Tag Archive for: metaphysics

The Road to the Perfect God

Human beings have wondered about God for millennia. The Bible explains this by saying that God “set eternity in the human heart.”[1] How can, limited, finite human beings wonder about the supreme being? Some say that we are not alone in this quest and that God has revealed himself to us. That he has bridged the infinite chasm between creature and creator so that finite creatures can know him. Other say that God, if he exists at all, is too hidden and has not done a good job in making his existence evident.

My contention here is that, not only is God not hidden, but there is evidence for his existence that we cannot dismiss because it is right “in front” of us, every moment, every second, every day and in every aspect of our lives.[2]

The Orchestra of Existence

When attempting such a massive undertaking (wondering about God), let us start with ourselves: humanity. This is not our starting point because of some (empty) humanism that says that humans are the most valuable beings or the center of the universe. We are just starting with humans because it is our natural starting point since we are, after all, humans.

There are many things that we know about ourselves as individuals and as humankind. The first is that we exist. We also know, however, that we do not need to exist. Our existence is a gift, if not just an accident.[3] Either way, it was possible that we did not exist. In fact, humans who have not yet been conceived do not exist yet. This is true of us as individuals but is also true about humankind. Humans did not need to exist and in fact, some people would argue that it would have been better if that was not the case. Human beings are just another species who might disappear from the face of the earth. There is nothing in our humanity or in ourselves that implies that we must exist.

The same is true of pretty much everything around us. It is true of whatever you are using to read this, of whatever building you are in or will get to, whatever clothes you may have, whatever animals there are on the earth. In fact, it is true of the whole earth, of all the stars, galaxies and even of the whole universe. The bottom line is we live in a universe that does not have to exist.

One might ask then, if every existing thing did not have to exist, how does anything exist at all? No matter how many of the finest instruments capable of producing the most beautiful melodies you stack on a stage, no sound will come out of them unless something makes them play. In the same way, if you stack all the things that may exist, you could not get the actual existence of anything unless something makes them be.

The conclusion is that, while most things exist because something outside themselves gave it existence, there is a being who exists by virtue of its own nature; its nature is existence. This is the musician playing the instruments, it is the source of the existence of everything else: God.

The Perfect God

I want to offer some insight into my last conclusion. We normally just use words like “be” and “existence” just to say that something “is there” or that it is real, not imaginary. Saying that God’s nature is existence, however, implies something more than that. In created beings, nature actually limits what a thing can be. For example, the blueprint of a house limits how the house is. It delimits (and limits) where a building block or a column must be in other for a particular house to be the house in the blueprint. In a human, human nature permits rationality but limits us so we cannot fly. The dog nature allows Fido to run but does not allow him to think abstractly.

This is not the case with God. Since God’s nature is just existence itself, it is not limited by anything. Therefore, God is the wholly perfect and supreme being. He possesses all perfections to the highest possible degree. There is no aspect in which He could be more perfect.

Imperfect Reflections of the Perfect God

Since every being owes its being ultimately to God and comes from God, every good aspect of a thing, is an imperfect reflection, of a perfection in God. Taken again, for example, existence (in the regular sense of being real). As we covered at the beginning, humans (and the rest of the universe) do not need to exist, still we do exist. And this is an imperfect reflection of the perfect God in at least to ways.

First, the fact that we exist implies that something other than us made us exist. Our existence is really not an accident, it is a gift. And as we have seen, in order for us to exist, ultimately there must be something that exist necessarily, which is God. Second, just as how the music stops when an orchestra stops playing the instruments, our existence would finish if God were to cease to keep us in existence. It turns out that our existence is not just a one-time gift given at creation, but an ongoing gift that God has not repented of.

This dependent quality of existence is only one example. The same pattern applies to every other good we observe around us. When we see the love of a mother, the strength of a father, the beauty in a sunset, the intelligence in a scientist, justice in a judge, loyalty in a dog, wisdom in a teacher, freedom in a flying bird, grandeur in nature . . . every true, beautiful, and good aspect of anything we see in the world, even in its most amazing expressions, is but an imperfect and finite reflection of the perfect and infinite God.

We may begin by noticing a good quality in a thing in the world.[4] Since that thing, however, is not infinite, the perfection it displays must exist fully in an unlimited being (God), who has it by virtue of his own nature. The quality only belongs fully and naturally to the source, while everything else can only reflect that quality in an imperfect way.

Conclusion

We began our inquiry on our natural starting point: our experience as finite beings. Now, we arrive at the natural stopping point: God, the supreme and wholly perfect being who is the source of all that is. As Paul reminds us, “God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”[5] We can conclude that God is not hidden from us. Every good, true, and beautiful aspect of the world proclaims the perfect being who created and sustains all of creation.

References: 

[1] Ecclesiastes 3:11, New International Version.

[2] Joseph Owens, An Elementary Christian Metaphysics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963).

[3] I mean “accidental” not in a metaphysical sense, but as an event that happens by chance or without an apparent deliberate cause.

[4] Things do not truly have bad qualities. What we often call a “bad quality” is actually a lack or a distortion of some good that should be present according to the thing’s nature. For example, we can think of violence as the absence of proper order or restraint in power that a human being should have. Therefore, even in this sense the same reasoning applies. The absence itself reminds us of the perfection that only God possesses completely without deficiency, distortion, or limit.

[5] Romans 1:20, New International Version.

Recommended Resources: 

Debate: What Best Explains Reality: Atheism or Theism? by Frank Turek DVD, Mp4, and Mp3 

Why Science Needs God by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Does Science Disprove God? by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

 

Diego Fallas earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. During his studies, he became passionate about Christian apologetics. He quickly found himself immersed in the field as he started taking seminary courses in apologetics and became a Reasonable Faith chapter director. Today, he is the Director of Operations for CrossExamined.org, and teaches and speaks in Latin America. Diego is the co-host of the weekly Livestream show Piensalo Bien and is currently completing his M.A. in philosophy from Southern Evangelical Seminary.

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The Real Issue and the Christian Philosopher

Human beings are rational animals, according to Aristotle. As animals, human beings are sensible beings who have sensations and movements (in contrast to plants, which are living beings without true sensation and self-initiated movement). But human beings are not just any kind of animal. We have a special quality that separates us from animals, plants and the rest of the material world, which is that we have a rational soul.

Furthermore, leaving Aristotle aside (as we shall see later), this doesn’t mean that human beings are the summit of all that exists. God, who is infinite and intellect in its fullest form can alone claim his proper place at the top of the summit (although, technically speaking, He is the foundation) of all that exists. Still, since human beings are rational animals, but are also finite, it is natural (and by that I literally mean that it is part of human nature), to ask questions.

Why Metaphysics Matters

Now, human beings can and do ask questions about a lot of topics. But there are some questions that matter most not because of their necessarily immediate practical implication, but because of the effect their answers have on the questions that do possess an immediate practical implication. That is, we cannot properly begin to understand secondary matters until we first understand primary matters. And one of the most basic primary questions to answer is “what is (or are) the first principle of reality?”.

Metaphysics deals with these types of primary questions and its importance is by now evident. The results of every other discipline depend on resolving fundamental metaphysical questions. The Christian (let alone the trained Christian philosopher) can’t escape this reality. Simply put, a wrong move in metaphysics will affect doctrines about God, creation, and salvation.

