Fundamental Knowledge, Long Version
Can we know anything
for sure?
Let's talk about the
fundamentals of epistemology. Here's the Stanford Encyclopedia
definition.
“Defined narrowly,
epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. “
But is it even
possible? Can we ever know anything? If so, what can we know?
Let's examine this question first by defining some additional terms.
As we define terms, we will begin to understand the subject.
Plausible
A belief is
plausible if it is consistent with known facts. For example, blaming
society's problems on the rich and powerful is more plausible than
blaming society's problems on mole men from the center of the earth.
We may love that episode of superman. But the oppression by the rich
and powerful is plausible because it is known to have happened before
in history and the other is not.
Probable
This is a very
common concept, and I only bring it up to make the distinction from
plausibility. While the cause of the our problems could plausibly be
the wealthy class, it isn't probable until some evidence is given for
it.
Rational
This is when your
beliefs and the way you justify them have no logical problem. For
example, in John 14:6 Jesus claimed to be the only way to God. This
is rational because the world's religions contradict each other and
cannot all be true. This does not mean that the claim is actually
true simply because it is rational. But it cannot be true if it is
irrational. It is a different story if the way you justify the
belief is also rational.
Warrant
This is a key
concept that might be new for some. A belief you hold has warrant if
you have some good reason for holding it. A key concept here is to
realize that this is not the same as being correct. You may have
true beliefs by guessing correctly. You might even have true beliefs
by way of bad reasoning. In all of that those beliefs still lacked
warrant. They were not warranted beliefs.
Defeater
This is the term for
something that overrides the warrant for your belief and removes it
in some way. Here is a classic example. Let's say that you look at
a field and see a sheep. Therefore, you form the belief that a sheep
is in the field. You now have a belief. You also have warrant for
your belief. But now imagine that the old man who owns the field
comes and tells you that there are no sheep in the field. He says
that he has a sheep dog that looks very much like a sheep at this
distance. Your experience tells you that this is a trustworthy
farmer. Now you have a good defeater for your belief that is strong
enough to override the warrant you previously held. I should add
that there are undercutting defeaters as well as rebutting defeaters.
I think those terms are fairly self explanatory. It's also
important to understand that warrant might not be a rational
argument. The belief in the sheep was formed in the basic way
without an argument. But a defeater for it may very well be just
that.
Knowledge
This is a bit
debated. We can say it means that the comparison of defeaters and
warrant comes out in favor of your belief being true. Here is Alvin
Plantinga's famous example. Let's say you are accused of having
committed a crime only yesterday. At the trial, a pile of good
evidence is provided to convince a rational jury that you committed
the crime. And they would have warrant for holding this belief. But
ask yourself this. Would all of that courtroom evidence really cause
you to believe that you committed the crime? Whenever I ask someone
this, he or she usually laughs. You would of course still believe
that you had not committed the crime simply because your warrant for
holding the belief in your own innocence is stronger than the
defeater provided by the evidence in the courtroom. A rational jury
would convict you. But you would still be rational to continue to
believe in your own innocence.
But if the evidence
was weaker, this may not be the case. What if the crime supposedly
happened ten years ago? Your memory might be foggy at this point.
You might be persuaded by the evidence in court. Or what if the
crime was only yesterday, but many witnesses you know to be reliable
say they saw you do it from only five feet away? At that point you
would begin to wonder if there are holes in your memory of yesterday.
A stronger defeater or a weaker original warrant might be able to
give a rational basis for changing your mind.
So this is where
things get interesting. Alvin Plantinga refers to something
Christian philosophers like Aquinas, Augustine, and Calvin have
written about over the centuries. For our purposes we'll call it the
sense of God. Do people sense God in some direct way? Is there a
direct sense of God that's similar to the senses of sight or hearing?
Based on the sense of God, we would naturally form the belief that
God exists. And the larger question is whether or not this belief is
warranted. Furthermore, does it also overcome its' defeaters?
Plantinga argues that it actually does. A sense of God might sound
dubious to many readers, but compare it to our other cognitive
faculties.
Cognitive Faculties
This includes all of
our tools for gaining knowledge. So it includes all of the five
senses. It might include other senses such as a moral sense of good
and evil. It certainly includes our memories, which were so
important in the courtroom. It may include many other things. And
of course it includes our A Priori knowledge.
A Priori Knowledge
Mathematical and
Logical truths are not known by observation of the world. They
function in a purely mental way. Here's an example. Imagine that
you place 3 gold watches in a box in your attic. You wait one year,
and then return to observe the contents of the box. But you now find
four gold watches. You might conclude that someone placed another
watch in the box. Or you might conclude that your memory has failed
you. Perhaps you should have made a written record or even a video.
But here is what you will never conclude. Under no circumstances
would you accept that the number three is the same thing as the
number four. This theory may be perfectly consistent with what you
observe. But you'd rather say that some unknown property of quantum
physics causes gold watches to duplicate before you'd agree that
three equals four. There is a non zero probability that this would
happen under the current understanding of quantum mechanics. But it
is fantastically improbable. The primary point is that your
observations simply have no ability to override this purely mental
mathematical knowledge. Three is three. Four is four. This is A
Priori knowledge. It is distinguished from A Posteriori knowledge,
which is what your observations are. The classic definition is that
A Priori knowledge is knowledge that is prior to experience.
So the question is
whether the sense of God was dubious (worthy of being doubted). But
we hold many beliefs on just as much grounds as the sense of God.
