It sure looks like it here, at Ball State.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Some Clarifications for Steven Carr
Posted on 4:33 PM by Unknown
Steven Carr: No, the whole point is that 'the power of omnipotence' is a meaningless phrase indicating the total lack of thought that has gone into working out your views.
Apparently, any being other than a god can only win a chess game by playing better moves than his opponent, while in contrast, a god wins chess games by a different method - namely the power of omnipotence.
VR: Actually, it depends on what you want explained. Winning a chess game involves making better moves than one's opponent, granted. But now if we ask "OK, I have the scoresheet, and I know what God did to win the game. But how in the world did he figure out what the best moves were?" we would be ignoring God's omniscience.
Similarly, we might get a good deal more detail about what happened when God raised Jesus from the dead. A Laplacean demon might know in detail what all the physical, chemical, and biological changes were that brought Jesus back to life. That would identify in more detail what the miracle was. But, if we then ask "OK, I see all that, but isn't that impossible given the laws of physics, so how did God do that?" then it seems the interlocutor is simply forgetting that God, ex hypothesi, is omnipotent, and has the power to create the laws of physics or to produce effects that are not possible given the laws of physics, and we would be gratuitously presupposing naturalism, which is precisely what is at issue between the defender of miracles and the opponent of miracles.
Monday, September 9, 2013
How did God do that?
Posted on 3:06 PM by Unknown
Lowder writes:
The more substantial point is this. Simply claiming that a Creator/Designer is the “best explanation” hardly amounts to showing that a Creator/Designer really is the “best explanation.” In my experience, many (but not all) people who invoke a Creator or Designer as the “best explanation” fail to show that it is the best explanation. Indeed, some (and this includes WK, at least in the linked post) don’t even try! Instead, they just assume that a Creator or Designer is an explanation. If, however, the design hypothesis isn’t an explanation at all, then it cannot be the best explanation.
This is always an interesting issue. But does it really make sense to ask of an omnipotent being how they did something. For example, I once beat a Grandmaster in a chess tournament. Now, you might ask how I did that, since as someone whose rating has never gone above expert, you might wonder how I did that. (And the answer isn't all the flattering, was able to win because my opponent had had entirely too much to drink.) But if I have all power, then the simple answer is that I used the power of omnipotence to get it done.
The more substantial point is this. Simply claiming that a Creator/Designer is the “best explanation” hardly amounts to showing that a Creator/Designer really is the “best explanation.” In my experience, many (but not all) people who invoke a Creator or Designer as the “best explanation” fail to show that it is the best explanation. Indeed, some (and this includes WK, at least in the linked post) don’t even try! Instead, they just assume that a Creator or Designer is an explanation. If, however, the design hypothesis isn’t an explanation at all, then it cannot be the best explanation.
This is always an interesting issue. But does it really make sense to ask of an omnipotent being how they did something. For example, I once beat a Grandmaster in a chess tournament. Now, you might ask how I did that, since as someone whose rating has never gone above expert, you might wonder how I did that. (And the answer isn't all the flattering, was able to win because my opponent had had entirely too much to drink.) But if I have all power, then the simple answer is that I used the power of omnipotence to get it done.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Athanasius' On the Incarnation
Posted on 6:05 PM by Unknown
A redated post.
Athanasius had theological reasons for insisting on the doctrine of the Trinity. It wasn't just a matter of "who won the election." He was concerned about what Arianism would do to monotheism (in spite of a unity of purpose between the Father and the Son) and he was also concerned about the fact that if Arianism is true, then someone other than God is saving us. This edition, of course, includes Lewis's fanous preface, otherwise known as "On the Reading of Old Books."
Athanasius had theological reasons for insisting on the doctrine of the Trinity. It wasn't just a matter of "who won the election." He was concerned about what Arianism would do to monotheism (in spite of a unity of purpose between the Father and the Son) and he was also concerned about the fact that if Arianism is true, then someone other than God is saving us. This edition, of course, includes Lewis's fanous preface, otherwise known as "On the Reading of Old Books."
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Evangelical Outpost on Zombies
Posted on 4:27 PM by Unknown
Is your neighbor a zombie? Is Britney Spears a zombie? (scratch that). Joe Carter thinks that if materialism is true, we would have to worry about this possibility.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
The Stanford entry on Functionalism
Posted on 11:42 AM by Unknown
Here.
The final paragraph is as follows:
In general, the sophistication of functionalist theories has increased since their introduction, but so has the sophistication of the objections to functionalism, especially to functionalist accounts of mental causation (section 5.2), introspective knowledge (Section 5.3), and the qualitative character of experiential states (Section 5.5). For those unconvinced of the plausibility of dualism, however, and unwilling to restrict mental states to creatures physically like ourselves, the initial attractions of functionalism remain. The primary challenge for future functionalists, therefore, will be to meet these objections to the doctrine, either by articulating a functionalist theory in increasingly convincing detail, or by showing how the intuitions that fuel these objections can be explained away.
