Dear Mr. and Mrs. Naturalism, Whatever Your First Name May Be

Begin by considering this.  If our brains are merely a random collection of atoms, responding to various stimuli, in accord with the laws of physics, biology and chemistry (whatever ‘laws’ may be in a materialistic universe), then true beliefs are illusory, since these beliefs would be only the consequences of these bits of matter reacting with other bits of matter in ways predetermined by antecedent material causes.  It seems inescapable that, according to materialism, our brains are just a random collection of atoms, which behave according to physical laws and predetermined antecedents.  It follows necessarily, then, that true beliefs are illusory, not least the belief in materialism. 

More than that, if the materialists’ perspective is correct, and our reason is reducible to brain stuffs, working as described above, then a subject’s seeming favorable attitude and volitional commitment to any ‘belief’ would likewise be determined not by meaningful reflection and rational deliberations but by material-only antecedents.  So, on your view, I don’t believe beliefs signify anything personal or rational, but are best understood to be sensational effects of purely material causes.   On materialism, I can find no grounds for believing in belief.   

At any rate, what difference this makes is insignificant in terms of materialism.  For like beliefs, truth—the object of knowledge—cannot exist within the context of the materialists’ world.  Truth itself is immaterial.  Moreover, it is eternal.  For instance, there never was nor ever will be a time in which the law of non-contradiction was or could be false.  This fact also points to the immutability and absoluteness of truth.  In a materialists’ world the only thing that enjoys these attributes—immateriality, eternality, immutability, absoluteness—is the fact that there is no ontological (or even logical) residency for such, and therefore no home for truth, thus leaving knowledge homeless as well. 

Your primary problem is rooted in your epistemological autonomy.  Granting your faith commitment to metaphysical naturalism and materialism, in your strivings for knowledge, you are left with and only with the epistemological perspective of pure empiricism.  This leads into a number of problems of significant proportion. 

           

Firstly, empiricism cannot stand the rigors of its own criteria for knowledge, e.g., “Knowledge comes only through sense perception.” The truth of this proposition is not itself something known through sense perception and observation.  Empiricism, ultimately, can tell us nothing about the future, since the future is yet to be observed, and all knowledge is reducible to observation through the senses.  Closely related is the fact that your man David Hume observed, namely that the cause and effect relationships presupposed by empiricists are (obviously!) not subject to empirical observation, analyses and/or verification, and therefore cannot be known, according to the rigors of empiricism.  At best, two events or states of affairs, what are commonly called “brute facts,” occurring in close relation to one another are mere coincidence, happenstance, without any meaningful relation.

Moreover, pure empiricism’s history cannot even agree about the metaphysical reality we’re supposedly observing.  Locke rendered “substance” to be inexplicable; Berkeley decided to simply do away with material reality; but, who really cares, since Hume discovered that there was no mental/immaterial self to do the observing!  Even if a consensus were established, it makes little difference, since empiricism, presuming the principle of induction, and not having an internally coherent justification always begs the fundamental question.  An eminent spokesperson of your stripe understood this much.

It has been argued that we have reason that we know that the future will resemble the past, because what was the future has constantly become the past.  But such an argument really begs the very question at issue...We have therefore still to seek for some principle which shall enable us to know that the future will follow the same laws as the past (Burtrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy [New York, NY: Barnes and Noble, 2004] 45).

Naturalists make much of ‘verification.’ However, the argument for empirical verification breaks a formal law of logic, and is therefore always fallacious.  It goes like this: If hypothesis P, then effect Q will result; Q was the result, therefore P is verified and may be considered ‘theory’ or ‘law.’  This is the fallacy of affirming the consequent.  Because every line of verification must proceed thus, no method of verification is logically valid or sound.  Besides this, if truth were dependent upon verification, then we’d never know anything to be true, since every verification would itself need verification, ad infinitum.  Empiricism has no answer to the problem of an infinite regress in establishing epistemic justification.  Furthermore, empiricism cannot verify, much less account for, the abstract, absolute, universal, and invariable logical laws and concepts it takes for granted. 

It may be added that empiricism leads to solipsism.  Empiricism begins, is checked, and ends with the subject’s mere (brute) perceptions; and, those perceptions can only be verified by other perceptions, thus leading to solipsism.  The epistemology which most loudly boasts objectivity actually eliminates genuine knowledge of any reality outside oneself—crass subjectivism.  Additionally, our senses are often deceptive, and empiricism provides no means of determining which and how the data should be filtered. 