This fact of metaphysics has become evident to me in the modern debate about divine simplicity. Dr. William Lane Craig rejects the Thomistic understanding of the doctrine of divine simplicity and this means his conception of God is different (very different) than that of an existential Thomist, and proper logic mandates that both conceptions of God cannot be correct. Dr. Craig says, “Deny the real distinction between essence and existence, and the nerve of Thomism is cut.[1]”  This claim strikes me as plainly true. I’m not talking about whether we should deny the real distinction between essence and existence (that’s a whole separate matter), but he is correct in that if we do so, the nerve of Thomism is cut, and with it, the Thomistic understanding of God must be denied.

This important matter, the distinction between essence and existence, is the central focus of this blog and my aim is to show how different views of this distinction lead to a different understanding of God, raising the stakes for the Christian (and the Christian philosopher) to ensure that his metaphysics is correct.

In this regard, human beings face a monumental task. Humans, as rational animals, must wrestle with the fact that they can ask questions beyond even their own limitations. For example, as any Christian should affirm, human beings (who only have a human essence) are contingent beings to whom existence owes nothing to make them exist necessarily, want to properly explain existence as a principle and its relationship with essences in general. Despite this limitation, we will see that even in this brief essay there is much that can be said in this regard.

Four Philosophers, Four Visions and Their Implications

Aquinas: Let’s start our brief analysis with none other than Thomas Aquinas. He maintained that there is a real distinction between essence and existence. This means that he believed that essence and existence are real and distinct principles that together constitute the being of a thing. A thing’s essence is what it is, and existence is that it is. Following Dr. Richard Howe’s use of human beings to illustrate this, essence is what makes you human; existence is what makes you a being.[2]

The only exception to this rule is God, in whom essence and existence are identical, and this has several implications. First, he is unique and totally distinct from everything else that exists. He alone is existence; everything else just has existence. Second, as existence itself, God is the only necessary being. Every other being is contingent and depends on God for its existence. Third, God’s omnipotence is evident in His ability to bring things into existence from nothing (creatio ex nihilo). Between existence and non-existence, there’s an infinite metaphysical chasm that only an infinite cause can bridge.

Scotus: Aquinas’ view of God, stemming from his real distinction between essence and existence, can be contrasted with that of John Duns Scotus. Scotus maintained that every essence has some degree of being, according to its (proportional) intrinsic perfection. This implies that the distance between any finite being and nothingness is not infinite. As a result, God’s omnipotence is primarily expressed not in sustaining beings in existence, but in freely determining which essences are actualized in reality. In other words, for Scotus, God’s power, is primarily evident in freely determining what comes to be, rather than in directly causing the act of being itself. It is worth noting that Aquinas integrates both perspectives, affirming divine volition alongside God’s continuous causal role in sustaining creatures in existence.

Plato: On the other hand, Plato did not conceive of existence as an act received from God. Plato believed that the forms—eternal, unchanging, immaterial, and universal realities—are the highest level of reality, while the material world is just an imperfect reflection of them. As such, Plato’s god is really a craftsman-like figure who does not create things (let alone via creation ex nihilo), he merely imposes order on pre-existing chaotic matter in accordance with the forms. He works with what already exists; he does not make things to be or define what they are. There’s no doubt that Plato’s God is a “smaller” God than that of Aquinas.

Spinoza: Benedict Spinoza’s views are also important to mention. He denied the distinction between essence and existence because he maintained that only one substance exists. The implications of this view are profound. If everything that exists is the same substance, that means that everything that exists collapses into a single substance. As a result, God is identical with nature. There is really no distinction between God and everything else, leading directly to pantheism.

It is evident that this view is incompatible with the metaphysical commitments required by Christianity. We need not delve into the implications of this view for divine omnipotence or the necessity of creation. Suffice it to say that since this view denies the distinction between God and His creation, this implies that you, I, and all human beings are part of the same divine nature. This position plainly contradicts Scripture —and, indeed, everyday experience.

Conclusion

There’s much more that could be said about this, and many other important philosophers throughout history could be cited. However, this brief analysis shows that one’s metaphysical conclusions can strongly influence one’s theology. Every Christian should desire to know God and reality as they truly are. To do so properly, one’s metaphysics must be correct. Therefore, we as Christians, must make sure to get our metaphysics right.

References: 

[1] William Lane Craig and Bishop Robert Barron, Bishop Barron & William Lane Craig Symposium, Part 1: Divine Simplicity, Reasonable Faith, accessed February 21, 2025,
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/lectures/bishop-barron-william-lane-craig-symposium-part-1-divine-simplicity

Symposium, Part 1: Divine Simplicity. Reasonable Faith. Accessed February 21, 2025.
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/lectures/bishop-barron-william-lane-craig-symposium-part-1-divine-simplicity

Gilson, Étienne. Being and Some Philosophers. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1952.

———.Craig, William Lane, and Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop Barron & William Lane Craig

[2] Aquinas on Existence and the Essence-Existence Distinction,” Southern Evangelical Seminary, accessed February 21, 2025, https://ses.edu/aquinas-on-existence-and-the-essence-existence-distinction/

———.Aquinas on Existence and the Essence-Existence Distinction.” Southern Evangelical
Seminary. Accessed February 21, 2025
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/lectures/bishop-barron-william-lane-craig-
symposium-part-1-divine-simplicity

Recommended Resources:

How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (DVD Set, Mp3, and Mp4)   

What is God Really Like? A View from the Parables by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)

What is God Like? Look to the Heavens by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Your Most Important Thinking Skill by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, (mp4) download

 

Diego Fallas earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. During his studies, he became passionate about Christian apologetics. He quickly found himself immersed in the field as he started taking seminary courses in apologetics and became a Reasonable Faith chapter director. Today, he is the Director of Operations for CrossExamined.org, and teaches and speaks in Latin America. Diego is the co-host of the weekly Livestream show Piensalo Bien and is currently completing his M.A. in philosophy from Southern Evangelical Seminary.

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What Philosophy Is, And Why You Can’t Avoid It

Many Christians believe that philosophy is a pagan discipline practiced either by ivory tower professors or Starbucks hippies. This belief has led some to object to the relevance of philosophy, as either they believe only a few can do it, or that it deals with such weird and abstract issues that it is a waste of time. Many Christian theologians object that philosophy is rooted in paganism, and thus has no place in Christian theology. After explaining what philosophy is, it should become clear that not only do these objections fail, but philosophy is unavoidable.

For the Love of Wisdom…

‘Philosophy’ literally means “love (phil) of wisdom (sophia).” It is the quest for knowledge, truth, and how to live the good (moral) life.

Fields of Philosophy

There are several branches of philosophy. One, and the most foundational, is metaphysics. Metaphysics is the study of being, or what it means to be real. While biologists study life insofar as things are living, and mathematicians study being as quantified, and physicists study being that is physical or in motion, the metaphysician studies what it means to “be” in general. They ask questions like, what is the difference between Snoopy and a beagle one can take for a walk?

Another branch of philosophy is epistemology, which is the study of knowledge. Epistemologists ask questions like, “How can knowledge be attained,” “What is knowledge,” and “Is there a difference between knowledge and belief?”

Moral philosophy seeks to know what it means to be good in the moral sense. Where does goodness come from, and what makes something good?

