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Theistic Idealism

I’ve written about Idealism (which I’ve also referred to specifically as Immaterialism) before. I’ve also written about what I call the paucity of objections to Berkeley’s Immaterialism. Now I would like to return to the subject of my first post (the first link above) and discuss briefly (my definition of briefly is likely different than that of others’) what the philosophy known as Idealism can do in interactions with Theism. I am certainly both an Idealist by philosophy and a theist by religion, so these naturally combine for me.

I do not, however, think that Berkeley’s Immaterialism is correct. Rather, I see it as a step along the way to a kind of Idealism that I’ve been developing by piecing together Berkeley’s Immaterialism, some parts of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, Husserl’s Phenomenology, and my own ideas. Berkeley has a great point, in my opinion, when he starts out by pointing to the idea that “to be is to be perceived (or to perceive).” But one of the things that Berkeley leaves out (at least in the writings of his that I’ve read–currently reading through Three Dialogues) is the demand for the ego or the “I” to be the view of reality. Berkeley makes no claims of exclusivity of mind for interpretation in the sense of demanding that the mind is where all perception must start. He assumes that people should know this, but, as with anything in philosophy, that’s not fair to the audience, no matter how studied. I believe that the ego must first be established in order to maintain an idealist philosophy. Further, I believe that there is literally no way to escape the inevitable conclusion that it is indeed “I” who ultimately interpret reality for myself (note that I’m not saying I determine reality or create it or sustain it, only that I am the ultimate arbiter for interpreting). Because “I” cannot escape myself (such an attempt would indeed be ludicrous) I must start off with glancing from myself to others. But it is the ego that ultimately interprets reality, this is a crucial point that cannot be stressed enough. But anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself and into issues I’m not planning to address here.

The problem, I believe, is that people tend to simply grant that objects in themselves are not only possible, but actual. I don’t see any grounds for granting that objects can or do exist of themselves, as mind-independent things, for there is no way for us to give something any kind of properties, modally or otherwise, that are not dependent, ultimately, on the mind. Assuming a priori that objects-in-themselves are actual is unfounded because, as our ego is the interpreter of reality, we cannot actually demonstrate that objects are mind independent, for there is no way for us to escape our ego in order to do so. We cannot become some being outside of mind that can objectively view such things.

Husserl, in a work with an extremely long title that I’m not going to type out here despite the fact that I will type it below and have now used more space than I would have just typing it out to begin with (and it is usually just referred to as Ideas anyway, which means I’ve spent a whole lot of extra time typing that I really did not have to), states, “…all real unities are ‘unities of sense.’ Unities of sense presuppose… a sense-bestowing consciousness which, for its part, exists absolutely and not by virtue of another sense-bestowal” (Ideas… 107, emphasis his). This is where theism comes into play. While Husserl was not here referring specifically to God, one can find the roots of immaterialism and idealism throughout his Ideas (something which apparently alienated him from his earlier followers). Husserl rightly notes that the thing which the physicist explores is necessarily the thing that is perceived, it is not something outside of perception (Ideas, 99). He states earlier that “…one must not let oneself be deceived by speaking of the physical thing as transcending consciousness or as ‘existing in itself'” (Ideas, 89). Husserl’s goal in Ideas was to found phenomenology as a science that explored essences (I’m heavily summing up), but I think he clearly has some very insightful thoughts on idealism in these and other passages. Husserl, mind you, does believe in a world external to our minds. I agree.

Here again theism permeates my philosophy, for I see the physical, external world as the ideas of God, who views them objectively (in the sense of absolutely, not in the sense of “as objects”) whereas we view them subjectively (here in the sense of not absolute, perhaps flawed, not complete, etc.). So without this absolute sense bestower (to use Husserl’s terms), there can be no perception, no sense. For in Him we move and have our being (Acts 17:28). So within our ego we have a kind of inescapable interpretation, we view reality from this perspective that we cannot escape. But we can clearly show that for any two people A and B, A and B’s perceptions of the world are going to be different on a number of points. But there must be some kind of objective (absolute) world from which we derive sensations and perceptions. However, because we cannot discuss any object as mind independent, this objective world is not mind-independent either, or if it is, then it is such in a way that we cannot access or understand, and in either case it is dependent on something else. So, in either case we have a metaphysics, not a physics, for physics deals with that which is perceived. If we want to establish how that which is perceived came to be, we must move into the realm of metaphysics, beyond the clutches of naturalism, beyond the access of science and firmly into the realm of philosophy, which governs both naturalism and science to begin with.

