The Ground of Being

Have you ever heard the phrase "whispering sweet nothings"?  It usually applies to the utterances of someone who says things that sound pleasing but are insubstantial or meaningless, in an effort to flatter or woo his lover.  I have often heard descriptions of God that strike me as nothing more than starry-eyed adulation.  God isn't simply the finest example of every attribute the theist admires - love, goodness, wisdom, etc, etc, - he is identical to each of those attributes.  For example, he isn't merely the ultimate example of a loving person - God is love itself.  And he isn't just perfectly good at some particular endeavor such as morality - he is "essentially perfect", which means, I suppose, that in one fell swoop, the theist has granted God perfection in all endeavors.  He is the perfect provider, the perfect judge, disciplinarian, bowler - whatever you like - he's just the bestest and the mostest.

Understanding Cosmological Arguments

At the Secular Outpost, Ryan M posted a reasonable effort at summarizing some of the common mistakes made by non-experts in philosophy of religion.  For this discussion, I'd like to focus on the first of those mistakes.

Mistake 1 - [Failing to understand basic cosmological arguments]

- Many non-experts, presumably all atheists, interpret cosmological arguments in general as having the following form:

1. Everything has a cause.
2. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
3. If the universe has a cause then God exists.
4. Therefore, God exists.
5. If God exists, then God does not have a cause.
6. Therefore, God does not have a cause.

The obvious issue is premise 1. Where can we find a cosmological type argument with a premise like that? Not in Aquinas, not in Duns Scotus, not in Leibniz, not in Aristotle, not in Koons, not in Pruss, not in Craig. Probably, no prominent defender of theism has used such a premise, and it's hard to tell if anyone has used it other than people misinterpreting arguments made by one of the listed philosophers.

Why God Allows Pain

I have seen so many answers to the problem of evil (POE) or the problem of suffering in God's creation that I can't enumerate them.  One thing that seems clear from the very existence of all these theodicies is the fact that Christians recognize that they have a real problem that merits a serious answer, even if they try to minimize that problem or even deny that it exists.  But the simple fact that this problem has been addressed by many Christian philosophers, such as Plantinga, is an acknowledgment that it can't be overlooked.  The problem of evil is often cited as one of the most serious challenges to the logical coherency of Christian belief.

Why Philosophy of Religion Should End

Victor Reppert recently pointed out an argument for the existence of God that strikes me as nothing more than insipid.  It appears to be a variant of the Argument From Reason, which Victor himself has championed, and made the centerpiece of his career.  This variant is described as an Argument From the Laws of Logic, and it uses essentially the same fundamental reasoning the AFR uses.  It was published by James Anderson and Greg Welty with the title The Lord of Non-Contradiction: An Argument for God from Logic.  And like the AFR, it is based on unsubstantiated assumptions.  It may serve to rationalize a priori beliefs of the faithful, but from the perspective of a non-believer, it is utterly worthless as a rational argument.

Dawkins' Argument from Simplicity???

I was amazed to see this stunning post by Victor Reppert:

What Dawkins argues is that a real explanation explains that which is more complex in terms of that which is simpler. Explanations of anything in terms of God necessarily explains things in terms of that which is still more complex, and so such explanations are nonstarters, since they fail to explain the more complex in terms of the less complex.

The logic of this position is that evidence for God is impossible, for if there were evidence of God, it would provide us with an explanation of the more complex in terms of the less complex. But this is impossible by definition. The search for such evidence is doomed at the start. - Reppert

First, a little background.  Dawkins was commenting on the theistic teleological arguments for the existence of God.  These arguments generally state that the universe or things within it exhibit a complexity or functionality that couldn't possibly be achieved by any accident of nature, and therefore must be the result of an intelligent designer.  This kind of argument is supposedly empirically based.  If we observe that human designers create things that have complexity or functionality that nature doesn't produce on its own, we might then reason that there must be a God who has designed many of the things we see in our world, including human beings, who possess the most complex thing known to us - our brain, which is responsible for our own intelligence.