Your own reasons are known to you. Perhaps there is even a sense of
the thoughts or feelings of others, which Thomas Reid called
sympathy. Nevertheless, you of course hold many beliefs simply on
your direct sense of them. I believe that I just ate a bowl of
cereal. I base this on my memories of the experience, which I
understood though many cognitive faculties at the time. But who is
to say that the world did not simply pop into being 5 minutes ago
with simply an appearance of age and all of my memories in place? If
that is true, then I never ate the bowl of cereal. The bottom line
is that there is room for doubt about the supposed eating of the
cereal. Nonetheless, my belief in the earlier consumption of cereal
does have warrant. My own memory serves as a warrant for it, and I'm
certainly rational to hold this belief even if I cannot completely
rule out the possibility of a five minute old world.
But what if our
other cognitive faculties have the same problems as the false memory
of cereal example? Our senses might be all suffering from a set of
carefully crafted illusions. But it would be wrong to say that we
have no warrant at all for belief in the reality of the past or the
reliability of our other cognitive faculties. And so if you really
do sense the divine, who is to say that your belief in God is
unwarranted? To do that, a defeater must be presented.
Such defeaters are
available. They have been argued for, so let's take a look at them.
It has been argued that both the moral sense and even the sense of
God are simply byproducts of the evolutionary process. Sometimes
they are presented as beneficial for reproduction. At other times
they're called spandrels.
Spandrel
While it means
something different in architecture, in evolution this means
something that is a byproduct of something beneficial. Living
organisms are subject to random variations in offspring. Some
variations aid reproduction better than others. These variations are
inheritable in the next generation of offspring. Therefore, the
variations with better survival value will eventually spread
throughout the population. But beneficial variations can have non
beneficial byproducts called spandrels. All of the traits of an
organism cannot be spandrels, but it's likely that at least some of
them would be.
So the idea is that
the moral sense, the sense of good and evil, is a spandrel in part.
It benefits survival because we have a strong instinct to protect
members of our species, especially the youngest. But at times this
might produce a Mother Theresa, who dedicated her life to helping the
extremely poor and did not pass on her genes. She had the drive that
for most led to successful reproduction. But in her case it actually
led to the death of her genes due to never being a mother. Thus her
altruistic moral behavior is a spandrel. It might benefit humanity
in general. Theresa called all the children she helped her children.
But it couldn't be inherited by her children. And it's argued that
the sense of God has a similar explanation. Theories abound as to
the evolutionary benefits of religious belief, but no theory appears
to be dominant at this time. Nevertheless, let's simply assume that
the sense of God has an explanation for thinking it is an illusory
belief.
This is where things
get really interesting. Would such a defeater really carry much
weight? In other words, the belief in our sense of God is warranted.
So does this defeater based on evolution have enough strength to
defeat the belief? Is it like the farmer or is it like the
courtroom? It really depends on your personal sense of God and how
much warrant it brings with it.
So let's take a
different look. What would it take in terms of a defeater for you to
believe that you are not reading these words on a screen right now?
That would probably take a really good defeater right? It's not
inconceivable that such a defeater might be presented. Maybe some
mountain of evidence will be trotted out. But until then, you have
to believe that you can either trust your sense that you are looking
at a screen or else you cannot. In the lack of a strong enough
defeater, you must believe that you are looking at the screen. The
key point Plantinga makes is along the same line. My own sense of
God can carry the same weight.
And this is point
where Plantinga really did something to current mainline
epistemology. William Lane Craig describes this as dropping a bomb
into the field. Please make sure you understand everything up to
this point. He argues that if God does not exist, then the defeater
is stronger. In other words, if my various cognitive faculties are
the product of the evolutionary process, then they are aimed at
survival value, not truth. This exactly what atheists are arguing
when it comes to the moral sense and the sense of God. They argue
that you can't trust your sense of God or moral sense. So they are
arguing that you can't trust your senses because evolutionary theory
presents a defeater for them. But, as GK Chesterton said, they are
undermining their own mines. They are providing a reason to doubt
the cognitive faculties from a view of atheism.
Atheists are arguing
that our sense of God just had some sort of evolutionary benefit or
at least was a spandrel. They are also arguing that our sense of
good and evil was exactly the same thing. The point is that this
sort of defeater is more like a wide scatter shotgun and less like a
dart thrown at the wall. The obvious follow up question is this.
What about my other cognitive faculties? Doesn't the defeater just
presented affect them equally as much? At this point the atheists
try to have their cake and eat it too. They argue that cognitive
faculties like sight and memory are more likely to be aimed at truth
because of the evolutionary benefits that come with that. So somehow
evolution undergirds some cognitive faculties while it provides a
defeater for others. It's honestly a silly side step.
When I was at
university, a neuroscience professor gave a guest lecture to my
health class. One point he made was that we really should be afraid
of cars instead of snakes. He was arguing that the fear of snakes
was a sense of danger that we should doubt. Then the point can be
pushed further by saying that people have evolved to be hyper
sensitive to the presence of snakes. Thus perhaps we see snakes
where there are none. Richard Dawkins often makes the point that our
sense of God comes from our brains being wired to see people because
of the evolutionary benefits of seeing people. Being good at
noticing people and what they do would be a survival benefit. He
argues that therefore people hear God and see God falsely.
Nonetheless, he is undermining sight and hearing.
Perhaps even logical
reasoning should be doubted as well. Imagine that you are a woman.
For some of you it will be easier. Let's say that your husband is a
cruel man who beats you and your children daily. So you would be in
a state of anxiety. You are constantly worrying about what to do as
you try to resolve the situation. But your problem is difficult to
overcome. If this mental state goes on long enough, then you enter a
state called depression. Once this occurs, you actually become more
relaxed and comfortable. You do this by simply accepting that your
life is terrible. You stop worrying because you aren't trying to fix
anything. But depression is a dangerous thing. When a great escape
from your problems comes to you, you will sabotage it. Depressed
people have a habit of sticking pins into their own life rafts. This
is because they don't want to go back to hope which leads to anxiety.