Logic studies right reasoning and the mistakes (fallacies) that are sometimes made when trying to make a rational argument.

Aesthetics studies the nature of beauty, and asks “What does it mean to be beautiful? Is beauty objective?” And so on.

From these categories there are any number of other philosophical fields. The philosophy of math deals with the nature of numbers, and asks if numbers are real (e.g. does the number 4 actually exist). In other words, it deals with the nature of math. Philosophy of science deals with the nature of science. The philosophy of history deals with the nature of history and historical knowledge. My area is philosophy of religion, which deals with issues like God’s existence, nature, how we talk about him, the problem of evil, and the nature of miracles.

Is Everyone a Philosopher?

When you say something that purports to be true, you are talking about reality, and are claiming to know something. You are also making a logical claim. Further, you are assuming (explicitly or implicitly) a certain view of how language works (philosophy of language). Even if you are just talking about the tree in your front yard, you are saying something about the tree’s existence and nature. I am not saying that everyone is a “philosopher” in the strict, academic sense. What I am saying, is that it is not possible to make statements about the world, God, or the Bible without taking philosophical positions, regardless of if you are aware of them or not.

Theology Can’t Avoid Philosophy

The same holds true for theology and biblical studies/interpretation. We cannot make theological claims without using philosophy. For example, when we talk about Jesus taking on a human nature, we must understand what a “nature” is. This is a philosophical category. When a scholar says that biblical interpreters cannot be objective due to their biases, this is a philosophical statement about the nature of objectivity, bias, the knower, and the knowing process.

Far from this being a pagan practice, it is how God made us. He made us rational beings. This is what makes us different from other animals. Philosophy is useful and unavoidable. Instead of trying to avoid it, we should try to become better philosophers, and worship God with our minds.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.”
Matthew 22:36-38

Recommended resources related to the topic:

How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (MP3 Set), (mp4 Download Set), and (DVD Set)

Your Most Important Thinking Skill by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, (mp4) download

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD)

When Reason Isn’t the Reason for Unbelief by Dr. Frank Turek DVD and Mp4

 

J. Brian Huffling, PH.D. have a BA in History from Lee University, an MA in (3 majors) Apologetics, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies from Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from SES. He is the Director of the Ph.D. Program and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at SES. He also teaches courses for Apologia Online Academy. He has previously taught at The Art Institute of Charlotte. He has served in the Marines, Navy, and is currently a reserve chaplain in the Air Force at Maxwell Air Force Base. His hobbies include golf, backyard astronomy, martial arts, and guitar.

Original Blog Source: Brian Huffling

 

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What Words Tell Us About Culture

What Words Tell Us About Culture

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By Scott Reynolds

What gives words meaning? Is it the author, the words themselves, the reader, or something else altogether? At different points in history all the above had a place of authority giving words their meaning. However, as the world changes and the power behind words change it causes great change in culture. Exploring the power of words is an extension of exploring the power of culture and who has the power to shape culture.

Jacques Derrida and the Postmodern Revolution

 Jacques Derrida stands at the center of the radical postmodern literary revolution. He is burdened by the idea that anyone can use a text to position authority over someone else. The idea of equality found at the table of interpretation includes more than accepting other readers who might use it for their own advantage but also includes the reader’s equality with the author and the text itself. Derrida’s criticism of literary theory includes a deconstruction of understanding. His goal was to move beyond the written text and the spoken word, and into the fabric of metaphysics, methodology, and the morals of meaning.

Three Ages of Transition in Literary Interpretation

Kevin Vanhoozer uses the work of Derrida to highlight the three ages of transition in literary interpretation. The division of his work follows the critical analysis of the three ages: the age of the author, the age of the text, and the age of the reader. Each section explores the historicity of the age, the mentality of the reader regarding truth, as well as the issues that contributed to advancing a transition away from the prima facie interpretation of objective truth or the author’s meaning found in the text. As Vanhoozer looks at Derrida’s work he is asking the reader to decide whether the meaning of a text is objectively fixed by the author or by the text itself, or whether it maintains the freedom to vary from reader to reader.

Pre-Modern, Modern, and Postmodern Periods

If the three interpretational methodology transitions are broken down historically, they seem to follow the transitions of Western society through the pre-modern, modern, and postmodern periods. The pre-modern period is defined by absolute authority. The reader had limited access to the written word and any word written carried the full weight and authority of the author. The modern period ushered in the age of enlightenment and with it an explosion in education. The quest for knowledge placed an emphasis on the reader’s exegetical skills to interpret the text. The authority no longer rested with the intentions of the author but in the educated hermeneutical methodology of the reader. The 20th century ushered in postmodern era, after two world wars, Western culture began questioning all authority. The institutions of government, marriage, the church, and education all became vulnerable to the removal of objective authority. Regarding the literary interpretation of the postmodern reader Vanhoozer states a word “interprets with a no reality principle (the way it is), only a pleasure principle (the way I want it to be).” The foundational question in the theology of literary interpretation is authority. The battle over authority is critical in how a person approaches interpretation and how they determine whose interpretation is correct.

Reformation and the Battle of Interpretation

Historically, the battle of the Reformation was in part a battle of interpretation. Luther and others questioned Papal Infallibility or the Soul Inerrancy of the Pope. The reformers rejected that the Pope had interpretational inerrancy. The interpretational transition of the Reformation saw the authority move from a single point of Soul Inerrancy to the acceptance of a new idea called Soul Competency. However, as the reformers allowed the average reader access to the Bible, they would still hold the reader to the belief of determinacy in their interpretations. Everyone was welcomed to study and work to interpret the Scriptures as long as they realized that being Soul Competent meant that you could find God’s meanings in the Scriptures. It did not mean that you were Soul Inerrant, meaning that you could wrongly interpret the Scriptures.

Calvin’s goal in interpretation, was clear; “It is the first business of an interpreter to let his author say what he does say, instead of attributing to him what we think he ought to say.” In contrast is Derrida’s “death of an author” which is a direct consequence of Nietzsche’s announcement of the death of God. The death of God means the death of absolute authority. The current state of cultural affairs has drawn an increasing number of biblical scholars to adopt and advocate strategies for translating the Bible, influenced by the work of Derrida. Derrida and his deconstructionist have correctly analyzed the postmodern culture and have declared victory by bracketing out orthodox Christian belief. They also believe that once a text is freed from the author, it can become a canvas on which a reader can exercise their own creativity. The death of the author was critical in moving from premodern to modern, and from modern to postmodern culture.

Spiritual Implications for Biblical Authority

What are the spiritual implications for removing the biblical author’s authority? “The answer is brief but massive: biblical authority is undone. The un-doers effectively strip the Bible of any stable meaning so that it cannot state a fact, issue a command, or make a promise.” The death of the author gave rise to the power of the words themselves. The transition is tame compared to the problems with postmodern philosophies; however, some believed that commentaries were being developed and could be used by anyone to push an agenda on the text. Richard Coggins feared that commentaries would become weapons of propaganda. Today, the church is the living consequences of these transitions and postmodern relativism has left the current culture in a legitimate crisis in biblical understanding.

DETERMINISM

Determinism means that a text has a definite meaning, one that can be qualified and defined. The next step down from determinacy is textuality, “where the autonomous text offers no more resources for limiting the play of meaning than does the strangulated voice of the anonymous author.” Even those modern scholars who helped refine interpretation theory as a science of the text could not stop the downward spiral of deconstruction. Eventually, the second pillar fell, and society experienced the death of the text and with it the possibility of literary knowledge.

