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.

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 ;)

 ________________________________

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?

Luthardt on the Religious Nature of Presuppositions

“If we carry back the antagonisms of the present to their ultimate principle, we are obliged to confess that it is of a religious kind. The way in which a man thinks of God and the world, and their relation to one another, is decisive for the whole tendency of his thought, and even in the question of the purely natural life.”

        ~ Christoph Ernest Luthardt, Apologie des Christentums

A word on the Word from Justin Martyr, a Re-Post

(This is a re-post from 2009.  I believe it is worthy of rereading time and again, and that it is most needful for Christians to hear today.  Enjoy.  KLS.) 

This is undoubtedly one of my favorite passages from the writings of Justin Martyr, one of the great early Church Apologists. It is the first chapter of his On The Resurrection. Nowhere have I read a clearer, more impassioned expression of presuppositionism’s principle thought. Apologetics is moving back to the future so to speak.

The word of truth is free, and carries its own authority, disdaining to fall under any skilful argument, or to endure the logical scrutiny of its hearers. But it would be believed for its own nobility, and for the confidence due to Him who sends it. Now the word of truth is sent from God; wherefore the freedom claimed by the truth is not arrogant. For being sent with authority, it were not fit that it should be required to produce proof of what is said; since neither is there any proof beyond itself, which is God. For every proof is more powerful and trustworthy than that which it proves; since what is disbelieved, until proof is produced, gets credit when such proof is produced, and is recognised as being what it was stated to be. But nothing is either more powerful or more trustworthy than the truth; so that he who requires proof of this is like one who wishes it demonstrated why the things that appear to the senses do appear. For the test of those things which are received through the reason, is sense; but of sense itself there is no test beyond itself. As then we bring those things which reason hunts after, to sense, and by it judge what kind of things they are, whether the things spoken be true or false, and then sit in judgment no longer, giving full credit to its decision; so also we refer all that is said regarding men and the world to the truth, and by it judge whether it be worthless or no. But the utterances of truth we judge by no separate test, giving full credit to itself. And God, the Father of the universe, who is the perfect intelligence, is the truth. And the Word, being His Son, came to us, having put on flesh, revealing both Himself and the Father, giving to us in Himself resurrection from the dead, and eternal life afterwards. And this is Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. He, therefore, is Himself both the faith and the proof of Himself and of all things. Wherefore those who follow Him, and know Him, having faith in Him as their proof, shall rest in Him. But since the adversary does not cease to resist many, and uses many and divers arts to ensnare them, that he may seduce the faithful from their faith, and that he may prevent the faithless from believing, it seems to me necessary that we also, being armed with the invulnerable doctrines of the faith, do battle against him in behalf of the weak.

The Early Church Telling the Old, Old Story

Christians in the Roman world found themselves in a cultural setting of moral decadence, philosophical relativism and religious pluralism.  However, they narrated the world in a new way.  They did not accommodate the faith to the culture but set forth the faith in a countercultural way.  In a world that had no set beliefs, they proclaimed, “We believe.”  In a world that had no ethic, they proclaimed, “We behave.”  In a world where there was no belonging, they declared, “We belong.”

Robert E. Webber, Who Gets to Narrate the World?: Contending for the Christian Story in an Age of Rivals, 51.

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.