Larmer on God of the Gaps reasoning

I'm redating the post on Larmer's essay on God of the Gaps.

I conclude that there is nothing wrong with the reasoning typically involved in “God of the gaps” arguments. The widespread dismissal of such arguments as unworthy of serious consideration is, therefore, unjustified.--Philosopher Robert Larmer.

I am a tad surprised that people haven't picked up on this, since it's a direct attack on one of most often-used arguments in the atheist playbook. I do note that Tom Gilson has picked up on it, however.

Read More

"God did it" explanations

A redated post.

Since the God of the Gaps issue has been discussed in several places, I thought I would redate this post from a month ago relevant to that issue.

We are often told that "God did it" explanations are "cheating" that they are "pseudo-explanations." I saw this in reading the combox on Tom Gilson's Thinking Christian site, to which I link here. But what if God actually did it? "The butler did it" is a bad explanation unless, well, the butler did it. Does that mean that we, as rational people, are condemned to not believing the truth because to accept a true explanations would be to accept an unacceptable explanation? Are there any limits on the ban on theistic explanations? Consider this passage from Norwood Russell Hanson:

Suppose that on next Tuesday morning, just after breakfast, all of us in this one world are knocked to our knees by a percussive and ear shattering thunderclap. Snow swirls; leaves drop from trees; The earth heaves and buckles; Buildings topple and towers tumble; The sky is ablaze with an eerie, silvery light. Just then, as all the people of this world look up, the heavens open—The clouds pull apart—Revealing an unbelievably immense and radiant Zeus-like figure, towering above us like a hundred Everests. He frowns darkly as lightning plays across the features of His Michelangeloid face. He then points down at me and exclaims, for every man, woman and child to hear, “I have had quite enough of your too-clever logic-chopping and word-watching in matters of Theology. Be assured, N. R. Hanson that I do most certainly exist. 1

Keith Parsons, in his debate with William Lane Craig, says that if that were to happen he would be on the front row of the church. I once asked Keith this question: Suppose I were God, and I decided to do everything I could to convince you that I existed. What would I have to do? (Keith had sent me a paper defending a broadly Humean position on miracles). He said "If the sky were to spell out the words "TURN OR BURN THIS MEANS YOU PARSONS" he said, he would turn. In fact examples like these are often used as a basis for challenging believers to provide evidence for belief in God. But why demand that theists provide evidence, if, whatever the circumstances, there couldn't be enough evidence. If "God did it" explanations are really verboten, then it hardly makes sense to complain that theists haven't provided evidence for their position. By definition, that's the one thing they can't do.

Read More

Lydia McGrew on identifying intelligent agents

This looks like an intriguing paper.

Abstract: It is often assumed by friends and foes alike of intelligent design that a likelihood approach to design inferences will require evidence regarding the specific motives and abilities of any hypothetical designer. Elliott Sober, like Venn before him, indicates that this information is unavailable when the designer is not human (or at least finite) and concludes that there is no good argument for design in biology. I argue that a knowledge of motives and abilities is not always necessary for obtaining a likelihood on design. In many cases, including the case of irreducibly complex objects, frequencies from known agents can supply the likelihood. I argue against the claim that data gathered from humans is inapplicable to non-human agents. Finally, I point out that a broadly Bayesian approach to design inferences, such as that advocated by Sober, is actually advantagous to design advocates in that it frees them from the Popperian requirement that they construct an overarching science which makes high-likelihood predictions.

Read More

Confidence in the progress of science is not the same as confidence that gaps will be closed

It seems to me that you have to have faith that the gaps will be closed. That's different from having faith that science will progress. If science closes the gaps, that's progress, and if it discovers that the gaps can't be closed, that's progress, too. Future science is FUTURE. It's not here yet. Science has gone against its previous trajectory so many times that we shouldn't be making all sorts of predictions about what it will eventually say.

Read More

Evil and the Atheism of the Gaps

A redated post.

Anonymous wrote:
First off, I think you're right when you say that you're at a disadvantage when you, as a theist, must first set out your proofs for god and how they square everyone's observations of the natural world. It's not an unfair disadvantage, though; it's perfectly fair and right that things are tougher for you than for the atheist, because you're making the positive claim ("God Exists"). If you want that claim to have any weight, you must present the positive arguement and then let others attack the logical edifice to see if it holds together. What you're doing right now is just avoiding your responsibility at a theistic philosopher, trying to get the athiests to do your work for you. I can understand why you want your opponents to play the besieged party (it's easier to be on the attack, sure), but just because you don't want to do the work of establishing your premise doesn't mean you can assume it's true and rest on your laurels.

There are some mistakes in this discussion that need to be addressed. First of all, I am not at all sure that "making the positive claim" places a burden of proof on the theist. Until somebody converts me to classical foundationalism my view of burdens of proof is that the burden of proof falls on someone trying to get someone else to change his or her mind. We have the right, as rational persons, to believe what we already do believe, unless we receive evidence against what we believe. Someone claiming that the external world exists is making a positive claim, so by the above logic he or she should have to prove to a skeptic that the external world exists in order to be rational in believing it.

Second, I have myself defended theism with arguments. So that isn't my problem.

My problem is this. The argument from evil is the attempt to shoulder a burden of proof on behalf of atheism. It is, after all an argument for atheism. It as attempt to argue that God does not exist. It is an argument against theism. For it to be successful, we need to see how it works, what moral principles are invoked, and what factual claims are being made, to see if the argument is a good one.

What I am objecting to is what I will call atheism-of-the-gaps. Theists are rightly criticized when they take a gap in the naturalistic understanding of the world as automatically proving that God must exist, so that the gap can be filled. A gap in our scientific understanding of the world might be as a result of the limitations of our present understanding rather than providing a foundation for world-view change. But when they come to the evil in the world, they point to some evil and say "Explain this, otherwise, you're being irrataional." This in spite of the fact that the omnipotence of God and the teaching of Scripture strongly predict that there will be gaps in our understanding of evil.

Now we need something more than the contention that we have a gap here.

Read More