POSTMODERN THINKING

Postmodern thinkers have deemed it unnecessary to investigate truths about the world, especially when it comes to epistemology. They believed “the light of reason is no longer needed for the growth of knowledge.”  The ideal of objective knowledge is no longer a truth to pursue but a myth to debunk. These thinkers reject objective knowledge found in a text due to bias found in a theoretical or interpretive framework: “knowledge in the postmodern world is always contextual, always perspectival, always relative to some point of view or other.”

LOGOCENTRISM

Some postmodern thinkers like Paul Ricoeur are not as radical as Derrida in their attack on logocentrism, the catchall term used to describe Western thinkers who are preoccupied with meaning, rationality, and truth. Derrida believes that having a stable point of commonality outside of language, like reason, revelation, or even Platonic ideals, feeds the traditional view of authoritative truth. He uses the name “grammatology” for a study of writing that is no longer governed by logocentrism.

POINTS OF FAILURE

Derrida’s views create a tension, which he classified as a battle between what a text wants to say and what it is systematically constrained to say. “As a deconstructionist he is able to identify points of failure in a system, points at which it is able to feign coherence only by excluding and forgetting that which it cannot assimilate, that which is ‘other’ to it.” Derrida repeatedly finds the best way to escape problems with his belief system is to simply not recognize those issues that will not assimilate into his views. Those authoritative views like objective and absolute truth found in the Scriptures are simply deemed to live outside his interpretative community. When interpretation moves from a methodology used to understanding a text to the primary purpose of the text then all authority is stripped away and only the current relevant meaning of a closed interpretative community remains.

Use of Metaphors

The use of metaphors in ancient writings has leant to the ever-evolving creation of meaning. “It is one thing to interpret metaphors, however, and quite another to interpret metaphorically.” Derrida held that there is nothing outside the text and therefore the whole world is a metaphor. Language is a collection of signs used to promote different views about the world. He believed that the “metaphoricity is the logic of contamination and the contamination of logic.” The metaphorical indeterminacy allows a reader to choose metaphors about God and his relation to the world that best fit and promote their worldview about God.

Derrida’s deconstructionist views on reason, authoritative revelation, and objective truth all stem from his radical views about authority in general. Disillusioned with authority, he states that “reason is what serves our ethico-political interest. Behind rationality lies values (ethics) and power (politics). Deconstruction is a kind of sophistic acid that strips away the layers of rhetoric that disguise values and truths.” The goal was nothing short of incoherent relativism in a world freed from oppressive authorities.

The third age of criticism he explores the transition from textuality to contextuality. “The reader is not a canvas to be molded but an active participate in developing meaning to a text based on what the reader brings to it. Those looking to deconstruct meaning, study the effects of a reader’s social, historical, and theological bents on their personal interpretation of a text. The idea of a reader-response methodology to interpretation opened the door to criticism from many conservatives. The radical reader-response critics continue to reject the traditional role of the reader and insist that the text conform to the reading instead of the reading conforming to the text.

The battle for interpretative freedom and true meaning has deep cross-cultural implications knowing that both moderns and post-moderns are claiming the high ground in the battle for literary theory. Defending the position of the author, Vanhoozer refers to the post-modern reader’s use of a text as a ventriloquist’s dummy serving as the conduit to voice their own opinion.  He recognizes that the current age of criticism is defined by egotistical entitlement that simply refuses to look to the truth found in the past but instead is committed to the unintelligible ideas of their own voice.

  Stanley Fish has declared, “The authorizing agency of interpretational authority is not the author, the text, or even the reader, but the interpretative community.” The worldview of the crowd dictates the range of what is or is not an acceptable interpretation of a text. A conservative might say, I believe it means X, (X being the traditional, authoritative interpretation), but if the culture is bent towards a different liberal view, then having the view of X is outside the range of an acceptable interpretation of the text. The implications of Fish’s conclusion is that truth is demoted from its prior status as timeless and absolute to what the mob perceives is good and acceptable in this moment. Truth, metaphysically, morally, and meaning simply becomes a label we assign to our beliefs. As along as a reader’s beliefs fit inside the acceptable worldview of the interpretative community, then any interpretation that seem right to the interpretative community at the moment or given to advance their beliefs is deemed as good and true.

Derrida’s Deconstructionism

Derrida’s deconstructionism’s underlying purpose is promoting and supporting an inconsistent ideology with the goal of removing institutional authority. As the chart shows the interpretative plurality speaks about approaching a text with different interpretative methods. The idea is that it might take multiple interpretative approaches to get a thick description of meaning out of a text. In contrast, hermeneutical pluralism maintains conflicting interpretations are viewed as equally valid. The deconstructionist represents a small, but growing, number of people who truly believe that a determinate meaning cannot be known from a text. When asked whether a determinate meaning can be determined, the majority of people think yes, even if they will not say so publicly. The power of their interpretive community and the perceived oppression by traditional institutions rallies the average reader to forsake logic and follow an inconsistent ideology.  Derrida’s criticism of literary theory includes a deconstruction of understanding.

Vanhoozer has observed how the work of orality in Rabbinical Sages to create independent and authoritative discourse outside the historical norms shows great similarities to Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionism: “Derrida attends only to the signifiers, not the signified.”  In other words, like the rabbis, Derrida is focused on someone’s speaking and has no concern for what they are saying. The social implications of Derrida’s deconstructionism can be seen in the plurality of Israel’s monotheistic culture. Thus, “The Alexandrian Therapeutae, the Yakhad of Qumran, the Pharisees, and the primitive Jesus-communities, all appear to have been conversionist associations formed to pursue a collective transformative discipline under the guidance of persuasive teachers.”  Vanhoozer promotes critical realism as a middle position between letterism (epistemological absolutism) and deconstructionism (epistemological relativism).

Pre-Deconstructionism: The Next Step?

Could Pre-Deconstructionism be the next step after post-modernism? Premodern was bound by authoritative religions, modernism is bound by scholastic academia, postmodern is bound by the individual, and pre-deconstructionism is bound by the interpretative community. Interpretative Communities could be the next phase of cultural evolution, returning words to premodern authoritative positions, this time not held by the church but multiplied by mobs of interpretative communities.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Counter Culture Christian: Is There Truth in Religion? (DVD) by Frank Turek

How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (MP3 Set), (mp4 Download Set), and (DVD Set)

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Dr. Scott Reynolds earned his D.Min from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. In addition to his doctoral pursuits, he has earned degrees from Troy University. Dr. Reynolds has traveled the world and has served as an archaeologist with some of the biggest names in the field. He brings a passion for biblical studies, biblical history, and an expertise in archaeological studies. Dr. Reynolds is a retired pastor and church planter. He has taught at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and now is now working archaeological digs in a pursuit of discovering the apologetic properties of archaeology. Scott and his wife Lori have two grown children, one granddaughter and a very spoiled dog.