This can be so bad that the person will cause problems in his or her
own life. So imagine that the abusive husband dies or goes to jail.
The depressed wife will continue to be certain that her life is
terrible. She will refuse to try to do anything good with her life
and simply wallow in sadness and perhaps drugs all day. This is
because the brain is working overtime to keep anxiety away.
Depression often affects very smart people who are excellent at
rationalizing their illogical behavior.
The point is that
this type of defeater doesn't merely apply to a sense of morality or
a sense of God. It applies to all of our cognitive faculties. It's
a shotgun. It's not a dart. So here's the big question. Do these
defeaters for cognitive faculties like basic senses of sight or
reasoning overrule the warrant for these beliefs? Do you believe
that you are looking at a screen right now reading words? Are these
defeaters strong enough to make you think this sight and activity is
no longer warranted?
But from a view of
theism, God would create a world such that my cognitive faculties
work. Theologians have long argued that the image of God in man
means that man must be a rational being. Let's take a brief pause to
give some of the history here. Theology is careful reasoning about
God. As best I understand it, theology is only fully developed
within Christianity and possibly Judaism. In the early centuries,
the debates over the correct definition of the Trinity actually led
to violent riots and government oppression. But Christians kept
debating and came to a consensus. Muslims went a different route.
For them the debate was over something called Tawheed. The argument
centered around whether the Quran was eternal or created by God.
This debate eventually led to violence and different sides gaining
power. Eventually, one side gained military dominance and just
declared a famous resolution to the debate. The answer to the
arguments back and forth was that this was the way it is, and there
is no explanation. Thus all serious theological debate is said to
have really come to a halt then and there for Muslims. Yet it
continued for Christians in divided Europe. By the late middle ages
one debate was over whether God's intellect took precedence or God's
will did. William of Occam, famous for his razor as well as the
theory or inertia, claimed it was will. To Occam and the other
anti-nominalists, God could do anything at any time with no plan.
God could even do illogical things. To Aquinas, God was considered
the most rational being ever. Therefore God's plan and reasoning
took precedence. Aquinas' side apparently won the debate and science
progressed under the view that the world functions according to a set
plan.
I bring all of this
history up to shine light on the fact that theology engages in
centuries of careful reasoning and debate. One issue related to our
discussion of trusting cognitive faculties is the rational actor
problem. For man to act rationally in the world, there must be order
in the world. Imagine that you lay on your bed and it is as hot as
fire sometimes, and sometimes it is as soft as usual. Imagine that
there is no rhyme or reason to it. Or let's say that rosebushes
randomly transform into tigers for no reason at all. In other words,
a world that functions according to set natural laws and good
cognitive faculties are required for us to act rationally within it.
For the God of theological theism, humans must be able to function
rationally in the world.
Thus we come to the
crux of Plantinga's point. If God does not exist, then I have a good
defeater for my cognitive faculties. Therefore your belief that you
are reading these words on a screen right now is unwarranted. But if
God exists, then your belief that you are reading these words on a
screen right now are warranted. Since the warrant for belief in
reading the screen is so strong, then it is clear that the defeater
of possible atheism is outweighed. It's like the court room example.
All of the evidence might convince the jury of your guilt, but it
will not convince you. Plantinga goes on to further argue that some
beliefs may hold so much warrant that any possible future defeaters
are overruled. But let's move on to other issues now. I want to
take my own look at the same question from a different angle. So if
my attempt to explain Plantinga's reasoning doesn't sit well with
you, just table it to consider it on your own later. I think most of
his journal articles on the matter were written in the early 1980's.
He has also written a popular level book recently covering this as
well as many related issues called “Where the conflict really lies:
Science, Religion, and Naturalism”
Let's go back to
that question of the moral sense. It personally amazes me that
people who put so much weight on empirical evidence are willing to so
quickly rule out this sense experience. At least stop calling
yourself an empiricist if you are so ready to doubt the senses! The
idea here is that we humans have no supernatural self. Rather, you
are your brain. You are not a soul or spirit that uses your brain.
But what exactly does this lead to? It leads directly to the
consequence of no free choice. In this view of humans, anthropology,
we are really biomechanical machines. We move and function according
to set principles and properties of the machine's components.
Therefore, you do not choose your beliefs. Rather, you simply
function according to the way you are built. Chemicals react.
Particles have inertia and bump into each other. It's a mechanism.
If this is the case,
then how do you know you can trust that your beliefs are honest and
rational? This is actually a big problem. Any theory you come up
with to confirm the trustworthiness of the beliefs given to you by
these chemical reactions is itself a belief given to you by these
same chemical reactions. This is called circular reasoning. That's
a huge problem with coming up with a theory based on evolutionary
theory that justifies the trustworthiness of the cognitive faculties.
It's the same thing as saying the Bible is true because the Bible
says so. But it is indescribably far worse since it literally
applies to all of your thoughts.
So again we run into
a problem where we can't know anything. This means that one has to
put her atheism in a box and ignore it to do any work that requires
knowledge like physics, engineering, psychology, ecology, sociology,
history, even everything. Let's remember that most universities have
some dedication to truth itself in their crests.
What atheists can
argue is that this bat swings both ways. For, if the mere
possibility of atheism undermines all knowledge, then the theist
doesn't know anything about God either. But this fails to recognize
Plantinga's point. It also fails on some other points about A Priori
knowledge.
Let's delve into
that purely mental world and examine our simple example. Three does
not equal four. This is because we see clearly what these numbers
are. They are really just ideas. And in a sense, we observe them.
