1. Google Blogger takes only a limited set of HTML tags. Sorry.

      Craig is a highly regarded Christian apologist. I'm still trying to figure out why.

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    2. There are two things to consider:

      1. What does Craig argue to show that there is one designer rather than multiple designers?
      2. Why does Craig actually believe that there is one designer rather than multiple designers?

      The answer to 2, probably, is that Craig was born in North America so his preference for monotheism over other types of theism was brought upon him through his surroundings.

      The answer to 1, probably, is that positing one entity is more simple than multiple, and monotheism is a better explanation for many phenomena than other theistic alternatives.

      I assume one of the various versions of Occam's razor would be used to defend monotheism over something like pantheism.

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    3. If you ask me, zero is simpler than one.

      It all comes down to the question of whether the world is actually designed. Arguments about fine-tuned universe are purely speculative, as well as question-begging. It's a lot like the intelligent design of biological structures. Any engineer will tell you that a designer strives for simplicity, not complexity. Why? Because there's less to go wrong. But the natural explanation makes a lot more sense. No designer required. All the flaws and imperfections are just accidental. Same for the world we live in. All those countless galaxies, with their black holes and cosmic radiation, almost entirely inhospitable to any kind of life - all that so that we humans can have a fleeting moment of life, only to become extinct, even as the universe goes on for many billions of years longer? What's the simpler explanation: someone designed all this, or it's just an accident? What designer would do that?

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    4. Unanswerable – by any honest person.

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    5. I think naturalism is the most simple explanation, and explains all the data much better than theism.

      However, Craig believes that the cause of the world must be an immaterial mind, so I'm saying he might say one immaterial mind is a better explanation than multiple immaterial minds since positing one is more simple than positing many.

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    6. Of course. It's the simplest explanation given the presumption that there's an immaterial mind at the bottom of it.

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    7. On the simplicity of naturalism, Graham Oppy said something like this: On the assumption that the universe exists, theists need to posit that there are supernatural things (God) and natural things (The universe). Naturalists only need to posit that there are natural things to account for the universe, so naturalism posits less kinds of things than theism making naturalism more simple than theism.

      I agree with him. Naturalism assumes less exists than theism does when we consider that the universe exists, so naturalism is more simple than theism.

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    8. This is what I have said before. Theists and naturalists alike agree that the physical world exists. Theists add to that a belief in the supernatural, with its gods, spirits, and everything else that is entailed by their belief system. Yet they insist that theirs is easier to accept, which is a logical absurdity.

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  5. Our philosophical explanation, "some sort of extraterrestrial intelligence", needs no further explanation, and it would be stupid for some philosophically ignorant scientist to ask "Where did they come from?" Craig is conflating two very different things. One is the idea that there is no possible explanation for what is postulated, and the other is that the explanation is unknown at present. Actually, that's not the worst of it; the worst is that his example includes actual evidence, whereas his 'GOD' example has none...

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  6. Our philosophical explanation, "some sort of extraterrestrial intelligence", needs no further explanation, and it would be stupid for some philosophically ignorant scientist to ask "Where did they come from?" Craig is conflating two very different things. One is the idea that there is no possible explanation for what is postulated, and the other is that the explanation is unknown at present. Actually, that's not the worst of it; the worst is that his example includes actual evidence, whereas his 'GOD' example has none...

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    1. Quite true. That's just one of many incongruities.

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  7. whereas his 'GOD' example has none...

    Huh? You don't consider the Resurrection accounts to be evidence? You may well discount them or believe they're outweighed by some other piece of evidence, but they're still evidence.

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    1. Edgestow,

      This argument is about evidence of design, not about Christianity. Nevertheless, the NT accounts about the life ans resurrection of Jesus are highly dubious, and not corroborated by any independent source. So while one could say those stories constitute evidence, one could not honestly say they constitute good evidence.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. It's Official: We Can Now Doubt Jesus's Historical Existence.

      As genuine scholarship continues to seriously question old assumptions in the light of new, improved and ever more rigorous investigative techniques, the apologists claims are slowly but ineluctably falling by the way.

      HERE Dr Carrier pretty much tells it as it is. The case for the historicity of jesus cannot even be inferred because whatever evidence that might be purported to support such a case is simply not there.

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    4. Good article.

      And Jerry Coyne weighs in on the issue. Looks like it's catching on.

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