Thomism and the Ultimate End

In a recent post, I discussed the discord between Thomistic metaphysics and a modern scientific understanding of natural reality.  That generated quite a lot of discussion, particularly from Thomists eager to defend their archaic understanding of nature in light of their theistic philosophy.  Thomists, of course, will deny that there is any discord at all.  But this comes at the cost of having to re-interpret their own philosophy to minimize or explain away those conflicts.  For example, they either have to strain to define Aristotle's four causes in a manner consistent with modern physics, or simply accept that those things are nothing more than a philosophical way of understanding causation that is unrelated to and has no bearing on actual physics.  Choosing the latter makes the four causes superfluous and irrelevant outside the context of philosophical discourse.  The former entails that traditional understandings of the their role must be changed to conform with new knowledge gained from science. 

Conflating Faith With Faith

Kyle Butt cautions Christians against using the standard dictionary definition of faith.  Christians, understandably, don't want to be seen as believing without sufficient evidence.  They love to tell themselves that their faith requires, and is justified by evidence that is overwhelming and irrefutable.  But the dictionary defines faith as belief without evidence, not because of some ideological motivation to subvert the true nature of faith, but because that is, after all, what we generally mean when we use the word.

More Logical Trickery

I recently came across this logical "proof" of the existence of God at Robert Oerter's blog, Somewhat Abnormal.

Consider the following sentence:

(S) If this sentence is true, then God exists.

Suppose sentence S is true. Then the first clause is satisfied, so the second clause is true. Thus, God exists.

What the preceding paragraph proves is that if sentence S is true, then God exists. But that is exactly what sentence S asserts. So that means we have proved that sentence S is true! And therefore God really does exist.

When I read it, it struck me as just the kind of thing that Christians would buy (note that Robert Oerter does not buy it).  It is a logical sleight of hand.  It tricks the reader into accepting its conclusion.  And that's the basis of many theistic proofs.  Let's examine exactly why this argument fails.

Misunderstanding Hume

David Hume is well-known as a materialist and empiricist.  It is inconceivable that he would think of physical objects as being products of the mind.  He viewed objects as being composed of their parts.  But if an object composed of parts is seen as an entity in its own right, that is a perception of the mind.

The WHOLE, you say, wants a cause. I answer, that the uniting of these parts into a whole, like the uniting of several distinct counties into one kingdom, or several distinct members into one body, is performed merely by an arbitrary act of mind, and has no influence on the nature of things. Did I show you the particular cause of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable, should you afterwards ask me, what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts. - Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

What does this mean?  Hume is saying that the mind has no influence on the things that are assembled into a group, but the mind perceives this assemblage as a whole object.  There need not be any explanation for the object beyond explaining the parts that constitute the whole.  He once famously said, "I am nothing but a bundle of perceptions".

How surprising, then, to see Victor Reppert use this passage as evidence for his supernatural view of mind.

Antony Flew - After the Conversion

In their snarky response to a blog post on Patheos by Bob Seidensticker (10 questions Christians must answer) that poses some issues worthy of consideration for theists, Manuel Alfonseca and Juan Carlos Nieto have posed some questions of their own for atheists in the Popular Science blog.  As I read their ten questions, it immediately became clear to me that these guys didn't take Seidenstricker's issues seriously.  Not only did they fail to answer any of his questions, but their response had an air of snarkiness and petulance that could be described as childish.  Most of their questions ended with something like, "Do you have scientific reasons to believe it, or do you believe it without reason? In other words, is it a dogma for you?".

I won't bother answering all their questions, mainly because I think they are too easily answered.  This is mostly due to the fact that these theists (like many theists) don't really understand what materialism entails or what materialists believe.  Instead, I would like to focus on one question in particular that they pose:

One of the most important atheist philosophers of the twentieth century (Antony Flew, 1923-2010) changed his mind in 2004 and published a book [5] explaining the reasons for his decision. Have you read Flew’s book, or  will you take care not to read it, so that your atheistic convictions won’t be in danger?

In answer to that, I will say that I hadn't previously read Flew's book, There is a God - How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, but I obtained a copy and read it.  It's a short book.  No, I wasn't afraid that it would endanger my "atheistic convictions".  I was genuinely interested in understanding Flew's reasons for coming to believe in God.  I was especially interested to know if there was some particular idea that he had or some new information that he came across that he found to be convincing.  Perhaps I too, would see why he found it so convincing.