Finally, empiricism is destroyed by means of the so-called ‘problem of criterion.’  Empiricism is an epistemological ‘method’ for investigating reality; it is a chosen criterion for judging and verifying claims made about what ultimate reality truly is.  The problem comes when one asks, “How do we know that empiricism is the proper criterion for evaluating reality, one that truly corresponds with reality?”  You see, empiricists would already have to know in advance, and exhaustively so, what reality is ultimately like before they would ever be able to identify their epistemological method.  But, they tell us that such is only achievable by means of their method, empiricism.  The point is: You must already presuppose your metaphysical perspective (i.e., materialism) in advance before ever selecting your method of investigation—you must first make a faith commitment.  This, ironically, is the very thing for which you attempt to mock Christians.  Therefore, I believe it apropos to cite Psalm 7:14—15 as a proper acclamation for the antitheistic position:  “Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.  He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.”

Granting all this—making the concept of beliefs unbelievable, making truth a cosmological hobo, and by faith in a false metaphysical construct, making epistemic justification unjustifiable—your materialism, like the mute pagan idols of antiquity, make the idol of autonomous human reason, in a word, dumb. 

It was the Puritan Richard Baxter who declared, “Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known.”  So, I suppose in a sense the above arguments are simply support for this unpretentious dictum.  The good news is that in the fullness of time God the Father sent forth his Son, Christ Jesus, to live such a life and die such a death and be resurrected in such a glory that rebels like you and I, by faith—not in our own will and reason independent of God; instead—in Jesus’ Name, offices, and work alone we might be saved.  That is, that we might be saved from God’s righteous judgment against our cosmic treason and rebellion, and restored to a right standing before him and relationship with him, having peace with God through Christ by the Holy Ghost. 

In addition, Jesus saves us from the various expressions of our sinful reasoning, such as naturalistic/materialistic antitheism.  Such false constructs lead straightway to epistemological self-destruction, as I believe foregoing succinctly demonstrates.  By the mercies of God in Christ, however, the Holy Ghost begins his work of transformation, which includes not least the renewing of our minds, recreating us in true knowledge and righteousness and holiness, after the image of him who created us, and thus conforming us into the image of Christ.  So, I am not inviting you to have faith at the expense of reason.  Rather, I am inviting you to a faith other than the one that you have now, antithetically other in fact.  This faith, faith in the Logos, Christ Jesus and his self-attesting Word, does not disparage reason; no, this faith is the only one that can save reason, just as it is the only one that can save sinners, like you and like me.

Presuppositionalism Applied II

McLoughlin's madness seems to have no stops. After six or so months of silence without McLoughlin attacking the Faith in the Bedford Bulletin, he struck again this week with the following letter to the Editor. My response follows.

No belief in a god

Mark Twain said “faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” Maybe that’s why at least one billion people have no belief in a god. These non-believers come from the safest, healthiest, most educated, most charitable, most technologically advanced and most crime-free nations on earth, according to the research of Zuckerman. Countries with high percentages of unbelievers include global bright spots like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Japan, Canada and France. These people are not the world’s idiots.

Also, scientists as a group fail to see these “obvious” gods whom believers keep talking about. Despite the fact that the U. S. is a highly religious society, almost all elite American scientists are non-believers. Researchers Larson and Witham found that only 1 percentof the National Academy of Sciences members were believers. To many of them, reliance on faith is a complete surrender of the mind or at least a stubborn reluctance to think. Why, for example, shouldn’t a person who defends her god on faith, not defend the existence of the thousands of other gods? Maybe, as Dawkins says, everyone is an atheist except for their god. If a Christian were born in Iraq rather than the US, he/she would surely have been a Muslim. What does this say about the uniqueness of the Christian God?

It’s clear that arguments based on reason and reality are not likely to have much of an impact on a concept that has nothing to do with either. Further, faith doesn’t lose debates because it doesn’t play by the rules. Dawkins says, “Faith is evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.”

Many thousands of excavations have been conducted all over the world and not one artifact has been found that provides direct evidence of even one god, one miracle, one angel, one genie, or one demon. The shroud of Turin is but one example of the many frauds that have been perpetrated. So where is the scientific evidence for a god? Charles Darwin said, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” Maybe Lucretius was right, “Fear was the first thing on earth to make gods.” Or maybe Mark Twain was right, “it ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bothers me, it is the parts that I do understand.” Or maybe Aristotle was right, “Prayers and sacrifices are of no avail” and “men created gods after their own image.” Xenophanes speculated that "if horses had gods, those gods would be horses.”