Thus the question becomes, do we have A Priori knowledge? At the
simplest level, we must. Look at it from the other way. Is it
possible that three and four are not equal? Most of us have done
math problems where we thought we performed all of the steps of
reasoning perfectly. But then we are told we somehow arrived at the
wrong answer. Hopefully, we return to the problem and go over our
steps repeatedly until we find the mistake. So although the math is
purely A Priori knowledge, it's still possible for us to make
mistakes and come to false beliefs.
But the case of
three and four is a bit different. That's because there are no
steps. All of the relevant ideas are really just the identity of the
two numbers. In a way, you are simply observing both of the ideas at
the same time. What this means is that it is possible for us to know
at least some things. In logic, this is called the law of rational
inference. The first principles of logic are that ideas have
identities and that there are contradictory identities. Three and
four have identities and they are not the same. So these are called
the laws of identity and contradiction, which justify the law of
rational inference.
But since we can at
least know something, then can we go further? I think we can. Think
of a more complicated math problem. Some problems involving steps
might be sufficiently familiar to you that you see how it all fits
together in one moment. It may take practice, but after doing the
problem forwards and backwards, you'll begin to understand what I
mean here. To me, this is where things get really interesting. The
arguments for God's existence usually are just a deduction that
follows from two ideas. Therefore, if you grasp those ideas well
enough, then you can know that God exists. I am assuming here that
the arguments for God are actually good arguments. But let's address
whether they really are good at another time.
So if we can trust
at least some of our A Priori cognitive faculties, then what does
this say for the problem of atheists reducing our thoughts into
biomechanical machinery? This view, called reductionism, leads
directly and logically to circular reasoning. But we can be certain
of at least A Priori knowledge. But reductionism cannot allow us to
be certain of A Priori knowledge. On reductionism, that A Priori
reasoning is really just a mechanical process that simply functions
how it does. On reductionism, you have no tools to verify any of it.
But if we can verify it, then reductionism cannot be true. On
reductionism, you aren't really even aware of your thoughts. They
are just a process that operates mechanically. But are you certain
that the number three and the number four are not the same idea?
I could give other
examples too. Oprah says all religions are true. But Jesus claimed
to be God. Muhammad said Jesus is not God. Neitsche said God is
dead. Hindus say everyone is God. The Buddhists say neither God nor
anyone exists. Can Oprah possibly be right?
It becomes immensely
obvious that you are certain of some things. To do so, you simply
have to be aware of the ideas. De Carte famously said, “I think
therefore I am.” Perhaps we can progress his idea today and argue
that you are aware of ideas and what they are. Nietsche said De
Carte's statement should be modified to , “I think therefore there
are thoughts” or even “There are thoughts.” Understand that
either version doesn't change the fact that you can be aware of the
numbers three and four. You are aware of the ideas. Your own
awareness of the ideas is not something anyone else can prove to you.
You are either aware of it or you are not. A Priori knowledge is
included in a larger group called properly basic knowledge.
Properly Basic
Knowledge
Here's an example to
help us understand the subject better. Hold up your hand. You see a
hand. But the real physical existence of a hand in front of you is
possibly an illusion. Magicians have been known to do some
incredible things, and who knows what new techniques they've
developed? But here is what is properly basic knowledge. The fact
that you at least see a hand, illusory or real, is properly basic.
So even if the illusion of a hand is just an idea implanted into your
awareness somehow, it is still something you are aware of. In other
words, either the illusion or the actual hand exists, but there is
something real beyond you.
Then the question
becomes this. Do we know we see an illusion of a hand? Do we have
knowledge of the illusion? So we return to the question of
reductionism. Are we really just biomechanical machines? One
problem is that this would undercut our own ability to freely choose
what we think. But if that is the case, then our own thoughts are
just the interaction of a machine's parts. We have no way to be
certain that these thoughts are actually true or not. The machine
just operates. It runs according to however it happens to be built.
Nevertheless, I am aware of many ideas. And I am certain of the fact
that the ideas of three and four are not the same ideas. So here's
the question. If reductionism is true, then can I be certain of
this? Reductionism would reduce all cognitive faculties to a
justification that is fundamentally circular reasoning. I would be
trusting the chemical reactions in my head because the chemical
reactions told me to trust them. And yet, can we not be absolutely
certain that 3 does not equal 4? Furthermore, can we not also be
absolutely certain that circular reasoning is itself untrustworthy?
So the logic works
like this. If reductionism is true, then we have no knowledge even
of thoughts. But we are clearly aware of thoughts. Therefore
reductionism is not true. Whatever humans happen to be, they are not
merely biomechanical machines. To illustrate this more clearly,
think about how machines operate. GPS navigation is a modern marvel.
Take your phone and input an address. It will essentially think. It
will access an online database of information, literally sense your
location, and figure out what the best route is. But let's say that
as you go down the road, you take a wrong turn. What will the GPS
do? It will recalculate. It won't care if you ever reach the
destination. It will just try to get you there. It will just
operate. A computer chip is a network of switches called
transistors. When voltage is applied the middle wire, then it can
pass through the other two wires. These can be linked to each other
and turn each other on and off. With enough of these, you can set up
logical statements. If so and so then so and so. This can be set up
to include a complicated set of “if then” statements. But
ultimately the GPS in your car is a machine. It simply functions
according to how it is built. Is it aware of ideas, or is it just a
machine that's running?
The important
question is whether you observe ideas. At the end of the day, you
only really know for yourself whether this is the case. Part of the
problem in answering this question is that it's difficult to really
imagine what it would be like if we are simply biomechanical
machines. You wouldn't really have thoughts at all. The machine
would just function in your brain. It would take inputs through
sensors like your eyes, causing it to function in some other way.
These processes would then cause other events in your body.
Aristotle said it like this. “Nothing is what rocks dream about.”