Hinman's Incoherency Problem

Joe Hinman has just published another example of his muddled theistic thinking.  The article, called Do God's Omniscience ,Omnipotance, and free will Contradict? purports to answer the problem often posed by atheists of how God's omni qualities can co-exist without contradiction.  The problem, as he states it, is this:

God is asserted to be all good, all loving, all knowing, all powerful, in possession of free will and having imparted free will to human beings as well as being eternal and uncaused as well as outside of space and time while acting in a time sequence of events within space and time.  Sorry, one simply cannot make rational sense to reconcile all these asserted properties. They contradict each other in various ways making the whole package incoherent by it's own theistic definitions. (highlight in original)

Joe castigates atheists for their shallow thinking on this subject.  But he fails to answer that question, and in the process, reveals his own shallow thinking.

Hinman's "Argument From God Corrolate [sic]"

After some discussion about the merits of Joe Hinman's use of empirical data to make claims that belief in God has scientific justification, Joe presented a succinct version of his argument for God belief based on empirical observation.  I'll review and critique his argument here.  This argument is a distillation of the material he presents in his book The Trace of God: a Rational Warrant for Belief.  I will not discuss the book, which I have yet to read.  I will limit my discussion to the argument as presented by Joe in this post.

Joe starts out from a very reasonable position, which is basically that if God interacts with the physical world in some way, then we should be able to observe the effects of that interaction.  If we can know that some observed evidence is the result of divine interaction with the world, then we can infer the existence of a divine being.  The pertinent question is:

How do we know this is the effect, or the accompanying sign of the divine?

All this is quite reasonable, and Joe's argument purports to answer that question.  But of course, the devil is in the details, as we shall see.

Christians in Love

Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclin’d,
Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,
And breaks all chains from every mind.

Deceit to secresy confin’d
Lawful, cautious & refin’d
To every thing but interest blind,
And forges fetters for the mind.

    - William Blake

If you try to tell a man in love that his beloved is not the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most wonderful thing that has ever graced this planet, you will likely be met with resistance, and you just might get punched in the face.  Love is blind, they say.

More Theistic Illogic

You have to hand it to Christians.  They have an uncanny knack for twisting logic to conform with their beliefs and making it seem reasonable.  At least, reasonable enough to have some appeal to anyone who is willing to forgo rigorous logical thinking for the sake of preserving of their illogical beliefs.  The desire to confirm beliefs that they acquired through non-rational means is what drives them down the path of irrational thinking.  The risk of suffering the possibly deep emotional impact that would result from abandoning their beliefs and their lifelong investment in that system of beliefs is too much to bear for the sake of gaining a better understanding of reality.  So they either go to great lengths to cover up the gaping holes in their thinking, or they simply ignore those holes and pretend they don't exist.  These tactics are clearly illustrated in two of Victor Reppert's recent posts - one that simply ignores a blatant logical hole, and the other that makes an effort to cover it up with obfuscation.

Hinman's Argument from Organizing Principles

Victor Reppert has posted an argument for the existence of God by Joe Hinman that strikes me as unbelievably vapid.  I would love to go to Hinman's site and debate with him, but ever since I criticized his book, I have been banned from from about a half dozen sites that he is associated with.  Pity.  The argument goes like this:

1. Any rational, coherent, and meaningful view of the universe must of necessity presuppose organizing principles (Ops)

2. OP's can be summed up in the TS, the transcendental signified.
3. Philosophical Naturalism rejects the transcendental signed.
4. Therefore, Philosophical Naturalism fails to provide a rational, coherent, and meaningful view of the universe.
5. Minds organize and communicate meaning

6. Therefore universal mind, offers the best understanding of TS

7. Concept of God unites TS with universal mind therefore offers best explanation
rational, coherent , and  meaningful view.

This argument is built around the concept of the "transcendental signified", which is nothing more than a theistic assumption masquerading as a sophisticated philosophical concept.  It is the idea that there is a center around which everything else is structured.  The center itself exists independently, and serves as the source of meaning, or the "organizing principle" that everything else is based upon.  The thing that best exemplifies the concept of "transcendental signified" is God.  In fact, I have a hard time thinking of anything else that would qualify.  There may be organizing principles for various things, but most of them don't seem to qualify as transcendental.  So this idea is really just a theist's way of defining God into existence.  See a discussion of "Transcendental Signified" here.