Many will use Hitler as an example of the horrors of unbelief, but he is the wrong choice for atheism’s poster boy. Hitler was not an atheist, at least not according to his own written and spoken words. He was raised a Christian and as an adult quoted the Bible and drew upon religion for inspiration. From Mein Kampf: “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” Even more significant, virtually all of his enthusiastic supporters were believers too, from his generals right down to the Third Reich’s privates. It wasn’t atheists delivering Jews to death camps. It was believers. Without a doubt, future generations will shake their heads and wonder how this could have happened. They do today.

David McLoughlin, Feb. 24, 2010

The Faith of Unbelief

As Christian philosopher C. S. Lewis said, “Good philosophy exists if for no other reason than to answer bad philosophy.” Few examples better typify the latter like David McLoughlin’s last letter, “No belief in a god” (02/24). It teemed with sophomoric desperation and demonstrated that McLoughlin can plainly understand the nature of neither faith nor the debate.

McLoughlin owned Richard Dawkin’s comment, “Faith is evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.” This invokes three concepts: Faith, morality and rationality. These are interrelated.

First, Christians happily confess that faith in the absolute-personal God of the Bible provides the necessary grounding for our experience and interpretation of morality and rationality. McLoughlin must also answer the grounding question from his atheistic perspective.

McLoughlin’s quote speaks of “evil.” Within an atheistic worldview, what in the world is evil? Apart from the Christian God, what ultimate reference point is there that can serve as a universal, absolute standard for making judgments about human behavior? All atheistic answers to this question are reducible to crass relativism. Relativism says that “morals” are the emotive responses of mere personal tastes. Accordingly, McLoughlin—in logical keeping with his atheism—is only imposing his personal tastes on everyone else, when he says that your and my commitment to Christ is “evil.” Driven to consistency, there isn’t a principled difference between what McLoughlin has attempted with this remark and saying that the group of people who favor chocolate over vanilla ice-cream are committing “evil” in their commitment. In short, what philosophical right does any atheist have to call anything objectively “evil”? We’ve yet to hear a reasonable answer to this question.

Closely related is the “is-to-ought” problem that atheists must face. Unmistakably, McLoughlin contrasts us “common people who gladly hear Jesus” (Mark 12:37) with the “most educated,” “elite” atheistic scientists. Scientists, however, are restricted to empirical or physical observations for their conclusions. Therefore, as David Hume concluded, there is no rational justification, per atheistic science, for moving from the observable “what is the case,” describing human behavior, to “what ought to be the case,” prescribing human behavior and conduct. Granting McLoughlin’s outlook, then, we’re left with the atheists’ strong-armed “Might makes right” brand of ethics—what’s commonly called tyranny.

Secondly, regarding rationality. From the foregoing, it’s obvious that McLouglin has no standard, as do Christians, which could morally obligate all people everywhere to regiment their thinking in a rational and coherent manner. Additionally, his atheism “brooks no argument” for the why and the how of human reasoning, as many of my past letters have demonstrated. However, the problems don’t stop here. McLoughlin is far from faith-neutral; he has his faith commitments as well, despite how much he deplores the fact. His outlook additionally suffers from what’s called the problem of criterion.

McLoughlin speaks authoritatively about “reality,” presuming to pronounce what is and isn’t possible. How, though, does he know that God is not a reality? Because, “scientists fail to see” God. That notwithstanding, what criterion of rationality have these scientists adopted for their investigation of reality but purely empirical methods. We may now ask, How do they know that an empirical-only method is the proper criterion for evaluating and investigating reality? There is only one answer to this question in terms of McLoughlin’s position.

An empirical-only criterion would be rational if, and only if, atheistic scientists begin with the presupposition that reality is material-only. That is, McLoughlin and his gods (i.e., ultimate authorities) begin with the deep faith commitment that reality is such that nothing immaterial can exist, and that well before they select their method or criterion for exploring reality. They begin with faith, plain and simple, that reality is Godless, and upon that faith they adopt a criterion that would preclude any detection of such a Being (since “God is spirit,” John 4:24). Then, in perfect accord with their controlling faith commitment to the non-existence of God, they interpret, or rather sift, the evidence round about them in perfect harmony with their controlling presupposition of a Godless reality.

Of course, McLoughlin and his sort find the idea of faith repugnant. But there’s no way around it. We all must begin somewhere and with some final authority, which has Crown-rights over all our thinking—that is faith. For Christians, this trust is placed in the Self-attesting, Creator-Redeemer Christ speaking in the Scriptures; for atheists, like McLoughlin, it’s something in creation (Romans 1:18—32). And this is the good news, that Jesus Christ died in such a way that the ungodly like you, me, and McLoughlin could be redeemed from our cosmic treason and rebellion; our de-Godding of God; or, our “bad philosophy,” as C. S. Lewis put it.