Original blog: https://bit.ly/38nofpb

 

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Free Will Critics

Responding To Free Will Critics

By Evan Minton

My article “5 Arguments For The Existence Of Free Will” became very popular. Tim Stratton liked it so much that he featured it as a guest post on his blog FreeThinkingMinistires.com, Martin Glynn specifically asked me to post it to The Society Of Evangelical Arminians’ website, and Jairo Izquierdo published it as a guest post on CrossExamined.org. In the case of the latter, several comments came flooding in as pushback to the things I said in the article. This isn’t surprising given how popular CrossExamined.org is as an apologetics ministry. Instead of responding to the comments specifically and getting into long back-and-forth conversations with people, I thought it would be more edifying if I actually made a response article addressing a few of those rebuttals.

To the readers of this site, I will assume you have already read “5 Arguments For The Existence Of Free Will“, and the following content will assume that background knowledge. If you haven’t read it, go read that first. Moreover, I’ll address these rebuttals according to each specific argument that the rebuttal is aimed towards.

The Argument From True Love 

Rebuttal: You Can’t Choose Who You Fall In Love With.

Andy Ryan wrote “You can talk about ‘love freely given’ but does anyone believe they have a choice over who they love? It’s pretty much something that just happens. Many people wish they could stop loving someone they love or regain a love they’ve lost. But in vain. So I don’t get how you connect love to free will.” 

The problem with this response is that it’s equivocating “love” with “infatuation”. I’ve pointed out in other blog posts that love is not an emotion. It’s not a feeling. Love is an action or series of actions aimed at the wellbeing of the one being loved. You can choose who you love if love is an action or series of actions rather than a feeling. Obviously, you can’t control how you feel. If that were the case, I’d never feel worried, angry, or sad a single day in my entire life. When someone I love dies, I’d choose to just be giddy rather than heartbroken. While you can’t control how you feel, you can control how you act.

The idea that love is action and not an emotion is grounded in scripture. Let’s turn to one of the most famous passages on love; 1 Corinthians 13.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

This passage is a description of not just love, but perfect love. Go up and read the passage again very carefully. I want you to notice something. There isn’t much talk of warm, fuzzy feelings in this passage.

Kindness is not a feeling. Kindness is an action. If I buy you a house, it doesn’t matter how I feel about you. My action was a kindness towards you. My choice to buy you a house was just that: a choice. You can have very bitter feelings towards someone and will yourself to do something nice for them. Kindness does not have to be associated with feelings.

What about patience? Well, that might seem like an emotion, but in reality, patience itself is an action. I might be irritated that someone is taking a long time in doing something they said they were going to do for me, but I can choose to not to express my agitation. I can conceal it, and say “Take your time. There’s no hurry.”. An impatient person would say “What is taking you so long? Get on with it already!” I may be experiencing a feeling of impatience, but I can still express the action of patience. A friend and I may both be waiting on another friend to pick us up to take us to dinner, and I may say “What is taking him so long? He should have been here 20 minutes ago! This is going to screw up my whole schedule.” while my friend next to me may be experiencing the same emotion but keeps his impatient emotion to himself. So, although we’re both feeling the same emotion, I choose to express impatience while he chooses to express patience. When my future wife takes a long time in the bathroom getting ready, I may be irritated at that, but what will I express? Patience or impatience? The choice is up to me.

“It keeps no record of wrongs”. This is also a choice. You may incidentally remember wrongs done to you, but the one who loves will try to forget them. The one who loves will not purposefully keep a list so that he can keep throwing the misdeeds up in the misdeed doer’s face. I have been wronged by some of the people in my life, and while I can remember that I was wrong, I can’t remember very many of the specific wrongs (except when something triggers a memory). I’m trying not to keep a record.

“It does not dishonor others”. Is dishonoring others a feeling? Surely not.

“It does not boast” — regardless of what your emotional state is, you can choose not to brag about things.

“It is not self-seeking” — another action that’s not a feeling. You can choose to seek the good of others instead of your own good.

The only things resembling emotions in this passage would be the parts that say “It is not easily angered” and “rejoices in the truth”. Now, these are emotions. Does this contradict everything I’ve just said? I don’t think so. I don’t think love itself is an emotion, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely isolated from emotions. Love can invoke emotions. I’ve heard testimonies of Christians who have done kind things for their enemies. While initially gritting their teeth in distaste, over time, their continued choice to express love softened their hearts towards their enemies and they actually had emotional feelings towards them. One of my Bible teachers spoke of a man he worked for years ago who made his life Hell. The employer developed cancer and my Bible teacher reluctantly prayed for him over a long period of time. The more he prayed for his boss, the less hard feelings he had towards him. When he learned of his employer’s passing, he said that it actually broke his heart and he burst into tears. I have had similar experiences. Doing love can actually transform your feelings towards someone. This is why I think it’s entirely possible to learn to “love the one you’re with”. This would also explain why so many arranged marriages actually worked out in times past.[1]

In light of this, Jesus’ command in Matthew 5 to love our enemies makes a lot more sense. Jesus isn’t commanding us to have warm and fuzzy feelings towards the people who treat us horribly. Rather, he’s telling us to show them kindness, patience, to avoid dishonoring them, to not boast if you one up them, to seek their well-being. Most of Jesus’ examples of loving your enemies are *drum roll* actions: “ If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”(verses 39-42).

In conclusion: I can’t control who I become infatuated with, but I can control which woman I show love to. I don’t have to have warm and fuzzy feelings towards someone to love them.

The Argument From Moral Accountability 

Rebuttal: Your Argument doesn’t follow because you haven’t demonstrated that The Bible is true.

In one of KR’s comments, he said: “Your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premises since you haven’t established that what the Bible teaches is actually true. Your 2nd argument suffers from the same problem.” 

My article was primarily aimed at Calvinists, who believe The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant, and ergo true. So, I admit that I presupposed that The Bible was true in most of the arguments I used in my blog post. I wasn’t concerned with refuting atheistic determinists, but determinists who were Christians. The only argument in the blog post that would apply to both Christian and non-Christian determinists was The FreeThinking Argument. I’ve argued with KR in the comment sections of other blog posts on Cross Examined’s website, so I know that he isn’t a Christian. It isn’t surprising that he wouldn’t find the argument from moral accountability compelling since it does presuppose that The Bible is true.

The Appearance Of Free Will Problem

Rebuttal: I Feel Determined?

In the same comment, KR wrote “As for the appearance of free will, it may be the case that we have different experiences. While I certainly feel that I have a self and that this self-performs various actions and has various thoughts, it feels to me that these actions and thoughts are always a reaction to something that happened before. I don’t feel that I decide to perform an action or have a thought ‘ex nihilo'”.

I don’t like responding to arguments when I’m not 100% sure I understand. But I studied this response carefully and I think I know what he’s saying here. I suspect that KR may be misrepresenting what libertarian free will is when he says “I don’t feel that I decide to perform an action or have a thought ex nihilo.” It is a common misconception that libertarian free will asserts that our choices are “random” or “spontaneous”, like the appearance of a particle in the quantum vacuum. No one knows when and where one is going to pop up. I don’t think my choices originate “ex nihilo” either, at least if KR is using that term the way I think he’s using it. Certainly, there are previously existing factors inside and outside of myself that have an influence on my choices, but does this mean that they determine my choices? I would say no. My feeling of hunger may influence me to get up and grab something to eat, but the hunger doesn’t determine me to eat. My urge for sex may influence my decision to have intercourse with someone, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have refrained from having sex with that person. Libertarian Free Will (LFW) neither asserts that our choices have no good reasons or motivations behind them. I may choose to eat because I’m hungry or I may choose to refrain from eating because I’m too busy working on a blog post, or maybe I’m in the middle of a fast, or maybe I’m dieting to lose weight. LFW doesn’t assert that our choices are without purpose, just that it laid within our power to choose the opposite of what we actually chose.