Mourning the Death of America

I just arrived back home after traveling through the deep south for the past two weeks.  My posts have been sporadic during that time, but I hope to settle back into a more normal schedule in the next few days.

I wanted to comment on my observations on driving through rural countryside of Alabama and Mississippi.  The thing that struck me the most was the prevalence of religious symbols, everywhere you go, everywhere you look.  There were lots of churches, of course.  I think there were more churches than houses.  I saw at least a dozen of them along a single mile of road.  There were signs saying "Jesus loves you".  There were billboards, many of them advertising a church, but more often simply making a statement about the glory of God or the wages of sin.  Some asked me where I want to spend eternity, and some even provided me with a stark multiple-choice answer.  But never did they mention a possibility that some other reality might be true.

Establishment of Religion, Again

Kim Davis, the elected county clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, in defiance of court orders going all the way up to the US Supreme Court.  She has been jailed for contempt of court.

In her absence, several gay couples have received marriage licenses issued by her deputies, which Davis claims are null and void because they don't bear her signature.  When offered a chance to be released from confinement on the condition that she not interfere with the issuance of licenses, she refused.

Kim Davis calls herself a born-again Christian, and believes that marriage should be between one man and one woman.  She is currently in her fourth marriage.  If Davis' reasoning is correct, perhaps the clerk who issued her fourth marriage license should have refused, on the same grounds used by Davis.

Confusion Over Compatibilism and Determinism

In a recent post, I discussed the logical incoherency of libertarian free will.  Some of the commentary that followed included discussion of scientific findings that provide strong evidence for the deterministic nature of human decision-making.  Papalinton cited some articles that discuss neurological evidence of the illusory nature of libertarian free will.  Keith Rozumalski dismisses the neurological evidence and counters that many materialists are compatibilists, apparently without realizing that the neurological evidence for determinism is entirely consistent with compatibilism, which is, after all, a form of determinism.  Compatibilism is the philosophical position that despite the deterministic nature of our decision-making processes, we are still responsible for our own choices, as long as those choices are not coerced.

How to Respond to Theists' Three Easy Questions

Shadow To Light believes there is a simple way to defeat atheism by posing three simple questions that will send them packing with their tails between their legs.  His confidence is based on the idea that the atheist unreasonably demands evidence for what he believes, but has poor understanding of what constitutes evidence.

First of all, Greene is working with a shallow, superficial understanding of evidence. He seems to think that if certain data were indeed evidence for X, then these data would be universally perceived and acknowledged as evidence for X. But that is not how evidence works. Evidence is not objective reality that is detected by the senses; evidence is perceived by the mind. The mind converts data from objective reality into the subjective perception of evidence. Because the perception of evidence depends on interpretation from the mind, evidence itself is something that has a distinct subjective element to it. In fact, it would not be too far from the truth to note that evidence is in the eye of the beholder.

He has a point.  Skeptics should admit that there is plenty of evidence that theists use to support their belief.  But he's absolutely wrong that subjective evidence merits the same epistemological status as objective evidence.  Theists can point to plenty of poor evidence that only serves to reinforce their own belief, but when it comes to the kind of evidence that actually provides epistemological justification for belief, they have nothing.

The Big Problem With Thomism

Edward Feser, perhaps the greatest proponent of Thomistic philosophy today, dismisses modern science-based cosmological theories, such as those of  Lawrence Krauss, as being ignorant of the one true philosophical tradition:

The reason God is necessary and the material universe is not is that he is pure actuality while the material universe is composed of potentiality and actuality, and thus in need of something to actualize it; that he is absolutely simple while the material universe is composite, and thus in need of something to compose it; and that his essence just is subsistent existence itself whereas material things (and indeed anything other than God) have an essence distinct from their acts of existence, and thus stand in need of something to cause them.  No doubt some atheists will be inclined simply to scoff at the metaphysical ideas underlying such arguments.  But to scoff at an argument is not to produce a rational criticism of it.  And since the arguments in question are the chief arguments in the Western tradition of philosophical theology, to fail to produce a rational criticism would simply be to fail to show that atheism really is rationally superior to that tradition. - Feser

Feser is, of course, entitled to his opinion.  But he seems to be unaware of any alternative metaphysical view that would be consistent with a modern scientific understanding, or he simply rejects such views out of hand because they don't support his theistic beliefs.

I believe that Thomistic philosophy is riddled with logical inconsistencies, and is based on assumptions that are epistemologically unjustified.  Perhaps I will devote a future article to some of those problems.  But what I would like to focus on in this article are the metaphysical foundations of Thomism.