Kevin Stevenson, Year of our Lord, Feb. 25, 2010

Revelational Epistemology in Clement of Alexandria

Although the Patristic fathers, most notably the Easterners, had a penchant for compromising with Greek philosophy, at points unmistakable Gospel-consistent epistemological nuggets shine through. Early on, I cited a brilliant passage from Justin on the epistemological ultimacy of the Word of God (see here). With this post, I’m offering this nice piece from Clement of Alexandria (late second century).

What’s noteworthy about it is that herein he recognizes the three ultimate epistemological authorities: empiricism, rationalism and revelation. He is decidedly a revelationist. He , like Justin, further notes the impossibility of demonstrating one’s final epistemic authority, what he calls the “first principle.” Thus, regardless of one’s choice of epistemological authority, ultimately circular reasoning is inevitable. As Christians, we should go back to the future and with Justin, Clement, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, and Van Til and Bahnsen of our own time, come to grips with this fact. Honestly and faithfully admit that we indeed reason from (not to) and because (not in spite of) of God’s Self-revelation.

Clement says,

“But those who are ready to toil in the most excellent pursuits, will not desist from the search after truth, till they get the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves.

There are certain criteria common to men, as the senses (i.e., empiricism)[1]; and others that belong to those who have employed their wills and energies in what is true,--the methods which are pursued by the mind and reason, to distinguish between true and false propositions (i.e., rationalism)....

And let him who once received the Gospel, even in the very hour in which he has come to the knowledge of salvation, “not turn back, like Lot’s wife,” as is said; and let him not go back either to his former life, which adheres to things of sense, or to heresies....

For we have, as the source of teaching, the Lord, both by the prophets, the Gospel, and the blessed apostles, “in divers manners and at sundry times,” leading from the beginning of knowledge to the end. But if one should suppose that another origin was required, then no longer truly could an origin be preserved.[2]

He, then, who of himself[3] believes the Scripture and the voice of the Lord, which by the Lord acts to the benefiting of men, is rightly regarded faithful. Certainly we use it as a criterion in the discovery of things. What is subjected to criticism is not believed till it is so subjected; so that what needs criticism cannot be a first principle. Therefore, as is reasonable, grasping by faith the indemonstrable first principle (i.e., Scripture), and receiving in abundance, from the first principle itself, demonstrations in reference to the first principle, we are by the voice of the Lord trained up to the knowledge of the truth.”

Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, VII:XVI

[1] All parentheses are mine.
[2] Here, with “origin,” Clement is referring to a final epistemological authority—a final first principle.
[3] This phrase may suggest the sad thread of synergism in Clement’s thought.

Right Reasoning, pt. IV, The Hypothetical Syllogism

Yet another valid form of Right Reasoning...

IV. The Hypothetical Syllogism

A. Formally stated:

1. If P, then Q;
2. If Q, then R;
3. If R, then S,
4. Therefore, if P, then S

B. 1. Illustrated from epistemology:

i. If (P) knowledge is possible, then (Q) truth exists.

ii. If (Q) truth exists [and truth is absolute], then (R) truth requires an absolute mind [since truth is absolute and is mental activity].

iii. If (R) truth requires an absolute mind, then (S) knowledge is dependant on an absolute-personal being [since mind is a property of persons].

iv. Therefore, if (P) knowledge is possible, then (S) knowledge is dependant on an absolute-personal being, and that being can only be the God of Christian theism.

B. 2. Illustrated from (anti-) ethics:

i. If (P) Naturalism is true, then (Q) then nothing exists beyond natural phenomena.

ii. If (Q) nothing exists beyond natural phenomenon, then (R) morality must have its basis in natural phenomena.

iii. If (R) morality must have its basis in natural phenomena, then (S) scientific investigation is the only method of detecting morals.

iv. If (S) scientific investigation is the proper method for detecting morals, then (T) we’re left with only descriptions [i.e., “what is the case”], never prescriptions of behavior [i.e., “what ought to be the case”].

v. If (T) we’re left with only descriptions of behavior, never prescriptions [and we can’t move from “is” to “ought” – Hume], then (U) morality is impossible.

vi. If (U) morality is impossible, then (V) there is no morally significant reason one ought to believe anything at all.

vii. Therefore, if (P) Naturalism is true, then (V) no one ought to believe it.

C. Fallacy factor:

With the hypothetical syllogism, we risk postulating relations between antecedent (the “if” clause) and consequent (the “then” clause) that either are not obvious or not there at all. In fact, the hypothetical syllogism is most helpful for demonstrating the truth of more general propositions, such as, “There is no reason to believe Naturalism,” through a chain of causal or logical relations.