Does KR have an accurate understanding of LFW? If not, that might explain why he feels he doesn’t have it. If he thinks of free will as spontaneous actions devoid of any influences or motivations, then it’s no wonder why he doesn’t think he has it. I don’t believe I have that kind of free will either!

The Free Thinking Argument

Rebuttal 1: Computers Do Calculations And They Don’t Have Free Will.

Andy Ryan wrote “You’ve not shown or demonstrated this. Why does the latter follow from the former?” Premise 3 of The Free Thinking Argument states that if libertarian free will does not exist, the rationality and knowledge does not exist. He says I haven’t demonstrated that this premise is true. Why does he think that?

The argument I put forth was a quote from Tim Stratton. Stratton said “Premise (3) is equivalent with ‘if all things are causally determined, then that includes all thoughts and beliefs.’ If our thoughts and beliefs are forced upon us, and we could not have chosen better beliefs, then we are simply left assuming that our determined beliefs are good (let alone true). Therefore, we could never rationally affirm that our beliefs are the inference to the best explanation – we can only assume it. Here is the big problem for the atheistic naturalist: it logically follows that if naturalism is true, then atheists — or anyone else for that matter — cannot possess knowledge. Knowledge is defined as ‘justified true belief.’ One can happen to have true beliefs; however, if they do not possess warrant or justification for a specific belief, their belief does not qualify as a knowledge claim. If one cannot freely infer the best explanation, then one has no justification that their belief really is the best explanation. Without justification, knowledge goes down the drain. All we are left with is question-begging assumptions.”[2]

Andy responded “Why does one have to ‘freely’ infer it? Do computers require free will to make accurate calculations? Evidently not – they seem to get by just fine! Imagine giving two computers sentience. They argue between them over a particular course of action and which option is the best. What’s wrong with describing what they have as ‘knowledge’?”

To hark back to Stratton’s explanation: knowledge is “justified true belief”. In order to have a belief that is both true and justified, one must be able to think freely. In order to think freely, one must have free will. You can’t be a free thinker without free will. In the case of computers, yes, they do mathematical calculations and they always come up with the right answer to the equation, but that’s because there were people who causally determined the computer to have an infallible calculator inside of it. The programmer just as well could have programmed the computer to come up with wrong answers, and the computer wouldn’t know the difference. Or perhaps someone hacked into the computer and infected it with a virus that causally determines it to come up with calculations. If human beings are causally determined, then how do you know that the beliefs you hold to aren’t irrational? How could you keep yourself from committing fallacies? How could you know whether or not the beliefs you were determined to hold are true? They could be true, they could have good reasons for them, but you wouldn’t be able to rationally weigh alternatives. If person 1 is causally determined to believe truth A, if person 1 was causally determined to believe lie B, he was determined to believe B.

Just as a computer will come up with the truth or a lie depending on how it’s wired, so we will come to true or false beliefs depending on how we’re wired. Can it really be said that someone possesses knowledge (i.e justified true belief) when the conclusions they came to were a mere matter of the molecules and chemistry in their brain + their environment? If the atoms in their brains bumped around differently, or if they had lived different lives in different circumstances and environments, their beliefs very well could have been different. What someone believes, on naturalism, depends on happenstance. If what someone believes depends on happenstance, how can that belief be said to be justified? It could, by happenstance, be a true belief, but it would not be a justified true belief. You would just happen to hold to the correct viewpoint.

The same problem affects theological determinism. If God causally determines everything we think, say, and do, then if we believe the correct theological doctrines or not just depends on whatever God decreed we would believe.

William Lane Craig said it well: “There is a sort of dizzying, self-defeating character to determinism. For if one comes to believe that determinism is true, one has to believe that the reason he has come to believe it is simply that he was determined to do so. One has not in fact been able to weigh the arguments pro and con and freely make up one’s mind on that basis. The difference between the person who weighs the arguments for determinism and rejects them and the person who weighs them and accepts them is wholly that one was determined by causal factors outside himself to believe and the other not to believe. When you come to realize that your decision to believe in determinism was itself determined and that even your present realization of that fact right now is likewise determined, a sort of vertigo sets in, for everything that you think, even this very thought itself, is outside your control. Determinism could be true; but it is very hard to see how it could ever be rationally affirmed since its affirmation undermines the rationality of its affirmation.”[3]

Rebuttal 2: What Is A Soul And How Does It Allow For Free Will but Physicalism Doesn’t? 

In that same comment, Andy Ryan said “What exactly is a soul and by what exact mechanism does it make libertarian free will possible where it is otherwise impossible? If one person has a soul and another person doesn’t, how does the soul lead to better or more informed decisions in the first person? If their brains are otherwise working exactly the same, I don’t see the difference.”

Andy is responding to the second premise of The Free Thinking Argument which states that if the soul does not exist, then no one has a libertarian free will. First, souls are immaterial entities that animate the physical bodies of humans and higher animals. It controls the brain and the brain controls the body. When a person dies, the soul leaves the body, leaving it lifeless. A soul isn’t something you have, it’s something you are. A body is what you have.

If people are merely physical organisms, then that means all of our thoughts, feelings, and actions are causally determined by brain chemistry, firing neurons, external environmental conditions and so on. How can free will exist if a man is nothing more than a collection of physical parts? Does a computer have free will? Does an amoeba have free will? Do thunderclouds have free will? No. All of the above react to physical cause and effect because they are purely physical things. I just took a swig of diet coke after typing that last sentence. If humans are purely physical creatures, then I don’t see how we can control what we do any more than my diet coke can control whether or not it fizzes.

Many atheists, like Francis Crick who I quoted in the article, are determinists precisely because they are physicalists. It’s their physicalism that drives them to the conclusion that we are merely organisms reacting to stimuli.  The assertion of premise 2 is that if the soul doesn’t exist, then free will doesn’t exist. I think I’ve done a pretty good job explaining that we have good reason to believe this is true. Now, how does the soul solve the problem? I’m not entirely sure what it is about a soul that gives it the ability to choose between alternatives, but I do know that it makes human beings more than mere physical objects. If I am a soul with a body, then there’s an aspect of me that transcends the natural realm, and that therefore entails that I am not necessarily subject to do whatever my environment and internal brain activity make me do. I have a mind, not just a brain. And while the brain can affect/influence the mind (e.g mental illnesses like schizophrenia), and the reverse is also true (e.g studies have shown that positive thoughts and negative thoughts can shape your brain), it is not the case that my brain makes me do anything.

Conclusion 
I don’t think any of the people in the comment section successfully refuted any of the arguments I put forth in libertarian free will.

By the way, there was a comment left by a person named John B Moore, but I didn’t address it because he didn’t get any rebuttals. All he did was essentially say “Your arguments are no good. You’re wrong”. Not a quote, but that’s the essence of his comment. He didn’t say which of the premises of which of the arguments were not true, nor did he tackle my arguments for the truth of the premises.

Notes

[1] I ‘m not advocating for arranged marriages. I’m just saying that maybe a reason so many of them actually turned out well was that the people realized “This is who I’m going to be stuck with for the rest of my life. I should make every effort to show love to him or her”.