So, do you dream at all? I'm just going to have to conclude that I
do.
Maybe it will be
easier to imagine a supernatural demon. Let's say that a demon
implants thoughts in your head. You just think whatever the demon
causes you to think. Therefore, how do you really know if 3 does or
does not equal 4? But you do know. That's what's so interesting
here. We just simply are aware of ideas. This is knowledge that is
about as basic as can be. One might argue that we are programmed
somehow and thus aren't aware of ideas. But this argument fails
because I simply and plainly am aware of ideas. It's not that
anything else justifies them. I'm just aware of them. Even if a
demon is causing my thoughts, perhaps I simply am that demon!
At this point, I'm
hoping to move on to some related questions. Basically, there is
good evidence that our thought life is somehow controlled by our
physical brains. I once watched a surgery where a man had brain
damage and could no longer play the banjo. While he was awake and
attempting to play, they had his skull cut open. They were
reconnecting nerves in his brain like wires. They literally were
listening to him play to see if they were connecting the correct
wires. It was incredible. He suddenly played correctly and they
said, alright I think we got it fixed. I wanted to hand them a
wrench.
But this doesn't
actually demonstrate that we are biomechanical machines. The
neuroscientist who came to my health class said something that was
accidentally helpful. He said that we don't use our brains, we are
our brains. It's funny, but if we merely use our brains to aid in
our thinking, then our brains could affect our spiritual self.
Specifically, the thoughts the spiritual self is aware of would come
through a sort of middle man of a brain. Thus while the spirit may
have plenty of say in things, it could still be heavily affected by
the brain. In other words, you can't use information you aren't
aware of. If the brain only gives you some ideas or sense
experiences, then your spirit can't act based on any others. And
this sort of manipulation can get really complicated. The funny
thing is that the Bible has always taught that the human thought life
has a fleshly side as well as a spiritual one. De Carte even
believed this.
There are other
questions along these lines. For example, how can a spiritual soul
interact with a physical brain? If my brain controls my body and all
bodily actions can be traced back to actions in the brain, then how
does my spiritual self control my body? This might not be as big of
a problem as you might think. But this does require a bit of
theology. There are different views on God's interaction with the
world. Science doesn't tell us that miracles are impossible. All of
the laws of physics are for closed systems. But what if God just
inputs more matter or energy into the system? It is believed that
science debunks such a notion. But it actually doesn't. That's a
bit of philosophy that's stapled on to the laws science.
The belief that God
can't add matter or energy to the system is a metaphysical or
theological addition to physics. It is not part of physics whose
laws only apply to closed systems. But what if the universe isn't a
closed system? Metaphysics deals with understanding what existence
really is. Laplace argued that the entire universe can be a huge
machine of physical processes running according to scientific laws.
But couldn't God enter new matter or energy into the machine?
Laplace argued that since the machine can be understood without God
doing that, then God is an unnecessary hypothesis. In other words,
Laplace was doing metaphysics here. He was doing philosophy just
like us. He wasn't doing physics. He was reasoning about larger
questions of existence. And his reasoning wasn't so strong. It was
more of a semantic argument, which is an incredibly weak one. In
other words, he was playing language games. All he really said was
that it's possible God doesn't exist. He just found another way to
word it.
But theologians have
provided different theological defenses for Laplace's closed universe
view. One is the rational actor problem of which we spoke. If God
is constantly performing miracles, then the universe doesn't function
according to regular natural laws. So some argue that therefore God
set it all up at creation like a machine that will run in the way He
planned. But this argument has a hole. It does nothing to prevent
God from performing the odd miracle here and there.
Another argument
claims that since God would have set up the universe in the first
place, so why would God ever change anything? I personally am
partial to this. I favor this view. To me, a greater God is one who
planned every miracle in how He created the universe. There are just
more undiscovered properties of the universe that make the miracles
scientifically normal. But a response against me is that God might
be more of a spontaneous romantic painter. Why else create so many
types of beetles or have the sun come up again every morning?
Nonetheless, I still
favor the view that all miracles are actually scientifically normal,
and that we just don't understand how the world works well enough.
Therefore, the more we push God back and can explain without a
miracle, the greater God must be. The world isn't some puzzle that
only allows God in the missing areas where we haven't put it together
yet. God must exist because we have good arguments for God's
existence. And a greater God would be pushed back further and
further, therefore having planned more and more in the very creation
of the world.
That's where we come
in. Allow me to introduce something new here. It's possible that we
have spiritual selves. And it's possible that our spirits have no
control whatsoever over our physical bodies. It's possible that our
brains control all of our bodies' actions, and yet we are embodied
souls. Rather, God could have simply foreknown our spiritual
thoughts and decisions, and created the world such that our bodies
would one day exist in just the right way. Thus the machine of our
brains would literally only correlate to our spirits' choices, but
not be caused by them. Instead there would be a third cause, God's
creation of the universe. You see, Laplace's point was that if one
knew all the positions, velocities, and properties of all the matter
in the universe, then that one could predict all future events. All
physical matter just functions according to its' properties. Oxygen
binds with hydrogen because of it's chemical properties. Rocks fall
from cliffs. Stars form, burn and explode. And the chemicals in
your brain react in an incredibly complicated way. God, being a
being beyond time itself, could literally have simply known what you
would do in the future and caused your body to come to be in just
such a way that it would act as it does. So here's an example.
Right now your spirit chooses to lift your hand. God, knowing this
from a point transcending time would have created the universe in
such a way as to cause your hand to move in just the way that He
foreknew you would now choose.
The theological
implication of this is an astounding one. God's really in control!
The funny thing is this though. This weird idea of spiritual
correlation isn't so different from just saying God is all powerful.