What Qualifies As Evidence?

Have you ever heard of a murder investigation where the police focus on a certain suspect and collect evidence with an eye toward nabbing that suspect, while ignoring other evidence that would lead them to someone else?  Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all too often, and in many cases, it results in the wrong man being arrested for the crime.  In such a case, the investigation is not being conducted properly.  Police shouldn't gather evidence for suspect A - they should simply gather evidence.  And when all the evidence has been collected, a process of reasoning typically leads to the conclusion of what scenario is most likely to have occurred that would result in the evidence that we now observe.  That scenario includes the manner of death (was it a murder or something else?) and the course of events that led to the death, including the people involved and what actions they took.

This is the true nature of evidence.  It is simply a set of observable facts about some state of affairs.  The evidence tells a story, but only after using a process of reasoning from the facts to a conclusion.  Evidence, in and of itself, could lead to one conclusion or another, depending on the reasoning used.  Good reasoning can lead to conclusion A, which is correct.  Bad reasoning can lead to conclusion B, which is false.  In both cases, the evidence is the same.  In other words, evidence is not evidence for A or for B, it is just evidence.  It is the process of reasoning that makes us say something is "evidence for B", but that reasoning could be wrong.

Defending Bertrand Russell

What caused God?  To ask this question is to reveal yourself as horrendously ignorant and philosophically illiterate.  The sophisticated philosopher, whether theist or atheist, will assume that you are one of those

atheists who think “What caused God?” is some kind of “Gotcha” question for theists, as if they had never considered such objections before. - Lowder

This uncharitable interpretation applies whether you are just some stupid GNU like Richard Dawkins, or a highly regarded philosopher like David Hume or Bertrand Russell.  They're all ignorant for thinking that there is merit in asking a question like that.  Of course sophisticated philosophers of religion have considered this question and provided sophisticated answers.  But have they really answered in a way that settles the issue?  Maybe some of us just aren't satisfied with the answers we hear.  Maybe there's some justification in continuing to ask the question after all.

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.

Theistic Argument from Aesthetic Experience

It's a beautiful Easter morning, with fresh snow in the trees and a bright, sunny sky.  I watched a woodpecker outside my window and thought, what magnificent coloration this bird has.  It's a joy to look at.  At times like this, people get a sense of wonder and awe.  They feel connected to nature and happy to be alive.  Many of them think this could only be the work of God.

Likewise, when we hear a masterful musical composition played well, we get a similar kind of feeling.  Kreeft and Tacelli have formulated a simple but elegant argument from aesthetic experience for the existence of God: "There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.  Therefore there must be a God."  Of course, they recognize that God is not the author of the music itself, but they believe that without God, there could be no experience of its sublime beauty, because God is the author of objective beauty.  This is similar to many other versions of aesthetic arguments for God.

Musings on The Principle of Sufficient Reason

The topic of the PSR has cropped up several times in my discussions with theists.  It has generally been seen by them as an inviolable law of nature that provides justification for belief in God as the ultimate reason for everything.  The thinking goes something like this:

1. Everything has an explanation. (PSR)
2. The world exists.
3. Therefore, the world has an explanation for its existence.
4. Whatever is the explanation for the world, must itself have an explanation or reason.
5. Contingent things (including the world) are explained as being caused by something else.
6. The causal chain of contingent things must either be infinite, or must begin with something that exists necessarily or exists as a brute fact.
7. Both an infinite chain of contingent things and a brute fact are rejected as violations of the PSR.
8. Therefore, the ultimate explanation for the existence of the world is something that exists necessarily.
9. God is the thing that exists necessarily, and necessity is the explanation for God's existence.
10. Therefore, God's existence is consistent with the PSR.

Shadow To Blight - Dishonesty Revealed

My friend Mikey, over at Shadow To Light, makes some really bad arguments.  A recent post, titled New Atheist Logic, demonstrates this clearly.  In an attempt to show the absurdity of atheistic thinking, he makes a number of bad assumptions (or outright lies) to present a grossly distorted view of atheistic thinking:

According to New Atheists, religion is evil.  In fact, it is one of the greatest evils on the planet.  The Gnus love to quote Steven Weinberg , “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.”

