Memeology: Jesus vs. Physics?

A guy I work with shared this meme with my via text. I'm only guessing, but I believe the challenge it poses impressed him. Below is my response. Please forgive the formatting; it was texted ;)

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Brandon, 

First, physics, as a thing, doesn't exist. Physics is a term we use to describe

our observations of the seemingly inviolable regularities and consistencies we

discover in the material (and sometimes immaterial) aspects of our experience.

Physics, then, is a human activity, not a thing in itself.

Having better defined our terms, we can move toward an answer to the question.

Since the problem was posed in somewhat simplistic, even archaic Newtonian,

terms, I'll answer it in like.

Secondly, then, we should ask, what are the most basic attributes of the laws we

discover that govern our experience of the physical world? 1st, they are

immaterial; they don't grow on trees and you can't stub your toe on a

law--they're nonphysical entities. 2nd, they're invariable, they're immutable;

that is, they don't change. If they did, they'd not be laws. 3rd, they're

universal. For example, the so-called law of gravity, which is implicitly

invoked in this meme, it true regardless of place. 4th, they're abstract, which

is to say that, they are true apart from any physical instantiation. And

finally, laws of physics are absolute, they're irreducible.

Now that we know what we are talking about, we can ask a final question: What is

the source and ontological grounding of these laws? That is, where might we find

an entity in our experience that is immaterial, invariable, universal, abstract,

and absolute? Or better, where might laws with these attributes find residency?

Nothing in our physical experience can account for these laws. Rather, these are

many of the same attributes of God, as revealed in Christ, nature, history, and

scripture. In short, only if the God of Christian theism exists could the laws

of physics exist. So, rather than asking, If physics, how Jesus? Reality demands

the other way around: If not Jesus, then how on earth physics!?! Jesus is the

Source and necessary precondition of physics and therefore has little problem

ruling over such laws.

Does that help?

Worldviews: Faith Goes Deeper Still

Scripture and experience have taught me how little the creation-evolution debate actually has to do with evidences and “science.”  Solid creationist materials have highlighted that what is at stake in this is an all-out clash of worldviews.  Even the humanist materials have, consciously or not, alluded to this reality here and there, mentioning the socio-situational relativity of the scientific enterprise.  This observation helps us get beneath the fact-lobbing type of discourse and into a deeper analysis of the conflict between not facts and evidences per se but each perspective’s philosophy of fact and philosophy of evidence, and most importantly the nature of epistemological authorities.  However, I now question if the worldview level of analysis is sufficient for truly understanding what is at stake for the subjects holding one or the other of these antithetical perspectives. 

I believe to really get at the root of the divide, at least of the personal, existential, or psychological level, we need to look even deeper than mere worldviews.  Worldviews are not selected like pudding or pie at a buffet; neither are they caught passively like a common cold.  Rather, just as philosophical theorizing and scientific hypothesizing have a particular worldview undergirding them, that worldview is not a self-sufficient, self-grounding paradigm.  Worldviews are themselves a more or less self-consistent, more or less internally coherent and systematic expression of a deeper heart commitment, namely a faith. 

Every worldview—again, consciously or not—is characterized by faith.  When we are plumbing questions of the origin and destination of the world, and by extension ourselves, the unity and diversity of our experience, and such matters, we soon discover that the answers to these questions are far beyond analytical or linear reason and even farther from inductive, scientific thought and theory.  The answers ultimately grow out of what Herman Dooyeweerd called a ‘religious ground-motive.’  This is equally true for both Christian and non-Christian worldviews.  This religious ground-motive is prior to and tethers the entirety of one’s life attitude or outlook.  As Solomon said, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23; cf. Matt. 12:35).  So, just as worldview is logically and practically prior to one’s epistemic authority and philosophy of facts and evidences, so also is one’s deepest heart commitment, that is, faith, prior to his worldview.