One final question is how exactly this view I'm proposing is any
different from reductionism itself. Hopefully that has been covered.
It's the thought life and awareness of ideas that's essential to the
difference. One such thought we didn't discuss is the moral sense of
good and evil. What is morality exactly? At the very least, it's a
call to make good choices. But what exactly does a machine do with
this input? Let's state this more formally. Programming a machine
to be good is the same as forcing it to freely choose to be good.
That's what morality is. The idea of morality clearly includes
notions of choice and responsibility. If you physically force me to
slap someone by overpowering me, then I do not think myself to be the
evil slapper. And also it's true that machines can be programmed
with goals. And they will function along those lines. But the goal
of goodness is a goal of not being programmed. Therefore a machine
that is forced to have a goal of being good is a machine that's
forced to not be forced. Imagine that this machine is given a goal
of freely choosing to be good, and actually accomplishes this. When
it fulfills this programming, then it only did so because it was
forced to. So it didn't accomplish it. Since this notion is
irrational, then the idea of morality cannot be the product of these
physical processes or held by such machines. But spiritual beings
that care capable of such ideas like morality can be embodied in such
machines. There can be ghosts in the shell.
Appendix A:
Scientism
There is an old view
of knowledge called scientism which took a radically different
approach to the fundamental question of knowledge. It held that the
only statements which can be meaningful are those which can be
empirically verified. In other words, if your claim about truth
couldn't be tested with the five senses of observation, then it was
meaningless. For our discussion here, let's consider a different
version of scientism because it will make the problem with scientism
more obvious.
But before we move
to fast, the idea was originally called logical positivism and
sometimes verificationism. The core idea is called the verification
principle. Logical positivism was a powerful view in academic
philosophy from the 1920's until the 1950's. At that time, it was
completely defeated. In the philosophy of science the verification
principle was replaced with the falsification principle, which we
won't go into here. The defeat was so severe that the derogatory
modern name is applied to the idea, scientism, to ridicule anyone who
continues to hold to it.
So let's examine the
idea in this way. Let's say that the only way we can know a
statement to be true is if the statement can be empirically verified.
Many defeaters were presented for this idea, but the strongest was
this. Verificationism is self refuting. In other words, it is
itself a philosophical idea which cannot be verified empirically. It
rests on reasoning. Verificationism isn't empirically verifiable.
The defeat of
scientism in the 1950's led to a renaissance in philosophy of theism
beginning in the 1960's. This has been called the most important
event in 20th century philosophy. Philosophy was the
department that led the charge to banish God, and it appeared to have
finally convinced even the theologians by the 1950's. But then a
completely surprising upset occurred as logical positivism died. In
the coming decades, God apparently came back to life in the
department that had long banished the Almighty. Today many of the
top philosophers in the world are believers in God and even
Christians. As scientism had tried to eliminate metaphysics as an
area of knowledge, the defeat of scientism served to bring
metaphysics back. This was especially noteworthy because scientism
is itself a metaphysical claim. You just can't avoid metaphysics.
Metaphysics is the study of the fundamental and ultimate questions of
reality. These questions can't be approached empirically. Scientism
tried to claim that all questions must be approached empirically, but
did so non empirically. Scientism tried to make a metaphysical claim
about ultimate reality without using empiricism. But that claim was
that no statement is meaningful unless it can be empirically
verified. Thus scientism itself is meaningless and it became perhaps
the strongest defense for metaphysics. It should be added that
scientism actually claimed all sorts of important subjects were
meaningless. The thing was that there was a rising tide of
skepticism which scientism tried to stop. It seems it stopped it in
an unexpected way.
As I understand it,
Scientism is rooted in the much older work of David Hume. Hume said
it like this.
If we take in our
hand any Volume; of Divinity or School Metaphysics, for Instance; let
us ask, Does it contain any abstract Reasoning concerning Quantity
or Number? No. Does it contain any experimental Reasoning
concerning Matter of Fact and Existence? No. Commit it then to
the Flames: For it can contain nothing but Sophistry and Illusion.
An Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding (1748), 256.
The problem with
Hume should be shouting at us by now. His very quote would qualify
as nonsense by his own standard. There simply must be knowledge that
isn't due to experiments (A Posteriori) or Math (A Priori). Rather,
there are other forms of A Priori knowledge. Hume's statement has no
numbers or experiments. Hume's reasoning was with categorizations.
It's amazing, but this view was staunchly defended by the Lutheran
Apologist John Warick Montgomery in lectures from around the 1970s.
Perhaps he was from an earlier time. But it seems he fully absorbed
the logical positivists use of Hume.
The argument says
that A Priori knowledge is simply self analytical knowledge.
Therefore it cannot be synthetical knowledge, which correlates to
exterior reality. The problems here are many. First of all it is a
claim of synthetic knowledge that A Priori knowledge is self
analytical. And yet this proposition (truth claim) is itself based
on pure reasoning. Thus this entire position self destructs since it
used the very thing it claimed to defeat.
Nevertheless let's
try to understand this idea. The argument was that you couldn't
learn anything about exterior reality via ideas alone. The bottom
line is that this isn't true. Pure logic acts as a negative test for
truth and there is no way around it. Three gold watches cannot be
the same thing as four of them. With logic we can reduce the lists
of possibilities. Then we can eliminate the logically impossible
ones. For example, let's say that John says there are no cats
outside. But Sally says there are two of them. Then Bill comes and
resolves this by telling us that both of them are correct. We can
eliminate Bill with pure reasoning.
Here is an argument
for God's existence. Time must be going forever, be an illusion, or
have a beginning. Logic tells us these are the only possibilities.
We can rule out the illusion with reason and evidence in tandem. If
it is an illusion, then all moments are simultaneious. But I
experience movement though this block of simultaneity. Therefore
this cannot be a relevant difference. My movement through the block
must have an infinite number of previous steps or else a beginning.
