Original Post: Does God Explain Anything At All? (Part 3)
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 09.13.07 - 8:26 pm | #

It seems to me that this could only be suggested by a modern Westerner. The vast majority of humans in much of the world today--and everyone, before a few centuries ago--would consider this completely foreign to their experience. This is a culture-bound view.

But the thing seems to be forced into a modernistic, scientistic framework.

Tom,

First, I want to say that I appreciate your taking all these ideas seriously.

You're not asking questions in this post, but I do have a couple of comments.

I do not advocate scientism. I think it is simplistic and unjustified to argue that, since science has been overwhelmingly effective at settling a huge array of questions, it can settle any question.

Science is not my starting point. My starting point is a collection of axioms for rationality (that cannot rationally be proven). What follow from those assumptions are theorems of scientific method.

I think it's best to think of my position like this.

1) Start from axioms of rational thought.
2) Those lead to theorems about the ability of science to perceive regularities through induction.
(I think you would agree up to this point.)
3) If we examine the question of knowledge of the world beyond the reach of science and pure rationality, we are blind to truth. Each non-predictive claim one makes can be countered with its negation which is equally non-predictive.
4) There is a value-judgment to be made in the decision to latch-on to any non-predictive claim. That value judgment is that it is better to feel confident and reassured in one's beliefs than to have them justified.

Now, I know that you would say that your theology is predictive overall, and isn't subject to (4) (at least, no more than mine). However, I feel that your theology stands on several legs, and the stability of your system depends solely on the predictive power of those legs. Deviation from prediction means we resort to value judgment #4. In that case, I cannot prove that you are morally wrong to accept your theology, but I can argue that your theology is an arbitrary conclusion. For example, someone who believed in the exact opposite of your theology would have equal rational support if it differed only in its non-predictive elements.

Maybe doctor(logic) thinks everyone actually does operate this way, and they just don't have the vocabulary to conceptualize it so. I don't know how we would prove him right or wrong on that. But the thing seems to be forced into a modernistic, scientistic framework.

I love romantic comedies, so that seems like a good place to start.

Tom & doctor(logic),

Forgive me, I haven't been keeping up with the comments on these posts due to time constraints, so if I am asking something that has already been addressed, please give me a swift kick in that direction.

DL, you seem to understand explanation purely from an inductive standpoint (as can be clearly seen in (E) ). I haven't thoroughly thought this through, but must explanation qua explanation be wedded to induction? Doesn't this ignore, at the very least, deduction, which has a long history as an explanatory method in the field of scientific inquiry, going back as far as Aristotle? Wesley Salmon classified such an explanation a deductive-nomological explanation, which consists of a valid deduction "whose conclusion states that the outcome to be explained did in fact occur". Or are you intentionally limiting "explanation" to an inductive framework and process?
Aaron Snell | Homepage | 09.14.07 - 1:53 am | #

Tom:
     DL’s response is not a romantic comedy—it’s a tragic comedy. Consider the following:

I do not advocate scientism. I think it is simplistic and unjustified to argue that, since science has been overwhelmingly effective at settling a huge array of questions, it can settle any [meaning: every] question.

I’m saying that God’s presence can only reliably, rationally be detected using scientific methods. It’s not my fault if you have placed God out of rational detection range.

Aaron,

The way I look at it, deduction is the application of rules to get to conclusions, whereas induction tells you what rules are most probable in a given domain of experience (i.e., induction tells you what the rules are).

Even if you obtain an explanation inductively, that explanation still gets applied deductively.
doctor(logic) | Homepage | 09.14.07 - 2:56 pm | #

So induction tells us what the rules are. I wasn't planning to focus on that, but I'm wondering about changing directions.


You said to "start with axioms of rational thought." Now you say the rules are arrived at inductively. Which is it?

What are the rules governing induction? Do we know them inductively?

How about other rules we rely on? Do we know the law of non-contradiction inductively? Do you agree with me that it cannot under any circumstances have an exception? Do you come to that conclusion through induction? How about the other two most fundamental principles of logic (identity and excluded middle)? If they are known inductively, does that mean there could be an exception out there waiting for us (like that infamous white raven)?