This realization has had a subjective and objective effect on my thinking about the creation-evolution debate.  With respect to the subjective side, this realization has granted me an even sounder cognitive rest in my faith commitment to a young-earth creational view.  Understanding the pre-worldview commitments involved helps to undermine any insecurity that a Christian may have in the face of evolutionary theories and so-called evidences.  The debate is ultimately not, as it is often misunderstood to be, faith versus reason, even less is it religion versus science.  It is one faith commitment versus another; it is ultimately two antithetical religious ground-motives in mortal combat.  Additionally, because the relatively young-earth creational view is perfectly self-consistent and self-referentially coherent, as an integral element of the biblical worldview; and, because of my faith commitment to the biblical worldview through the gospel of Jesus Christ, I find myself at imperturbable cognitive rest in the biblical creational perspective. 

With respect to the objective side, these observations have serious implications for apologetical and evangelistic engagements.  If these observations are so, then no amount of so-called scientific evidence will change a person’s mind, toward either direction in the debate.  This does not disparage the right place and purpose of evidences within the broader context of a particular worldview.  What it does do is encourage the apologist-witness to quickly move the direction of the conversation to the crux of the issue, the misplaced faith and faulty ground-motive of the non-Christian, who needs to experience a Copernican revolution, so to speak, of the heart—repentance and trusting obedience to the gospel of Christ. 

All this has led to a related disposition, that is, a more critical view of so-called scientific truth, whether in the context of either worldview, be it creationism or humanism-evolution.  Science—all science—is a human endeavor.  Science is one expression of the human response to God’s revelation in nature.  It is the attempt at producing a systematic ordering and description of the created order.  As such, true science is always provisional and contingent; at best, we may ascribe to its conclusions ‘scientific knowledge,’ but never ‘scientific truth.’  Because of its inherent nature, scientific reasoning can never achieve epistemic certainty; it can never result in “truth.”  Truth is immutable, that is, unchanging.  However, the natural order, which is the lawful field of scientific investigation, is always changing.  Truth is eternal or timeless; science deals only with the temporal structures of reality.  Truth is abstract, whereas science deals only with concrete particulars.  Truth is universal, but scientific studies are, again, bound to particulars. Therefore, anytime the conclusion is reach, which claims to have been demonstrated as “scientific truth,” one can rest assured that the argument for the so-called “truth” is a non-sequitur—that is, it does not follow. 

Similar to the first, this observation has a two-fold effect.  First, when confronting evolutionary “truth,” in so far as the proponent claims to be conducting science, it is demonstrable that his reasoning is fallacious and will always be so.  Every claim to scientific “truth” is false, ironically.  This, I believe, would be immensely helpful for young Christians especially and their interpretations and explanations of the popular science on TV and in other media, which naively presents the findings or those of others as “scientific truth.”  Secondly, it teaches us that despite our commitment to creationism, we must be cautious with respect to a number of statements in Scripture.  The creation account of Scripture was not written by scientists for scientists, neither was it meant to serve as a scientific textbook.  The biblical account of creation is pre-scientific, as are all origin accounts, including evolution, pantheism, and the rest.  It is pre-scientific in both the historical and the logical sense.  Historically, the creation account is centuries anterior to the rise of modern science.  Logically, in light of the above observations, it is anterior to scientific investigation.  However, this is the case with all accounts of the origin and destination of humanity and the cosmos.  So, this must be borne in mind, while considering the manifold aspects of the debate.  To say that the creation account is pre-scientific in either sense is not to suggest that it is un- or anti-scientific at all.  However, as they put it is my neck of the woods, “It is what it is.”  Therefore, we must take it on its own terms and resist at all costs the temptation of imposing a modernistic, scientific mode of thought upon the text.

For me, then, all of this is compelling me to look beyond the typical battleground passages of the debate toward other deep, related, and profound statements, as I continue to nurture my creational outlook.  Consider passages like St. Paul’s doxological outburst in Romans 11:36, “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen;” or, the Christ creed of Colossians 1, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence” (vv. 16—18).  How should these texts shape one’s creational outlook?  It is typical among creationist literature to point out that one will have an anemic view of Christ if he doubts Genesis 1, but what if we inverted the reasoning; we will have a warped view of creation apart from a full, rich knowledge and grace as it is in the incomprehensible Christ.  Let us therefore keep the Center, Christ. 