Yet the same atheists also tell us that the existence of evil disproves the existence of God.

So what do we have?

According to New Atheist logic, the existence of religion, which is evil, proves that God does not exist.

Which means, I suppose, that if God did exist, we would all be secular atheists.

Such is the Wisdom of Gnu.

This is the supposedly superior thinking of a thoroughly blinkered atheist hater.  I'd be tempted to just leave it at that, but it is obvious that he and his followers don't see the problem with Mikey's argument, so I guess I need to spell it out for their benefit.

The Christian Blind Spot

There's something about religion that renders its adherents utterly unable to see logical flaws in matters that relate to their deeply held beliefs.  We're talking about people who may be, by all accounts, quite intelligent.  People who, when shown a logical argument that would support some other religion's God for example, will astutely tear that argument apart, attacking every flaw and weakness.  But when shown a similar argument for their own God, they can't see or won't accept those very same flaws and weaknesses.

On the Indeterminacy of the Physical

James Ross has argued that thought must be at least partly non-physical, in this variant of the Argument from Reason, which he outlines in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought.  This argument is quite similar to CS Lewis' AFR, since they both claim that human intellect has properties that cannot be accounted for by any purely naturalistic explanation.  Both of these arguments make claims that are epistemically unjustified and inconsistent with a scientific understanding of cognition.  Victor Reppert's defense of the AFR does this too, and I have argued this point with him, and even showed him some reading material that would help him understand the scientific perspective, but he continues to refuse to learn any relevant science. 

The argument made by Ross is that thinking of a certain type has the property of 'determinacy', which no physical process can have.  In my previous post, I addressed the issue that Ross does not clearly define what is meant by the term 'determinacy'.  He seems to use the term in two distinctly different ways.  But if the word is understood in either of those ways, his claims about the determinacy of the intellect and the indeterminacy of physical processes deny the reality that is clearly observable.  I suspect that like Reppert, Ross must have a similar anti-scientific bent.  I will show that his argument is false.

The Indeterminacy of Philosophical Thinking

Some time ago, I wrote about the need to use plain language and clearly defined terms in a philosophical argument.  One of the things I noted was: When I hear an argument stated with "weasel-words" or phrasing that is semantically impenetrable, that is a glaring signal to me that I should be on the lookout for an attempt to evade cold, hard deductive reasoning.  Such is the case with a paper that has recently come to my attention by James Ross called Immaterial Aspects of Thought.  This argument hinges on the meaning of the word 'determinate' (or 'indeterminate').  But the word is not at all clearly defined.  Ross summarizes the argument this way:

Some thinking (judgment) is determinate in a way no physical process can be. Consequently, such thinking cannot be (wholly) a physical process.

This has been restated by Feser as a syllogism:

(1) All formal thinking is determinate, but
(2) No physical process is determinate, so
(3) No formal thinking is a physical process.

When I read these statements, the first thing that strikes me is that it isn't immediately obvious what they're saying.  There needs to be a clear and unequivocal definition of the word 'determinate', or this argument won't hold water.

On the Necessity of God

I read an interesting article by WL Craig regarding the necessity of God's existence.  Interesting, that is, because it makes what seems to be an obvious leap of logic to conclude that God exists necessarily.  Here is what he said:

So is it logically possible that God not exist? Not in the sense of metaphysical possibility! There is no strict logical contradiction in the statement "God does not exist," just as there is not a strict logical contradiction in saying "Jones is a married bachelor," but both are unactualizable states of affairs. Thus, it is metaphysically necessary that God exists.

We have here the germ of the ontological argument for God's existence. For if it is possible that God exists, there is a possible world in which God has necessary existence. But then He exists in every world, including this one. Thus, the atheist is thrust into the awkward position of having to say that God's existence is impossible. It is not enough to say that in fact God does not exist; the atheist must hold that it is impossible that God exists—a much more radical claim!

Let's break this down, shall we?