This introduces a general set of types of knowledge that are known directly--properly basic knowledge, that is. Perceptions are in that group as well. It's controversial whether I directly "see grass" (unmediated awareness of grass) when I see the gree, but it's fairly uncontroversial that I see greenness when I look that way. This is not statistical or inductive; it's direct perception. If I take grass to be the explanation of my "being appeared to greenly," is there a statistical route toward my coming to that conclusion? Sure, there is a commonality of experience in there, that when I perception a certain texture and color combination on the ground I explain that perception as being caused by the presence of grass there. But there's also a leap beyond statistics; for I could see that color and texture combination there a million times without explaining it to myself as being caused by the presence of grass. How is this leap made?


That's not the direction I was planning to head; in fact, I was going to take up the matter of scientism in dl's first comment here. doctor(logic), you wrote,

I do not advocate scientism. I think it is simplistic and unjustified to argue that, since science has been overwhelmingly effective at settling a huge array of questions, it can settle any question.

The way I look at it, deduction is the application of rules to get to conclusions, whereas induction tells you what rules are most probable in a given domain of experience (i.e., induction tells you what the rules are).

Even if you obtain an explanation inductively, that explanation still gets applied deductively.

Are the following statements correct?

1) A closed system of epistemological rules can lead to self-referential nonsense because there is no "grounding".

2) Knowledge of first-principles must be revealed from outside the system or else we are just creating our own relative truth/reality.

I'm asking...
SteveK | 09.14.07 - 5:09 pm | #

I think my questions have already been asked and answered.

"The knowledge of the principles naturally known to us has been implanted in us by God, for God is the author of our nature" -- Thomas Aquinas
SteveK | 09.14.07 - 6:12 pm | #

Tom,

You said to "start with axioms of rational thought." Now you say the rules are arrived at inductively. Which is it?

What are the rules governing induction? Do we know them inductively?

How about other rules we rely on? Do we know the law of non-contradiction inductively?

It is not the doctrine that science can answer any question; it's the idea that it can answer any question that has an answer; it provides all knowledge that can be known.

Aaron,

Regarding induction, please see my response to Tom.

I think you missed my point, which was that certain explanations are obtained (not applied) deductively (not inductively), as per Samson. What do you do with these in your system that seems to limit explanations to the inductive realm?

SteveK,

Are the following statements correct?

1) A closed system of epistemological rules can lead to self-referential nonsense because there is no "grounding".

2) Knowledge of first-principles must be revealed from outside the system or else we are just creating our own relative truth/reality.

Tom, SteveK, and Aaron:

     Great work! Keep it up, for you’ve exposed another aspect of DL’s worldview that’s unraveling. A couple of points:

     (1) “Axioms of rationality”?!? What does that mean? Doesn’t that beg the question of what rationality (the capacity to reason) is in the first place? It also is a monumental mixing of categories: a capacity for something is quite, quite different from a system or type of knowledge (say, mathematics) which indeed call upon axioms. Knowledge assumes a capacity for obtaining it: reasoning is productive to knowledge—not the other way around, which is what DL’s Idealism is trying to foist upon us. This, again, is typical of DL’s approach: he assumes only his own understanding of what the capacity to reason is, and then sets up rules to support that vision. Said another way to bring out the Idealistic character of his error, DL assumes we first need to set up rules of knowledge (meaning: working solely within our minds—which is his early contention anyway) in order to pass judgment on what counts as knowledge, and then we can understand (if not construct!) the world out there… rather than humbly listening to what the world has to say to us.[*] Crudely put: we DO know things about reality; DL asserts we don’t until we set up the rules. And on what basis do we set up those rules? According to DL (and coming round full circle) on “axioms of rationality” we find inside our minds that can’t be reasoned to, don’t need to be explained, are “just so,” and just kill anyone who questions DL’s approach or his ideas.

     Tom, your 09.14.07 - 4:45 pm comment regarding DL’s scientism is good. This has been brought up before: DL, when confronted, falls back on “I never claimed all knowledge is obtained through the MESs,” or “I never claimed immaterial entities don’t exist.” Superficially, that’s fair enough… but it’s actually devious, for given his “scientific methods define the range of ‘rational detection’,” everything that falls outside the bounds of his personal opinion is purely subjective. Hence, for example, his moral relativism,[**] his hatred of metaphysics (even as he promotes his own personal brand of metaphysics), his bona fide condescension against religious faith and people of faith (irrational ‘theists’). This is drives his reductionist thinking: moral objectivity is impossible and metaphysics is a joke because (in his view) “scientific methods define the range of ‘rational detection’.”