The final paragraph is as follows:
In general, the sophistication of functionalist theories has increased since their introduction, but so has the sophistication of the objections to functionalism, especially to functionalist accounts of mental causation (section 5.2), introspective knowledge (Section 5.3), and the qualitative character of experiential states (Section 5.5). For those unconvinced of the plausibility of dualism, however, and unwilling to restrict mental states to creatures physically like ourselves, the initial attractions of functionalism remain. The primary challenge for future functionalists, therefore, will be to meet these objections to the doctrine, either by articulating a functionalist theory in increasingly convincing detail, or by showing how the intuitions that fuel these objections can be explained away.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
A question for naturalists
Posted on 6:53 PM by Unknown
This is from an i'm-skeptical response
This is evidence of your own misunderstanding of what it means to be (at least relatively) free of superstition and woo. It's not the cold, dark bleakness of "mindless electrical impulses" that you make it out to be. I have thoughts and emotions, just like everyone else. Your failure to understand it, your deluded perception, does not change the reality. (I might add here that we all have deluded perceptions - reality is not what it appears.) You've convinced yourself (as have most theists) that "mindless electrical impulses" can't possibly result in cognition. As I said, there is "matter in motion" behind it, but it's anything but mindless. It is just how mental function works. Sorry to disappoint you, the materialist isn't angry and jealous because he doesn't share your happy delusions about mind. But he may well wish that you'd wake up, take a look at the evidence, and stop being so smug about your beliefs.
I would like to ask I-S whether, in saying that mental explanations are true, he is saying that they are basic-level explanations. Richard Carrier, in his lengthy critique of my book, agrees with me that purposive and intentional basic explanations are unacceptable for naturalists.
Reppert attempts to generalize his arguments to all forms of naturalism only in a very vague and haphazard way when he comes to his defense of "explanatory dualism" as his alternative. For example, he deploys what I earlier described as the Causation Fallacy again when he argues that naturalism's reliance on only two categories of fundamental explanation—necessity and accident—eliminates reason (87), which is teleological (a third category). But this is a non sequitur. Just because our basic explanations are limited to accident and necessity it does not follow that this exhausts all explanations available to us—for not all explanations are basic. Reppert knows very well that naturalism allows teleological causation as a category of explanation (human behavior, for example), and that we explain the emergence of this type of cause as an effect of a complex system of more fundamental nonteleological causes.
Do you think that Carrier has accurately characterized the commitments of naturalism.
This is evidence of your own misunderstanding of what it means to be (at least relatively) free of superstition and woo. It's not the cold, dark bleakness of "mindless electrical impulses" that you make it out to be. I have thoughts and emotions, just like everyone else. Your failure to understand it, your deluded perception, does not change the reality. (I might add here that we all have deluded perceptions - reality is not what it appears.) You've convinced yourself (as have most theists) that "mindless electrical impulses" can't possibly result in cognition. As I said, there is "matter in motion" behind it, but it's anything but mindless. It is just how mental function works. Sorry to disappoint you, the materialist isn't angry and jealous because he doesn't share your happy delusions about mind. But he may well wish that you'd wake up, take a look at the evidence, and stop being so smug about your beliefs.
I would like to ask I-S whether, in saying that mental explanations are true, he is saying that they are basic-level explanations. Richard Carrier, in his lengthy critique of my book, agrees with me that purposive and intentional basic explanations are unacceptable for naturalists.
Reppert attempts to generalize his arguments to all forms of naturalism only in a very vague and haphazard way when he comes to his defense of "explanatory dualism" as his alternative. For example, he deploys what I earlier described as the Causation Fallacy again when he argues that naturalism's reliance on only two categories of fundamental explanation—necessity and accident—eliminates reason (87), which is teleological (a third category). But this is a non sequitur. Just because our basic explanations are limited to accident and necessity it does not follow that this exhausts all explanations available to us—for not all explanations are basic. Reppert knows very well that naturalism allows teleological causation as a category of explanation (human behavior, for example), and that we explain the emergence of this type of cause as an effect of a complex system of more fundamental nonteleological causes.
Do you think that Carrier has accurately characterized the commitments of naturalism.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Theological Voluntarism and the debate over Calvinism
Posted on 10:39 PM by Unknown
Roger Olson, an Arminian, thinks that the heart of the Calvinist-Arminian debate concerns theological voluntarism. I think that it really does boil down to this, although I have run into arguments to the effect that Calvinists are not necessarily committed to voluntarism.
When I debated the issue a few years back with the people over at Triablogue (mostly) I thought they were getting away from straightforward voluntarism, but that their position ended up in something like it in the final analysis. I think Calvinists like to cast the debate as reliance on intuitions vs. reliance on Scripture, but can we have knowledge of moral truths in the Platonistic sense which permit us to form judgments about what is can be plausibly attributed to God, which in turn affects our understanding of what we take from Scripture?
When I debated the issue a few years back with the people over at Triablogue (mostly) I thought they were getting away from straightforward voluntarism, but that their position ended up in something like it in the final analysis. I think Calvinists like to cast the debate as reliance on intuitions vs. reliance on Scripture, but can we have knowledge of moral truths in the Platonistic sense which permit us to form judgments about what is can be plausibly attributed to God, which in turn affects our understanding of what we take from Scripture?