[2] Tim Stratton, “The FreeThinking Argument In A Nutshell”, November 30th 2015, http://freethinkingministries.com/the-freethinking-argument-in-a-nutshell/

[3] William Lane Craig, from the article “Q&A: Molinism VS. Calvinism: Troubled By Calvinists”, – http://www.reasonablefaith.org/molinism-vs-calvinism 

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2ku9IhP

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Are Miracles Metaphysically Impossible?

By Tim Stratton

“It’s impossible for God to interact in the physical world. For example, say we have a material object and God wants to move it. Newton made it clear: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Therefore, since God is an immaterial being He could never cause anything to happen or occur in the material/physical universe. Therefore, miracles are impossible!”

Mr. Skeptic

I spend much of my time arguing against naturalism; specifically against the idea that only the physical universe exists. This is accomplished by utilizing logical arguments reaching deductive conclusions that demonstrate the existence of both God and the human soul. Many times the best discoveries in modern science support premises in these deductive arguments reaching supernatural conclusions.

One of the most common objections I receive on the internet is known as the interaction objection. I previously wrote an article regarding this specific kind of objection in regards to the human soul [1]. The objection above is quite similar, but specifically against the idea of God not only being able to create the universe, but especially to act in it (miracles).

One of my lecturing professors at Biola University was the eminent philosopher, JP Moreland. I chose to attend Biola University basically for two reasons: William Lane Craig and JP Moreland. Not long ago my wife and I had the privilege of having dinner with JP Moreland. I learned more that night than from any class lecture. We discussed many things that evening and this topic of God interacting in the world was included. Based on that conversation, I believe that the objection above fails for at least three reasons.

Empirical Observations & Metaphysical Principles

First of all, Newton’s 3rd law is not a metaphysical principle; rather, it is an empirical one. The problem here is that one cannot logically derive metaphysical principles from mere empirical observations. Moreland said, “Any freshman philosophy student should know that you cannot derive deep modal or metaphysical conclusions from empirical laws.”

Empirical laws or observations merely tell us what is true in this world — nothing more. You might grant that empirical laws tell us what is true in all relevantly similar worlds that are physical worlds, but they do not tell you what must be true in this world. That is to say, you cannot derive deep modal conclusions (what is possible or impossible in any world) from empirical laws because empirical laws are too thin of a basis to support this kind of overreaching generalization.

Knowledge & Conceivability

The second problem with this objection is that modal judgments are known a priori (from the earlier) as opposed to a posteriori (from the latter). We know about necessity and possibility a priori. We know about physics from experience via the scientific method. This is a posterioriknowledge. Newton’s 3rd law might be physically necessary, but this is not metaphysically necessary. There is simply no evidence for that because those kinds of statements are known a priori.

The best epistemic test for a priori knowledge is conceivability. Moreland said that one “might not like this, but it’s about all we’ve got!” If something is conceivable, then it is possible; if something is inconceivable, then it is impossible. This is a defeasible criterion of knowledge. This is not with Cartesian certainty by any means, but nevertheless, it is defeasible.

Moreland offered a great example:

The reason I think it is metaphysically possible for little green men to exist on the surface of Mars is not because I’ve been there to check it out, but because I can conceive of little green men on the surface of Mars. With that said, however, I cannot conceive of married bachelors in Montana. Therefore, I don’t even need to make the trip to check it out because I know this is impossible.

The Problem of Proving Too Much

Finally, the third problem with this objection is that if this objection is right, then it proves too much as it also rules out human libertarian free will. If an immaterial substance cannot interact in the material world, then the same problem God supposedly has is also a major problem for human beings. That is to say, if God cannot act on matter, then neither can a human soul.

Every time a human makes a free choice (which include both moral or rational decisions) we are performing (for lack of a better term) “mini miracles.” Because humans are immaterial souls with material bodies, we have the ability to intervene in and override the laws of nature. This ability gives us a respons-ABILITY to not behave as mere animals.

Libertarianism (libertarian free will) is the opposite of compatibilism (compatibilism is a form of determinism). Libertarianism states that when one acts freely, then nothing else causally determined that thought or action. It was “up to you” completely. This is not to say that we have libertarian freedom in all things, or that we cannot be influenced by other things, but influence and causal determinism are two different kinds of things. When humans freely think, then we can make rational choices and decisions. When humans act freely, we generate motion in the universe from the available energy to use, or not to use.

Consider when I choose to raise my arm, nothing causally determined my arm to rise but me; not the prior states of my brain. If my arm is caused to move by the state of the brain, then there is a causal link between the brain state and what determined my brain to exist in the specific state (which is not up to me if naturalism is true). This can go on and on back to the initial conditions of the big bang (which is another example of a physical thing being caused by a non-physical or immaterial substance).

Moreland said,

Behind each chain of events, if there is libertarian freedom, is a first mover — me! I might choose to exercise my power and that might cause a nervous system event to go down and raise my arm — I don’t have any problem with that — but at the back of that sucker is me interacting with matter!

This means that the objector proves too much! If this objection is right, then libertarian free will is impossible, and if there is no libertarian free will, then rationality is not just false, but impossible. That is to say, if there is no free will, then there is no freethinking! However, isn’t the objector claiming to make a rational objection? If so, then his argument is self-defeating!

Bottom line: We have scientific, philosophical, and historical justification to believe in miracles. Moreover, the interaction objection fails as a defeater for this justified belief for the three reasons listed above. Therefore, given the three reasons to believe in miracles and the three reasons to reject the objection to miracles, it is perfectly rational to state, “I believe in miracles!”

Stay reasonable (Philippians 4:5),

Tim Stratton (Visit Tim’s Website @ FreeThinkingMinistries.com)

NOTES

[1] In a previous article I demonstrated that it is impossible to doubt the existence of your mind, but there is some scientific reason to doubt the existence of your brain. It follows that if one really thinks that it is impossible for an immaterial mind (God or the human soul) to interact with the physical universe, then they ought to become a theistic idealist and reject matter before rejecting mind. One way or the other, naturalism/physicalism is false. Mind is fundamental and ultimate reality.

Resources For Greater Impact: 

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Important Objections in the Fine-Tuning Debate

In my previous blog I dealt with objections to fine-tuning based on misunderstandings of the nature of the argument or of probability theory. In this blog, however, I attempt to deal with important issues in the debate. If either objection succeeds it would undermine the design inference based upon the fine-tuning evidence.

Could the Laws of Physics Have Been Different?

If there is only one possible set of physics, then there is no sense in which the set of life-permitting physics could be said to be improbable. There are two aspects to considering with regard to whether or not the laws of physics might have been different.

1)      Are there other metaphysically possible alternatives?

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy so this aspect is really a question that goes beyond science. However even among scientists, few think that there is only one logically possible set of laws of Nature. For example, in one of the classic fine-tuning papers Bernard Carr and Martin Rees note that “even if all apparently anthropic coincidences could be explained [in terms of some deeper theory], it would still be remarkable that the relationships dictated by physical theory happened also to be those propitious for life.[1]” Even if there was only one physically possible set of physics there is still something surprising about the fine-tuning evidence because there is no reason to think that their couldn’t have been different laws, constants, or initial conditions. If there really were no alternatives that were even metaphysically possible, one should be able to derive the laws and parameters of physics without even having to do observations and experiments but as physicist John Barrow notes in regard to the fundamental constants discussed in fine-tuning, “we have never successfully predicted the value of any dimensionless constant in advance of its measurement.”