An ifinite past is logically impossible. If God counts one number
each morning and Jesus counts two each afternoon, then what sums do
they have after an infinite number of days? Mathematical
impossibilities must be true if such time has passed. But the are
logically impossible. Therefore time has a beginning.
But we can deduce
logically that it either had a cause or it didn't. Something
beginning without a cause is empirically nonsense. You couldn't act
rationally in the world that way. Anything could happen at any time
for no reason at all. You don't even have a probability assessment.
In addition to this, you run into the old problem of the unstoppable
force and immovable object. There is no logical reason why they
cannot exist. They could pop from nothing, and later meet. But they
cannot. Therefore only nothing comes from nothing.
Therefore the
reality you and I inhabit must have a cause. This cause is logically
deduced to either be personal or impersonal. It must exist outside
of the sequence where events happen linearly, time. But if it is
impersonal, then it's causing of reality would be due to its'
timeless properties. Thus the universe would timelessly be beginning
to exist, never getting older. This is clearly refuted due to simple
experience. Therefore the option of impersonal is eliminated and the
timeless cause of reality must be a personal being.
This being would
exist at all times at once, thus knowing all things, etc etc etc.
Perhaps the real
reason scientism and the movement leading up to it had so much
support was rooted in history. Historians agree that the Greeks were
the first to attempt real science. There was much that was
accomplished before them. The Sumerians figured out the 3-4-5 right
triangle. But the Greeks were the first to theorize. This was huge.
They were the first to try and come up with general explanations of
the world that had other applications. They applied things like
mathematical reasoning to the world. For example, they used geometry
to figure out where to dig an escape tunnel from both sides of the
mountain. A tunnel can't go any faster than two men with pick and
shovel. Any more men just increases width. But the Greeks dug them
twice as fast. Their science led to a golden age.
But it only worked
as long as it was intuitive. Archimedes realized that the crown in
the tub displaces as much water as its' volume. This makes intuitive
sense. But the Greeks always insisted that heavy objects fall faster
than light ones. This also makes intuitive sense. It just happens
to be observably false. And yet none of the Greek academies accepted
constant gravitational acceleration. The Greeks insisted on A Priori
reason alone. This type of thing gives you the most certain
knowledge. But not if you reason poorly. Here's an example of some
bad logic. As best I understand it, they said that nature abhors a
vaccuum. They did realize humans can create them artificially. But
they said none exist in nature. Thus all objects that move do so
against friction. Thus there must be a constant pushing or
“efficient cause.” Using Aristotle's reasoning of the prime
mover, they reasoned that the first cause must always be a free
willed being. Thus the planets move because they choose to or
because spirits push them. Plato even taught of a world soul that
inhabits all of the earth and was created by the one true God.
So the Greeks
focused on reasoning and avoided empiricism. This may have had
something to do with the disparity between rich and poor. Aristotle
said there is nothing noble about a workshop. Knowledge that came
from dirty hands was considered low and erroneous. I should say that
Aristotle was more empirical than his teacher Plato. Plato taught
that ideas actually exist and we see them mentally. We are still
working on his idea today. Aristotle taught that experience is how
we form ideas. Nevertheless, he still gained knowledge by analyzing
these ideas.
It was Western
Christendom that finished the work and introduced experiments.
Reasoning is still important though. We know that Einstein's
equations cannot possibly explain gravity at the atomic scale. This
is not due to observation and experiment. It's because you get one
divided by an infinitely long string of zeros when you calculate it.
Western Europe
created Universities to bring different schools of thought together.
They actually got the idea of experiments from a Muslim in Egypt.
But his culture opposed the very idea of scientific law as a
restriction on God. In history every culture has brilliant people.
The trick is to support them. By 1100, a clear way to make your mark
in western universities was to correct Aristotle. In Islam,
Aristotle was taught as holy scripture. Slowly, various well
reasoned defeaters were set up that changed things, which mostly
related to the motion of the earth and planets. A huge benefit at
the time was that the university taught everyone Latin.
Correspondence and invitation to join other faculty was greatly
helped by this.
Over time, the
medieval universities came to realize that they needed to stop
emphasizing Aristotelian Logic so much. In the early days, Aristotle
was the backbone of any degree in the liberal arts. But the needle
swung too far in the other direction. That's what is so radical
about what happened in 20th century philosophy. It's the
return of these older ideas, but with a respect for what observation
and experiment can do.
Appendix B:
Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism
For our purposes, we
will dispense with detailed terminology and simply use the word
“Atheism” to describe someone who rejects the existence of God,
souls, ghosts, demons, spirits or anything supernatural. For us, an
atheist is a person who thinks the physical is all that exists.
Therefore, Plantinga's argument is simply a claim that you cannot
rationally believe in both atheism and evolution. It works like
this.
We typically think
our actions are caused by a causal chain like this.
Beliefs held by a
rational soul ->causes-> long standing electrochemical events
in the brain (neural states) ->causes - > bodily movements
(behaviors)
But on atheism the
causal chain is very different.
Neural
States - > Behavior
Same
Neural States - > Beliefs (content property for the neural state)
A
key point is that the content properties of the neural state and the
behavior causing properties of the neural state are different things.
If I say I want a ham sandwich, then I have expressed a sentence in
English. But that sentence also possesses content. If a woman says
the same thing in Chinese, then she will form a very different
collection of sounds, but the content is the same.
Thus
the point is that neural states are the independent cause of both
behavior and a secondary content for those neural states, beliefs.