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Philosophical terms as understood by nonphilosophers
Posted on 8:06 PM by Unknown
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
A Musical Debate
Posted on 4:21 PM by Unknown
The Louvin Brothers affirm belief in God with There's a Higher Power. Robbie Fulks responds with God isn't Real. How would the Louvins have responded to Fulks' argument from evil? Probably with Satan is Real.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Another version of the AFR
Posted on 9:47 PM by Unknown
1. If there is no God, then all causation in the universe is blind, physical causation.
2. If that is true, then what everyone believes is the result of blind, physical causation.
3. But science exists. And if science exists, then scientists also exist. And those scientists do form beliefs because of the evidence for those beliefs. Otherwise, we would not take scientists any more seriously than tea leaf readers.
4. But if science exists, then it is not the case that what everyone believes is the result of blind, physical causation.
5. But if it is not true that what everyone believes is the result of blind, physical causation, then it is not the case that all causation in the universe is blind physical causation.
6. If it is not true that all causation in the universe is blind physical causation, then God does exist.
2. If that is true, then what everyone believes is the result of blind, physical causation.
3. But science exists. And if science exists, then scientists also exist. And those scientists do form beliefs because of the evidence for those beliefs. Otherwise, we would not take scientists any more seriously than tea leaf readers.
4. But if science exists, then it is not the case that what everyone believes is the result of blind, physical causation.
5. But if it is not true that what everyone believes is the result of blind, physical causation, then it is not the case that all causation in the universe is blind physical causation.
6. If it is not true that all causation in the universe is blind physical causation, then God does exist.
Heard from a Quad Preacher back when I was at the University of Illinois
Posted on 7:17 PM by Unknown
A redated post.
Do they still have the fire-and-brimstone quad preachers that always get a big crowd around?
Back in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, God had all the homosexuals in one place. So he smote them with fire and brimstone. Now, they're spread all over the world. So he sent AIDS.
Do they still have the fire-and-brimstone quad preachers that always get a big crowd around?
Back in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, God had all the homosexuals in one place. So he smote them with fire and brimstone. Now, they're spread all over the world. So he sent AIDS.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
A William Lane Craig Interview
Posted on 3:37 PM by Unknown
Monday, August 19, 2013
Six Atheist Arguments. But are they new?
Posted on 3:22 PM by Unknown
A Common Sense Atheism post on whether Christians really believe what they say they do
Posted on 11:35 AM by Unknown
Here. In particular he is talking about the belief in soteriological exclusivism, which says that only Christians go to heaven and everyone else is going to roast in hell.
If we really believe this, would we spend every waking moment trying to evangelize the lost, and worrying ourselves sick that some of the people we really care about won't make it?
Back when I was an undergrad, a couple of guys by the names of Bob Prokop and Joe Sheffer convinced me that soteriological exclusivism was false, and interestingly enough, they brought up some of the same points that this atheist does.
If we really believe this, would we spend every waking moment trying to evangelize the lost, and worrying ourselves sick that some of the people we really care about won't make it?
Back when I was an undergrad, a couple of guys by the names of Bob Prokop and Joe Sheffer convinced me that soteriological exclusivism was false, and interestingly enough, they brought up some of the same points that this atheist does.
Laying out the problem of evil: If there is a God, why does my back hurt so much?
Posted on 11:14 AM by Unknown
Here is a version of the argument from evil.
(1) Gratuitous evils probably exist
(2) Gratuitous evils are incompatible with the God of theism (omnipotent, omniscient, all-good
(3) Therefore, the God of theism probably does not exist.
Gratuitous evils are unnecessary and pointless evils. On the face of things, there seems to be a number of those. My back hurting a lot of the time seems on the face of things to be unnecessary. In fact evolutionary biologists explain it as what happens when creatures transitioned from four legs to two legs, and started standing up straight. That put's pressure on a back that was evolved from creatures with four legs who didn't put so much pressure on their backs.
What is the best way to respond to an AFE that is spelled out in this way?
(1) Gratuitous evils probably exist
(2) Gratuitous evils are incompatible with the God of theism (omnipotent, omniscient, all-good
(3) Therefore, the God of theism probably does not exist.
Gratuitous evils are unnecessary and pointless evils. On the face of things, there seems to be a number of those. My back hurting a lot of the time seems on the face of things to be unnecessary. In fact evolutionary biologists explain it as what happens when creatures transitioned from four legs to two legs, and started standing up straight. That put's pressure on a back that was evolved from creatures with four legs who didn't put so much pressure on their backs.
What is the best way to respond to an AFE that is spelled out in this way?
Saturday, August 17, 2013
A note from someone on a discussion group I frequent
Posted on 9:28 PM by Unknown
BTW I was talking to a Christian astronomer on Thursday. Curiously, even those scientists who believe that Nature is "the whole show" are in a quandary at the moment on the subject of "Dark matter" and "dark energy". Many scientists firmly believe these exist. They hypothesize the "dark" stuff from its "effects", but have no idea what it is and hence how to detect it (huh? methinks, how can they be sure that they are observing dark matter/energy's "effects" then?)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