If one looks at mathematical proofs, the premises are never based on empirical results whereas in science we’ve learned that we need to do experiments to choose among candidate theories. Metaphysicians, therefore, generally recognize that mathematical truths are true in all possible worlds (in the modal logic sense of the word) but that scientific truths are not.

Physicist Paul Davies responds to those few who have tried to argue that “the nature of the physical world would be entirely a consequence of logical and mathematical necessity. There would be no choice about it. I think this is demonstrably wrong. There is not a shred of evidence that the universe is logically necessary. Indeed, as a theoretical physicist I find it rather easy to imagine alternative universes that are logically consistent, and therefore equal contenders for reality.[2]”

2) Are there other physically possible alternatives?

Many leading physicists think that physics itself provides various potential means for varying the fundamental constants. Virtually every physics department is involved in research in theories such as String Theory that entail that the constants of physics actually could be different. As Lee Smolin explains, “string theory makes all the properties of the elementary particles contingent – determined not by fundamental law but by … solutions to the fundamental theory.[3]” String theory was once thought to be the best hope for a Theory of Everything which might explain why the constants of physics take on the values they do. Indeed it might greatly reduce the number of fundamental parameters. However, there seem to be a vast number of solutions to the equations of String Theory although they’re still not well-defined. Some scientists have complained that what was hoped to be a “Theory of Everything” has turned out to look more like a “Theory of Anything.”

In this article, physicist John Barrow lists 5 reasons to expect that the constants of physics can vary.

1)      “We know that the best candidates for unification of the forces of nature in a quantum gravitational environment only seem to exist in finite form if there are many more dimensions of space than the three that we are familiar with. This means that the true constants of nature are defined in higher dimensions and the three-dimensional shadows we observe are no longer fundamental and do not need to be constant. Any slow change in the scale of the extra dimensions would be revealed by measurable changes in our three-dimensional ‘constants’.”

2)      “Some apparent constant might be determined partially or completely by spontaneous symmetry-breaking processes in the very early universe. This introduces an irreducibly random element into the values of those constants.”

3)      “Any outcome of a theory of quantum gravity will be intrinsically probabilistic… [thus some constants are] predicted to be spatial random variables”

4)      “A non-uniqueness of the vacuum state for the universe would allow other numerical combinations of the constants to have occurred in different places.”

5)      There are some observations that the fine-structure constant may have varied very slightly over time and/or space. [Newer studies are still not conclusive on this point – the data is somewhat ambiguous.]

 Even if the constants and laws of physics couldn’t vary, there is even more reason to think that there were many physically possible sets of initial conditions. Paul Davies states this emphatically:

“Even if the laws of physics were unique, it doesn’t follow that the physical universe itself is unique…the laws of physics must be augmented by cosmic initial conditions…there is nothing in present ideas about ‘laws of initial conditions’ remotely to suggest that their consistency with the laws of physics would imply uniqueness. Far from it…it seems, then, that the physical universe does not have to be the way it is: it could have been otherwise.[4]”

John A. Wheeler agrees: “Never has physics come up with a way to tell with what initial conditions the universe was started off. On nothing is physics clearer than what is not physics.”

What about the laws themselves varying?

Fine-tuning proponents don’t generally seek to quantify the rarity of life-permitting physics among all possible laws but rather at the level of initial conditions and constants as not enough is known to evaluate that case in any detail. As Robin Collins puts it, fine-tuning only considers the epistemically illumined region. As we evaluate the space of possibilities that we have sufficient “light” to evaluate, we discover the remarkable fact that life is only possible in a very small subset. Going back to our dartboard analogy from a previous blog, we have some uncertainty about the size of the wall – maybe it’s not 300+ million light years per dimension or maybe it’s actually larger. The argument is still quite powerful even if we’re over estimating the range of available parameters by a factor of a million million million – and remember this analogy dealt with only one of the many finely-tuned parameters.

In a future blog, I will examine how life depends upon certain laws and principles but will not attempt to make a numerical probabilistic case in that arena. In many candidate physical theories, the laws themselves wouldn’t change in different universes, merely the constants in the equations for those laws.

But We Can’t Assess Exact Probabilities

Another objection is that we can’t assess an exact improbability for life. We can tell something is highly improbable even if we cannot compute an exact value or conduct a series of trial experiments. What are the odds that I would beat Lebron James in a one-on-one basketball game? My only chance would be if he got hurt or something and it would be hard to estimate that very precisely.

I agree that it is premature to put an exact number to the rarity of life-permitting universes among possibilities but I believe that we have a dozen or more independent reasons for thinking it highly improbable. I did toss out the improbability of 1 in 10^100 in a previous blog – as a counterfactual saying in effect that if it could be shown that intelligent life was this rare among possibilities, wouldn’t you count it as some evidence for cosmic design? I indicated that when I present the evidence in detail that I would attempt to justify this number and that many non-theistic physicists accept this magnitude of a number for just a single parameter in some cases.

If we accept the plausible assumptions found in the peer-reviewed physics literature, we do end up with an incredible improbability for a life-permitting universe if physics is set randomly. These articles often cite a natural range for constants based on magnitudes derived from Quantum Field Theory or particle masses as predicted by the standard model of particle physics. For my fine-tuning claim to be defeated virtually all of these physics articles would need to be mistaken.

Computing an exact value involves knowing the exact range of possibilities and the distribution function neither of which is generally known precisely. Many scientists take the principle of indifference to imply a uniform (and thus linear) distribution of possible values for constants, Citing Aguirre’s work, Luke Barnes indicates that it’s unreasonable to expect that new information about underlying physics will invalidate fine-tuning: “In short, to significantly change the probability of a life-permitting universe, we would need a prior that centres close to the observed value, and has a narrow peak. But this simply exchanges one fine-tuning for two – the centre and peak of the distribution.” Barnes/Aguirre discussed this at last summer’s philosophy of cosmology conference amidst many prominent physicists and philosophers who have written about the fine-tuning and no one challenged it. Barnes lists some other key attendees as: Craig Callender (UCSD), Sean Carroll (Cal Tech), Shelly Goldstein (Rutgers), Anna Ijjas (Harvard/Rutgers), Tim Maudlin (NYU), Priya Natarajan (Yale), Ward Struyve (Rutgers), Tiziana Vistarini, (Rutgers), David Wallace (Oxford), Alex Pruss, Chris Smeenk, Fred Adams, Leonard Susskind, Matt Johnson.

In summary, I think it would be a mistake to ignore fine-tuning simply because we don’t know exact ranges that values can take on – if anything we may be underestimating them. As I’m presenting the evidence I’ll try to highlight what physicists are saying with regard to expectations for the range of parameter space and the reader can evaluate whether or not these physicists are mistaken in claiming that life-permitting universes are rare among possibilities.

[1] Bernard Carr and Martin Rees, “The Anthropic Principle and the Structure of the Physical World,” Nature 278, (1979): 612.

[2] Paul Davies in Templeton address in August 1995. http://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24

[3] Smolin. The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006), p. 127.

[4] Paul Davies, The Mind of God (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p 169.

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