Contra Skepticism per Epicurus

While looking into Epicurus’ “no subject of harm” argument against the fear of death (odd, I know; it’s for a developmental psychology project), I stumbled across the top three arguments against epistemological skepticism in the helpful article over at IEP.  Because our post-modern culture glibly embraces garden variety skepticism, it is prudent to keep a battery of such arguments handy.  Granted, Epicurean philosophy is presuppositionally antithetical to Christian theism.  However, we may “spoil the Egyptians” (Ex. 3:22), so to speak, and bring such arguments into the holy service of the kingdom and her King by means of apologetical application.  The second one is a common one in material addressing relativism today.  The first argument, though, is fresh (for me anyways) and has a profundity beneath its playful tone.   

   

I. The “Lazy Argument”

Epicurus says that it is impossible to live as a skeptic. If a person really were to believe that he knows nothing, then he would have no reason to engage in one course of action instead of another. Thus, the consistent skeptic would engage in no action whatsoever, and would die.

II. The Self-refutation Argument

If a skeptic claims that nothing can be known, then one should ask whether he knows that nothing can be known. If he says ‘yes,’ then he is contradicting himself. If he doesn’t say yes, then he isn’t making a claim, and we don’t need to listen to him.

III. The Argument from Concept-formation

If the skeptic says that nothing can be known, or that we cannot know the truth, we can ask him where he gets his knowledge of concepts such as ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth.’ If the senses [better, cognitive faculties – KLS] cannot be relied on, as the skeptic claims, then he is not entitled to use concepts such as ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’ in formulating his thesis, since such concepts derive from the senses.

Is The Unexamined Life Really Not Worth Living?

Socrates’ Axiom Applied

How might Socrates’ axiom, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” be applied to our lives and culture today?  One means of applying Socrates’ axiom is allowing it to serve as an inroad to an apologetic encounter with a non-Christian. 

Our culture is glutted with sound-bite sloganeering, superficial platitudes, and bumper sticker philosophies.  Consequently, our lives are full of uncritically-adopted suppositions and intellectual superficialities, all of which are controlled by personal pragmatism and prejudicial bias.  The careful consideration of the fundamental ideas, upon which one operates and makes decisions, is extremely rare in our culture.  Therefore, Socrates’ axiom may be used to challenge non-Christians (and Christians alike!) to contemplate the basic beliefs on which they have built the edifice of their own worldview.  If the foundation is faulty, the superstructure will be too.

The apologetic utility of this application of Socrates’ axiom comes when the non-Christian presuppositions have been duly uncovered and examined.  This allows the Christian to help the non-Christian see the contradictions and internal incoherence of the fundamental ideas of their non-Christian worldview.  Socrates’ axiom applied to our culture reveals that, whether examined or not, a life grounded on non-Christian presuppositions is, in fact, not a life worth living, but a life wasted.  This clears the way for a biblical examination and valuation of life, having Christ and his gospel grounding the meaning of a worth-filled life.  This application is actually consistent to Socrates’ own application to his culture, although his and my conceptions of both God and man are antithetical (see, e.g., Apology, 23). 

Examining the Truth Value of Socrates’ Axiom

            Whether understood in terms of a Christian or a modern non-Christian perspective, I don’t believe Socrates’ axiom is true.  On the one hand, could we not respond to Socrates with an incredulous, “Says who?”  Socrates is just one thinker (and not the first) in a vast, almost-shoreless sea of thinkers in the history of Western philosophy, many of which contradict one another.  Granting the near unanimous espousal of naturalism today, what is beauty, goodness, virtue?  These are immaterial, absolute, abstract concepts.  But if reality is made up of only sensibles (i.e., material things), then Socrates exhorts us to rationally reflect on things that are unreal, and thus irrational.  From a secular outlook, Socrates’ axiom is untrue, since it leads to irrationality.

            In terms of a Christian outlook, Socrates’ axiom is certainly untrue.  Human speculation about ultimate questions of the real, the right, and the reasonable, autonomous and independent of God, is precisely what introduced sin and calamity into the world (Gen 3), and has since only been an expression and recapitulation of that archetypal sin.  Socrates described this autonomous examination of life as the very best thing a person can do; that is, it’s man’s greatest good (Apology, 38).  For Socrates, autonomous, unaided human reason, operating independent of God, is man’s greatest good. 