     Well, how convenient: DL sets up the rules—
     (1) applies them illicitly outside their own epistemological limits (one doesn’t use a purely empiricist scientific method to learn of causality, virtue, purpose, etc.[***]);
     (2) abstracts from reality (leaving much behind) in order to describe mathematically (or by means of symbolic logic) that which cannot be so abstracted… and yet believing this approach sufficiently captures reality merely because it is an (admittedly) good tool for prediction (how many times must DL be reminded of what he should have learned in the first year of college: a correlation is not an identity, i.e., a map is not the territory… and hence a pattern in the brain is not the thing itself?);
     (3) disregards the fact that each ontological order calls upon its own means and methods of investigation, and…
      Presto-chango!
     DL has set himself up to throw us bones (“I never claimed immaterial entities don’t exist”) that really means: you theists go ahead (wink-wink) and believe in your subjective things that are beyond the “rational detection” rules of engagement I’m imposing. We “scientists” (note the Gnostic character) know what really counts as knowledge. You should listen to me… or I’ll kill you.

     [*] In Aristotle’s Physics the truncated title in English is misleading to the modern mind, for the original Greek short-version title is Fusikhs Akroasews—literally meaning “Of Natural Hearing,” while the full title is The Eight Books of Natural Hearing. Aristotle’s Physics is more like listening to nature than what a modern physicist does. The modern physicist is far less passive—supplementing natural experiences with tools, equipment, contrived outfitting of observations through artificial (human artifact) aids. There is an important place for actively probing Nature for answers, for such an approach does yield important information. But the temptation—initiated by Bacon—was to arrogantly control nature instead of participating with Her in the riches she offers to seek out and understand. Hence, more often than not, the modern physicist is more akin to an interrogator demanding Nature perform for him by jumping through (often times artificial and disordered) epistemological hoops. Nature, of course, has the last laugh against those who don’t listen to her as a whole: it is philosophical naturalists who are incessantly running around and around the little gerbil wheel of their own making… and hence they are too busily turned inward upon themselves to notice that Nature herself testifies to the glory of Her Creator.
     We may smile, content in our hindsight, at legendary philosophers who sometimes, out of their loyalty to certain false ideas (e.g. Platonism and Aristotle’s necessaritism), refused to probe Nature through experimentation because this was believed to be below abstract thinking. We may also smile at those clerics and government officials who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope because of the alleged threat this posed to their worldview, or at those naïve—albeit well-meaning—believers who felt threatened by evolution merely because their personal interpretation of Scripture only permitted their own vision of creation (thereby ignoring St. Augustine’s admonitions from centuries before). However today, with the demise of positivism and the cracking of the pillars of scientism, one hopes the day will soon arrive when we will find equally amusing the scientistic type who refuses to remember what the world looks like without his sophisticated equipment and unsophisticated philosophies.

     [**] Can we truly replace what the word “man” means by referring only to the swarm of electrical charges—which is the mathematical physicist’s view of him? No court of law would excuse manslaughter as being no more than a disturbance produced in a particular swarm of electric charges by another swarm reasonably like the first. What is it, in fact, that permits us to know that DL is there in some fashion, and that he can even study physics… but that neither physics (nor any of the MESs nor the various scientific methods) alone can study the person known as DL? What is it that let’s us know objectively that the murder of an innocent human being or cooking one’s laboratory notebook is wrong? Alas, we cannot—nor ought we—turn to DL for answers. Don’t the MESs presuppose that truth and knowledge have genuinely objective worth—which is a moral category? For the MESs to operate they must assume the objective obligations of honesty… and isn’t honesty an objective moral category, that alas for DL’s sake, cannot be measured or predicted? Aren’t the MESs among the most teleological of human endeavors? And yet for those like Dawkins (and I suspect DL), does the work of scientists only provide us the “appearance of purpose”?