Right Reasoning, pt. I, Modus Ponens: Excursus

One of the points, # 6, in my Ten-plus-One Deadly Sins of Empiricism, I describe how a purely empirical method inescapably commits the formal fallacy of affirming the consequent. It reads,

The argument for empirical verificationism breaks a formal law of logic, and is therefore always fallacious. It goes like this: If hypothesis P, then effect Q will result; Q was the result, therefore P is verified and may be considered ‘theory’ or ‘law.’ As you well know, this is the fallacy of affirming the consequent. And because every line of verification must proceed thus, no method of verification is logically demonstrable.

In stating this inherent flaw in empiricism, I’ve been misunderstood (or accused by antitheists in debates) as being anti-science. I’m not anti-science; science is a very useful, God ordained means for carrying out the dominion mandate (Gen 1:26—28; 2:7—15), thus for reinterpreting and recreating our environment to the glory of God. For God’s glory and mankind’s good, science is a necessary and righteous endeavor.

However, when man seeks to take up science as a weapon against his Creator, and exalt autonomous human reason and logic to a deified position, so assuming that such may be employed to determine the scope of the possible and impossible and judge God and his Word, then a humbling will follow.

For if the material world is “all that was, is, or ever will be,” as the antitheists contend, then empiricism is the only reasonable epistemological method. And if empiricism is the only epistemological method, then that is the only method for a critical examination of the Christian worldview. But, since empiricism is always formally fallacious, all antitheist objections to the Christian worldview rest upon a fallacious line of reasoning. Therefore, antitheist’s objections to Christianity are irrational.

Funny. That’s exactly what the Bible says.

The Ten-plus-One Deadly Sins of Empericism

1. Empiricism cannot stand the rigors of its own criteria for knowledge, e.g., “Knowledge comes only through sense perception.” The truth of this proposition is not itself something known through sense perception or observation.

2. Empiricism, ultimately, can tell us nothing about the future, since the future is yet to be observed.

3. As David Hume observed, the causal relations presupposed by empiricism are (obviously!) not subject to empirical analyses, and therefore cannot be known (according to the rigors of empiricism). At best, two events or states of affairs, “brute facts,” occurring in close relation to one another are coincidental.

4. Pure empiricism’s history can’t even agree about the metaphysical reality we’re supposedly observing. Locke rendered “substance” to be inexplicable; Berkeley decided to simple do away with material reality; but, who really cares, since Hume discovered that there was no mental/immaterial self to do the observing!

5. Empiricism, assuming the principle of induction, without an internally coherent justification, always begs the fundamental question.

“It has been argued that we have reason that we know that the future will resemble the past, because what was the future has constantly become the past [if this sounds strangely familiar it’s because this is the same argument you tried to use to argue for the scientific method!]...But such an argument really begs the very question at issue...We have therefore still to seek for some principle which shall enable us to know that the future will follow the same laws as the past” (Burtrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy. 2004. 45).

6. The argument for empirical verificationism breaks a formal law of logic, and is therefore always fallacious. It goes like this: If hypothesis P, then effect Q will result; Q was the result, therefore P is verified and may be considered ‘theory’ or ‘law.’ This is the fallacy of affirming the consequent. And because every line of verification must proceed thus, no method of verification is logically demonstrable.

7. Empiricism cannot verify, much less account for the abstract, absolute, universal, invariable logical laws and concepts it takes for granted.

8. Empiricism begins, is checked, and ends with the subject’s mere (brute) perceptions; and those perceptions can only be verified by other perceptions, thus leading to solipsism. The epistemology which most loudly boasts “objectivity supreme” actually eliminates knowledge of any reality outside oneself—crass subjectivism.

9. Our senses are often deceptive, and empiricism has no means of determining which and how the data should be filtered.

10. If truth were dependant upon verification, then we’d never know anything to be true since every verification would itself need verification, ad infinitum. Empiricism has no answer to the problem of an infinite regress in establishing epistemic justification.

Finally, 11. Empiricism is destroyed by means of the so-called ‘problem of criterion.’ Empiricism is an epistemological ‘method’ for investigating reality; it is a chosen criterion for judging and verifying claims made about what ultimate reality is truly like. The problem comes when one asks, “How do we know that empiricism is the proper criterion, one that corresponds with reality?” You see, empiricists would already have to know in advance, and exhaustively so, what reality is ultimately like before they were ever able to identify their epistemological method. But, they tell us that such is only achievable by means of their method. The point is: They must already presuppose their metaphysical speculations before ever selecting their method of investigation—the very thing they attempt to condemn others for!