According to the Christian perspective, however, to glorify and enjoy God forever is man’s greatest good (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 1).  These ideas are perfectly antithetical. 

Wisdom and knowledge are the result of reverential awe and fear of God in Christ (e.g., Prov 1:7; 9:10; Ps 111:10; Job 28:28).  God cannot be known through autonomous human wisdom, just as wisdom cannot be apprehended apart from God (1 Cor 1:21).  Jesus Christ is God’s wisdom (v. 24), and becomes wisdom to us through faith (v. 30).  That is because Christ is the sole depository of all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3).  Therefore, in our pursuit of wisdom, we must begin in humble submission to its Source, and seek him to find it (James 1:5).  

No God, No Knowledge--Transcendental Argument from Knowledge

I. From Truth:

P1. If knowledge[1] is possible, then truth exists.[2]

P2. And if truth exists, then it exists as immaterial,[3] invariable,[4] and eternal.[5]

P3. Hence, if truth thus exists, then truth is absolute.[6]

P4. Likewise, if truth is the object and necessary condition of knowledge, and truth is absolute, then knowledge depends on the absolute.

P5. Truth indeed is the object and necessary condition of knowledge; and it is absolute.

C1. Thus, knowledge depends on the absolute.

C2. Therefore, if knowledge is possible, then knowledge depends on the absolute.

II. From Belief:

P1. Furthermore, if knowledge is possible, then it depends on a knowing subject who holds some belief.[7]

P2. In addition, if belief depends on a knowing subject, then such a one’s act of believing presupposes the involvement of the collective complex of intellect, emotion, and volition, which together constitute the personal.

P3. Moreover, knowledge is communicable.

C1. Hence, if knowledge is possible, then knowledge is communicable and thus depends on the personal.

III. From Justification:

P1. What's more, if the possibility of knowledge depends on a personal knower, then it likewise depends on the knower’s mental activity—it depends on mind.[8] 

P2. If the human mind, either individually or collectively, is the sufficient grounds for the integration of knowledge, then the human mind would also have to be absolute (i.e., invariable and eternal, see I:P2, 6); however, it is not the case that the human mind is thus.

P3. It is not the case, therefore, that the human mind, either individually or collectively, is the sufficient grounds for the integration and communication of knowledge.[9]

P4. Hence, if knowledge is possible, then by transcendental necessity there exists an absolute and personal being whose mind alone is the sufficient grounds for the integration of knowledge and can communicate knowledge.[10]

P5. Only the mind of the triune God of Christian theism, which alone is both absolute and personal, provides the transcendentally necessary and sufficient grounds for the integration and communication of knowledge.

P6. Therefore, if knowledge is possible, then by transcendental necessity the triune God of Christian theism exists as the transcendental integration point of all knowledge and communicates knowledge to humans.

P7. It is the case that knowledge is possible for humans.

C1. Therefore, the triune God of Christian theism must exist and communicate knowledge necessarily.  Hence, all knowledge and knowing is dependent of the triune God of Christian theism.

C2. Thus, the denial of God’s necessary existence is to annihilate the possibility of knowing anything at all; not least, that God’s existence can be known to be even the slightest degree doubtful.

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[1] Herein knowledge is to be understood in the traditional constitution of having three necessary conditions or properties, which are (1) belief that is (2) true, and the truth thereof having (3) justification, reason, or warrant.  The three of these together—a true, justified belief—are thus the sufficient condition of knowledge.  Furthermore, the term truth is to be taken in the sense of the correspondence theory of knowledge.   Truth is a real relation or correspondence between a signifier and that which it signifies, between a proposition and some fact, state of affairs, or event to which it refers. 

[2] The statement “truth does not exist” is an “I” categorical statement of the traditional square of opposition, making it to be an absolute negative statement.  Denying the existence of truth’s absolutivity is merely the contrary of its absolute affirmation; both statements, whereby, being absolute and declared to be true. That is to say, the proposition “truth exists” cannot be denied, for if one were right in asserting that “it is not the case that truth exists,” then one would be wrong, as that statement itself would be true, and absolutely so.  Hence, to deny the existence of truth is self-defeating—self-contradictory; it is false by declaration.