     [***] We cannot call up God in the laboratory, but that does not mean that He does not exist. We cannot “measure” or “predict” virtue or injustice or the capacity to reason, but surely we “see” them. The latter, in fact, is posed improperly, for nothing immaterial is subject to laboratory tests in the first place. One reasons to the existence of God from available evidence obtained through the senses, but that reasoned-to knowledge is not itself sensory knowledge. One does not reason to the existence of God in the way one reasons to the existence of the neutrino, just like one does not reason to the existence of virtue or justice or causality, etc., in the same way one would reason to the existence of dark matter or dark energy. Each field requires its own tools and methodologies.
     (1) Mathematics is found within human general experience: in principle, everyone with access to paper and pencil can reason quite profoundly about mathematics… which means mathematics is not an investigative science in the sense that experiments are not performed. Moreover, to impose “predictability” upon mathematics per se is to stretch the proper meaning of prediction to the breaking point: DL’s personal opinion that because 1 + 1 = 2 means we “predict” such a result is silly. The tools and methodologies of mathematics are quite different from those of, say, the MESs. (2) Modern physics, for example, is located within special experience: very few people, in fact, have access to large, sophisticated equipment to study the universe—equipment by which scientists probe or observe various parts of the universe. Very few people, in fact, have gone into orbit to actually observe that the earth is a sphere. Think of it this way: even knowledge of earthquakes is special experience limited to a minority of the earth’s inhabitants. (3) Philosophy is based on the most general experiences accessible to all human beings, and the knowledge philosophy gains must also be accessible to all people. Philosophy reflects upon general experiences accessible to all, and then proceeds by means of rational
Holopupenko | Homepage | 09.15.07 - 6:22 am | #

doctor(logic),

Good morning! Thanks for your answer and your questions.

I hope you caught Holopupenko's first paragraph in particular. Among other things, he raises a question that we could re-word: Are the axioms of rationality something we came up with through rationality? If so, aren't we spinning in rather a circle?

You may be on the right track about scientism when you say there are different ways to define it, and it's not worth worrying about how well the word fits you. I'll accept that you place strong reliance both on science and on rational processes, and we have yet to work out what that actually means and how well your formulation works. (And the same for me as well, within my system.) Your key word now is induction, which I think you use pretty much interchangeably with what you've previously named under the heading of statistical predictiveness.

To answer your last questions to me, no I don't think that induction is the same thing as science. One particularly glaring counter-example is inductive Bible study, in which conclusions are drawn inductively through close inspection of a particular text. (It's an exegetical partner with more deductively-oriented, systematic studies that compare one text with another.) "Induction," as you probably know, comes from a root meaning "to draw out." Science inductively draws out inferences from processes like predictions and testing involving multiple observations; but induction in general means to draw out inferences from a wide range of processes. Other disciplines using induction include history and literary studies.

Anyway, if we decide not to worry about the label "scientism," then I don't know how important my answers to your two questions will be to you. You'll have to let me know.

There's another important point in Holopupenko's latest that I've also been thinking about. He says you

abstract from reality (leaving much behind) in order to describe mathematically (or by means of symbolic logic) that which cannot be so abstracted… and yet believe this approach sufficiently captures reality merely because it is an (admittedly) good tool for prediction...

Tom:

I just noticed the last part of my [***] footnote was cut off: where's your neat character-count gadget? Anyway, here's the full text of the [***] footnote:

     [***] We cannot call up God in the laboratory, but that does not mean that He does not exist. We cannot “measure” or “predict” virtue or injustice or the capacity to reason, but surely we “see” them. The latter, in fact, is posed improperly, for nothing immaterial is subject to laboratory tests in the first place. One reasons to the existence of God from available evidence obtained through the senses, but that reasoned-to knowledge is not itself sensory knowledge. One does not reason to the existence of God in the way one reasons to the existence of the neutrino, just like one does not reason to the existence of virtue or justice or causality, etc., in the same way one would reason to the existence of dark matter or dark energy. Each field requires its own tools and methodologies.
     (1) Mathematics is found within human general experience: in principle, everyone with access to paper and pencil can reason quite profoundly about mathematics… which means mathematics is not an investigative science in the sense that experiments are not performed. Moreover, to impose “predictability” upon mathematics per se is to stretch the proper meaning of prediction to the breaking point: DL’s personal opinion that because 1 + 1 = 2 means we “predict” such a result is silly. The tools and methodologies of mathematics are quite different from those of, say, the MESs. (2) Modern physics, for example, is located within special experience: very few people, in fact, have access to large, sophisticated equipment to study the universe—equipment by which scientists probe or observe various parts of the universe. Very few people, in fact, have gone into orbit to actually observe that the earth is a sphere. Think of it this way: even knowledge of earthquakes is special experience limited to a minority of the earth’s inhabitants. (3) Philosophy is based on the most general experiences accessible to all human beings, and the knowledge philosophy gains must also be accessible to all people. Philosophy reflects upon general experiences accessible to all, and then proceeds by means of rational analysis and argument to reach conclusions in a manner that resembles the procedure of the mathematician—not that of the empirical scientist. Hence, like mathematics, philosophy is not a per se investigative science.
     To quote Adler:

“Each of these disciplines, according to its distinctive character, has a method peculiarly its own and, according to the limitations of that method, can answer only certain questions, not others. The kind of questions that the philosopher or the mathematician can answer without any empirical investigation whatsoever cannot be answered by the empirical scientist, and, conversely, the kind of questions that the scientist can answer by his methods of investigation cannot be answered by the philosopher or the mathematician.”

There's more to love than hormones, calculating selfish gene-transmission, and mutual self-interest.

What does anyone see in Paul other than a collection of elementary particles, and why does he (if based on his own reductionism "ideas are only neurons") expect anyone to respond to a mere collection of such particles? Wouldn't that be like... talking to a wall?

Maybe if Paul could get beyond his unidimensional reductionism (which, as we see, reduces even him to nothing of consequence), he might be open to understanding things that cannot be observed by the five primary senses. It would mean, in fact, actually putting one's capacity of reasoning to work. Perhaps I'm expecting too much?
Holopupenko | Homepage | 09.15.07 - 11:23 am | #

Paul, the answer is too long. I'd have to say something like "pick up a book of poetry." Sorry I can't be more specific.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 09.15.07 - 1:34 pm | #

Bach's Mass in b-minor.
Therefore, God IS.

OK, Tom, having read some poetry, I'll await a fuller answer in some other thread or when you have time.
Paul | 09.15.07 - 10:07 pm | #

Tom:

     Paul is attempting to pull a rhetorical trick on you called “turning the tables.” It’s not you that is obligated to jump through hoops for him: he is the one making reductionist assertions (“ideas are only neurons”). Never has Paul provided any sound argument (I challenge anyone to prove me wrong) to support his position. Quite to the contrary, most of his responses have been of the type “just so.” Therefore, logically speaking, the onus is on him to come clean.

     Second, so many times, Tom, you’ve addressed similar issues… yet Paul merely dismisses them out-of-hand. Perhaps the question should be: if Paul a priori believes (as opposed to “knows”) that reality is reductionist, what end does it serve to provide him non-reductionist arguments? And, this is not to mention (per his own rules of the game) talking to a cloud of elementary particles that happens to be called Paul really is a waste of time.

     I put it to Paul that his ideas are, in fact, cowardly and a hypocritical: if love is nothing more than “hormones, calculating selfish gene-transmission, and mutual self-interest,” if “ideas are only neurons,” if he refuses to accept any explanation other than those cast in terms of the MESs, then he should not complicate matters (where is Ockham when one needs him?) by assigning other meaningless names/symbols to those material entities and physical phenomena.

     To demonstrate to us that he is true to his word and really believes in his own ideas, Paul should take it upon himself to rewrite one of Shakespeare’s works so that every time words like “love,” “inspiration,” “tragedy,” “loyalty,” “joy,” “honor,” “patience,” “revenge,” etc., appear he should substitute in his own scientistically-reductionist terms. Every time Paul stands before his class to teach jazz, he should have the intestinal fortitude to preface the lecture with, “the music I teach or play is merely pigments on a page or electrons traveling up and down neurons in my brain—nothing more, nothing less.”