There simply is no reason why the beliefs caused by those neural
states should correlate to reality. We typically think that
incorrect beliefs will lead to incorrect behavior. Thus failure
would result in a change to the beliefs. But on atheism, the beliefs
are not causing behavior. They are a secondary byproduct. If we
imagine that a Zebra sees a lion, then this causes a neural state in
the zebra. To survive, the zebra must move. Thus a neural state
that doesn't lead to survival of the zebra would not be beneficial to
reproduction. Therefore evolutionary theory provides a good
explanation for why a neural state that didn't correctly cause
survival behaviors would be unlikely to exist. Frogs know how to
catch flies. A mouse in a maze knows how to find cheese. But the
content also caused by these neural states need not correlate to
reality.
The
zebra, frog, and mouse must all possess neural states which are
sufficient to cause survival enhancing behavior. So the zebra must
have indicators of the presence of the lion. But an indicator of the
lion's presence is not the same as a belief, which would be a content
property associated with the neural state. For example, if you eat
an entire cake, then your body has indicators of raised blood sugar
and responds accordingly. But you need not have any beliefs
associated with this.
It
may seem rather obvious that neural states which cause correct
behavior will also cause an associated belief content that correctly
correlates to reality. But this isn't the case. One way to think of
this is to imagine what would happen. Let's say that a neural state
does in fact cause true beliefs. But somewhere along the way, it
changes a bit and starts causing incorrect beliefs. Thus we have to
ask, what would ever correct the false beliefs? The beliefs caused
by the neural states could vary wildly. Like a sentence that can be
expressed in multiple languages, it wouldn't matter what beliefs get
associated with the neural states as long as those states cause
correct behavior as well. The issue is that the beliefs are outside
of the causal chain. We could literally be living in an illusory
world full of beliefs that are nothing more than a secondary
byproduct of our neural states. The important thing to understand is
really the basic concept that content properties associated with
words or with neural states are not the same thing as the words or
neural states. Language can change. Meanings of words can change.
And since the atheistic view is that neural states cause behaviors
directly, then the content is a byproduct.
Therefore,
according to the principle of indifference, we have to assign the
trustworthiness of our beliefs a chance of 50-50 or ½. We have no
way to swing the bar either way.
The
next serious question is whether our beliefs are likely to be
trustworthy or not. Calculating probability is greatly affected by
the complexity of combinations vs probabilities that ignore
combinations. For example, let's say you only hold 4 beliefs. What
are the odds that one of them is false? That's a one in four chance.
So let's say you hold 1000 beliefs. The odds that one in four are
false would be, you guessed it, one in four.
But
it gets more complicated. Most of the beliefs we hold are
combinations of beliefs. Only basic beliefs are not. So the way the
possibilities combine is relevant. For example, a license plate that
reads “HP3192” is not the same as one that reads “P3192H”
even though all of the same letters and numbers are present. With
only 26 letters and numerals, there are over two billion possible
permutations. It is with this method of different
combinations(technically permutations) that the human brain can
become so complex. Each neuron in the brain connects to 7000 others.
Thus there are more possible configurations than there are electrons
in the entire universe.
Specifically
for us, in the case of evolutionary theory, many of the beliefs held
represent combinations of other beliefs. Inferences and inductions
are made based on experiment and evidence. It would be a truly
enormous task to layout all of the epistemological structure of the
grand theory of evolution. But It is different combinations of
beliefs that form the theory of evolution. If they are combined in
different ways, then we arrive at a very different theory. Let's say
that for our beliefs to be generally reliable, we must have 3 true
for every four false. So if it took four beliefs, there is a 5/16
chance that 75% are trustworthy. In other words, there are 5
possible ways that 75% can be true. We can do a very modest
assessment of 100 beliefs that combine to form the outcome. The
total number of possible permutations is 2^100 = 1.26x10^30. The
possible ways 75% can be true is calculated a bit differently.
Let's say that any false belief is as false as another. Then there
are 100 possible locations for the first one, 99 locations for the
second one, 98 for the third, and so on. This would be done until 75
since we are only asking how many ways the 25 false beliefs can be
permuted. Of course we would also want to know how many ways 24
false beliefs can be permuted, 23, 22, and so on. Simply trusting
Plantinga's calculations, then the possibilities are .001 that at
least 75% of the beliefs leading to the theory of evolution are
reliable.
Therefore,
atheism and evolution, when combined together, provide a
contradiction. In other words, this is a belief that cannot
rationally be affirmed, since believing it means that you must also
not believe it.
Plantinga
has only first proposed this argument in 1993 and reformulated it in
2008. In philosophy, that's pretty new. Let's take a look at
possible refutations. One objects to the principle of indifference.
It says that if we don't know what an outcome will be, then we can't
give it a probability of 50/50. It seems obvious to me, though, that
this is a perfectly reasonable mathematical description of, “I
don't know what will happen.”
The
other objection I will consider goes back to the basic idea. This is
called the distinction between methodological materialism and
metaphysical materialism. We considered the idea that neural states
cause behaviors as well as beliefs alongside these behaviors. But
metaphysical materialism says that the neural states simply are
identical with the beliefs. It seems obvious to me that this isn't
much of an objection though. Simply put, if those neural states both
cause beliefs and are themselves beliefs, it would be just a mere
accident that the belief content properties of those neural states
just so happen to correlate to reality. The electrochemical
properties and the content properties are just different things. The
neural state would be sufficient to cause the behavior. And it would
be a statement that represents content also. But it would just be a
lucky happenstance if this content correlated to reality. So the
odds are still 50/50. Honestly it seems like Plantinga's objectors
are simply grasping at straws here.
Therefore
it seems painfully obvious that atheism and evolution taken together
are self defeating. You can be an atheist who believes human thought
arises in some other manner. Or you can believe in theism and
evolution. But you can't have both.
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