[3] Like the logical laws that govern them, propositions, which are the vehicles of truth, are immaterial entities.  One cannot grab, freeze, or stub his or her toe on truth.  In addition, truth is not dependant on particular statements or sentences.  The sentences “Kevin is Fanny’s husband” and “Fanny is married to Kevin” both express the same truth, the same proposition. 

[4] If a proposition is ever true, it has always been and always will be true.  For instance, certain statements that are “tenseless,” that is are closed by a particular temporal reference like “at 6:00 pm...” rather than a tensed verb like “now” or “was,” denote a fact or state of affairs that is always true. So,  “At 8:00 am on January 26, 2009 it is (tenseless) snowing in Big Island, VA.” is a closed statement having a meaning that is true always; its truth is unchanging—invariable.

[5] The eternality of truth is related closely to the invariability of truth in fn. 4 and the existence of truth in fn. 2.  Since truth never changes, it’s invariable (fn. 4) and one cannot deny the existence of truth without affirming it (fn. 2), so too, a statement denying the eternality of truth would presuppose truth’s existence and if the statement was true it would always be so, thus eternally so.  Hence, denying truth’s eternality is to affirm it.  Therefore, it’s self-defeating to deny the eternality of truth.

[6] The eternality and invariability of truth constitutes its absolutivity.  Furthermore, truth is independent of any relative or particular knower or thing known.  The laws of logic, for example, are true without reference to any particular object.  So, knowledge does not judge truth rather truth is the transcendent standard by which all knowledge is judged as such (see fn. 1).  Therefore, truth is absolute.

[7] Again, “belief” is one of the three necessary conditions of knowledge.

[8] Granted, there are a number of materialist, physicalist or anti-metaphysicians who have attempted to either flatly deny the existence of “mind” as an immaterial reality of human nature or have strenuously sought to explain it in materialistic, functional categories.   This presentation, let alone footnote, is not the venue to attempt a rebuttal to these claims.  Many philosophers have elsewhere undermined these hypothesises and shown them to be most untenable, Thus, I refer the reader to them.  Nevertheless, given the validity of the foregoing argument and conclusions, an immaterial mind seems self-evidently necessary for the residency of immaterial truth, which has been seen to exist as a real entity.  And the reduction of mind and reason to mere physical functions of the brain alone (i.e., chemical events) is to annihilate any possibility of knowledge at all, since it would make “reason” and “truth” to have no more axiological force than other bodily functions.

[9] There is among “spirituality” and para-psychology in the West today the increasing hope, even foundational hope in the collective human consciousness.  Perhaps premise III: P4 would be meet with a challenge from the likes of them or a similar camp.  And in today’s pluralistic landscape of worldview, such a challenge must be taken seriously and addressed as such, however absurd it may seem—but again, not here.  The notion that a disintegrated collection of mutable and fractured parts can comprise an absolute, unchanging, eternal whole is simply nonsensical.  So, an attempt to argue that it could would be mere morosophy.

[10] The first conclusion of section III, P5, undoubtedly will be met by the strongest contradiction from the unbelieving opponent.  Psychologically speaking, this is exactly what should be expected.  The unbeliever’s problem with his or her professing belief in the true God is much more a moral issue than an intellectual one. (I would argue that the concepts of intellect, emotions, and volition, which are often seen in very sharp distinction from one another in the modern West, are nearly conflated into a unity that is seen as the whole person; one domain never acting apart from the others, in Scripture.)  Intellectually speaking, this statement squarely faces and unequivocally challenges the unbeliever’s intellectual autonomy.  Thinking themselves to be utterly independent in reference to his or her ability to rightly reason and sit in intellectual judgment over the question of God’s existence, the unbeliever is immediately (and psychologically) confronted with the necessary conclusion that such a presumption  would be categorically impossible.  It is this goad, then, at which he or she will kick the hardest.  There is no other answer, however.  Either, it is the triune God who speaks with absolute authority in Christ and the Scriptures or it is nothing, literally, nothing.