Edited By Siteowner
Holopupenko | Homepage | 09.16.07 - 5:26 am | #

Holopupenko,

I'm not at all sure that Paul's question is a rhetorical trick. I disagree with him on many things, in fact I think he's often wrong. I don't see anything dishonest or manipulative in his question, though. I think he holds a position that makes sense to him, and he's asking questions about mine. You see a serious disconnect between two aspects of his belief set. I see the same disconnect, but I am not going to tell him "What You Really Believe Is..." (see esp. 4c on that page).

I have deleted your closing paragraph from your comment, and I'm asking you quite strongly to refrain from personal conclusions toward other commenters here. Let's deal with the ideas instead.

On the other hand, you are quite right in saying that materialist reductionism ought to make its own case, and the rest of the world (the extremely vast majority of us) who see reality as greater than that do not need to make a defense in reductionists' terms.

The problem with trying to mount such a defense is that it can't be done without accepting their premises. The kind of proof they ask for presumes that their system of testing reality is the only correct one. Once we accept that, then there's only one possible outcome, which is that there is no knowledge except statistical knowledge (or something a lot like it). If there is no knowledge but statistical knowledge, then there's no reality for us to work with except for material reality--which is begging the question.

So I stand on my previous answer: poetry. I'll accept the B Minor Mass along with it (I'm rather partial to The Messiah, myself, though). I understand there's nothing rigorous about that response, but I also understand that if someone will test it and see, they might still realize that there's more to life than chemical reactions and neurons firing.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 09.16.07 - 7:37 pm | #

Thanks, Tom. I'll try to make progress toward a rigorous discussion by asserting that, excepting qualia (which may be your whole point, I'm not sure), poetry and Bach may yet still be reduced to chemistry and neurons. (I've previously admitted that the problem of qualia hasn't, to my knowledge, been solved within materialism.)
Paul | 09.16.07 - 8:25 pm | #

Tom,

Are the axioms of rationality something we came up with through rationality? If so, aren't we spinning in rather a circle?

To answer your last questions to me, no I don't think that induction is the same thing as science. One particularly glaring counter-example is inductive Bible study, in which conclusions are drawn inductively through close inspection of a particular text.

Intuitively there is more to love than all of this. It's not just my wife's love for me that I need to explain, it's also my love for her. And the explanation involves not just why I love her or how I love her, but what love is.

Let's just take it as a hypothetical. Your version of explanation says that even if we have the message provided to us from the very source, telling us how and why the universe exists and where it came from, that is no explanation. This is absurd on the face of it. Any definition of "explanation" that produces this as a necessary conclusion must be wrong.

(3) IF God has revealed this to us through history, nature, and his word, and

I'm disappointed that you didn't work with the syllogism as a hypothetical, doctor(logic). You just pronounced "God has not revealed anything." Again, this is the point in question. You gave your short set of reasons again why you think that is the case, making short and very inadequate work of Biblical teachings as if your study exhausted all there is to be known of them.

For me, the question is still what does "explanatory" mean. Yes, these issues regarding Biblical understanding are important, but we won't settle anything if we don't focus on something. I think the hypothetical syllogism remains important and useful. I'll have a blog post up in a few hours with more.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 09.17.07 - 6:25 am | #

Tom,

Sorry if I didn't give you as direct an answer as you were looking for.

If (4) is interpreted to preclude historical and forensic predictions, then it contradicts (3). That's the source of the problem.

(3) is the statement that there's a bunch of historical (and presently testable) evidence for (1) and (2). That's why it's clear to us both that (1)-(3) are explanatory of whatever (3) predicts. Then you take this all back in (4) by saying that (1)-(3) predict nothing.

I know you think that (3) is presently testable and predictive. Your support for ID (as you see it) is evidence of that. If ID is an example of (3), then it would contradict (4) because there are future experiments that could change our confidence in ID (in the Bayesian sense).

However, if (3) and (4) are interpreted to mean that there aren't any future-testable claims about the past as far as God is concerned, then the syllogism holds.
doctor(logic) | Homepage | 09.17.07 - 8:00 am | #

Tom:

     I stand properly chastised with respect to the last paragraph.

     I nonetheless maintain and stand upon the accusation that Paul attempted to turn the tables—as if the condescension in his [09.15.07 - 10:07 pm] response to you didn’t highlight this. Moreover, the accusation is based not only on this response, but the general approach Paul takes in these discussions.

     Your “disagreeing with” Paul (and DL) on most issues and permitting those disagreements to work themselves out is, in the narrower sense, correct. But there is a fine yet important line between disagreeing in the realm of opinion and disagreeing in the realm of truths. If (as only two examples) Paul’s reductionism destroys even the ability to express truths separate from mere matter, if DL’s rejection of the Principle of Sufficient Reason leaves nothing but “just so” responses, then intellectual discourse is reduced to a joke. Moreover (and echoing a bit the sentiment of your masthead), how can one even speak of God or faith (let alone argue their finer points) when the most fundamental philosophical (i.e., NOT theological) building-blocks supporting intellectual discourse are rejected based on a deep-seated fear on their side? (The last paragraph of your latest response regarding DL’s non-explanatory approach to explanation caught this point.)

     Also quite importantly, their moral relativism provides them a convenient “get out of jail free” card that is similar to (in terms of its results) as Jacob’s rejection of truth as such: they can bait-and-switch whenever the heat is on, they can impose moral claims against others and do so objectively yet no one else is permitted objective criticisms of their intentions—let along their ideas and worldview. Why? Because—ultimately—moral claims are based on truths. So if fundamental epistemological and ontological building blocks of rational thinking are rejected by a priori severely limiting and reducing truths only to those expressible by the MESs, it makes a mockery of objective morality. Case in point: Paul and DL are not only requested to provide sound arguments in support of their ideas, but to remain consistent with and faithful to the ideas they assert. Show me where they themselves live up to their moral relativism. Show me where DL consistently lives up to his positivism. Show me where Paul is faithful to reducing everything to neurons.

     A final comment to your statement: “I understand there’s nothing rigorous about that response…” I’d be more careful given that “rigorous” is a loaded word. “Scientifically rigorous”? Well, that’s great for the lab. “Morally, epistemologically, ontologically, metaphysically, poetically, etc., etc., rigorous?” Frankly, I fail to see why you believe your presentation of poetry as an expression of beauty and immateriality was not rigorous. In fact, neither can it be—nor does it have to be—MES rigorous. It is more-or-less rigorous in its own way: if one tries to reduce the beauty of Romeo’s call to Juliet under her window to MES terms, then indeed there is no beauty.

     I’m sure it was quite unintentional, but not clarifying what you meant by “rigorous” left the door open for DL to sneak in his usual reductionist mantra:

We know what feelings are categorized as love, so that means we have a definition in terms of sensation and behavior. If we show the mechanisms that underlie the sensations and behavior, what is left to be explained? We would know why people fall in love, and why they feel the way they do. What’s missing?

doctor(logic),

The syllogism holds if there is no way God could reveal himself except through "historical (and presently testable) evidence for (1) and (2);" and if (4) means that we can treat God as a science experiment. But nobody believes in a God like that; certainly, I don't.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 09.17.07 - 8:49 am | #

     An excerpt from Cardinal Dulles’ First Things article which you recently posted makes the point better than I:

… Schönborn intended to attack… those neo-Darwinists—and they are many—who maintain that no valid investigation of nature could be conducted except in the reductive mode of mechanism, which seeks to explain everything in terms of quantity, matter, and motion, excluding specific differences and purpose in nature. He quoted one such neo-Darwinist as stating: “Modern science directly implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with deterministic principles or chance. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces rationally detectable.”… positivistic scientists begin by methodically excluding formal and final causes. Having then described natural processes in terms of merely efficient and material causality, they turn around and reject every other kind of explanation. They simply disallow the questions about why anything (including human life) exists, how we differ in nature from irrational animals, and how we ought to conduct our lives.

Tom,

Your last comment was a bit too brief for me to understand your point.

Bayesian analysis relies on predictions. Are you saying that applying Bayesian analysis to what we see now (nature, scripture) will not raise our confidence in (1) and (2)?
doctor(logic) | Homepage | 09.17.07 - 10:13 am | #

Sure it would, and it does. Your point is ... ?
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 09.17.07 - 10:34 am | #