Sources:

Berkeley, George. The Works of George Berkeley, Volume I. Bibliobazaar.

Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: First Book. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. 1982.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

Abortion: Further Issues

I’ve written arguments against abortion before, but I’ve come up with/read about some other ones and I wanted to bring them up as I think they raise some unique issues.

One argument I read recently (over here, though I can’t seem to locate the exact post) is that abortion seems to be very anti-men. Those concerned for the rights of individuals should, in order to be consistent, care about both women’s rights and men’s rights. The reason abortion is anti-male is because men don’t have the choice over whether the woman gets an abortion or not. Now, obviously, there are many cases where men (unfortunately) push their significant others for abortion, but what I’m pointing out is that if an adult woman wants to have an abortion, the man can’t stop her if she just goes in and does so. But here’s the punch line: if the woman decides to have the baby, and the man didn’t ever want him/her, he still has to pay child support. So the man can’t decide to have the baby, but if the woman does and he didn’t want him/her, he still has to pay the child support. I’m clearly not saying that men should not want babies, but this is an extreme double standard.

Another issue to raise is the fact that abortion is completely devastating certain minority communities, African Americans in particular (see here for a very interesting site, but if you doubt the validity of this claim, just google it and you’ll find plenty of statistics).

Abortion destroys objective human value. One great point that was brought to light in my eyes a while back (see other post) is the question of how is it that coming through the birth canal suddenly changes this fetus/nonhuman tissue/tumor/whatever term one wants to use to hide the “personhood” of the baby into a baby? What makes the “thing” a baby outside the mother, but not a baby inside the mother, at the exact same stage of pregnancy? How is it different to kill a baby inside the mother (abortion) or kill it outside (murder)? Just being inside a woman doesn’t somehow make the fetus/etc. part of the woman, particularly if it can survive outside of the woman. Though–and here is a very important and chilling point–if one wants to argue that direct dependence on the woman for survival is the difference, then children are not “persons” either until they are capable of taking care of themselves all on their own. A newborn baby, for example WOULD NOT SURVIVE without parental (or other) care. Does this mean the baby too is not a “person”? What definition of personhood is being used, and how does it avoid the points I raised in my other post that I have linked a few times?

Part of my reflections on abortion have lead me to try to see it through the eyes of  a pro-choicer. Some of this has come through simply reading from blogs of pro-choice individuals. One thing that is surprising to me is how angry a lot of pro-choice people tend to be. They seem to think that pro-life people are specifically targeting women and trying to “keep them down” in some way. Is it really that hard to acknowledge that there is another side of the debate that might have legitimate reasons for being pro-life? Well, I at least am going to try to acknowledge that pro-choice individuals genuinely raise some good concerns. One of these is a concern for the rights of women. There is no reason to fault someone for wanting to be sure that men and women have equal rights (though interestingly, as above, it seems that men are sometimes pushed aside in this). Pro-choice people show a wonderful concern for women who are struggling with hard decisions, a concern that I think we pro-lifers need to acknowledge and adopt in our own testimony for our side of the debate.

Pro-lifers are not part of some agenda to “keep women down” this is completely ridiculous, and it is in fact a great example of the use of a “straw man” fallacy in argument. I wish that logic was incorporated more into this debate, because all too often I see people on both sides just shouting each other down or using all kinds of fallacious statements. Something this important to both sides, however, seems to alienate logic. I pray that one day this will not be the case. If any real headway is to be made, both sides need to sit down and discuss the issues in a logical way, while allowing for the other side to have some truth.

True Christianity: A Brief Discussion

People today are often confused about what it means to be Christian. Often, when one tries to claim that someone who calls oneself a Christian and does not believe in things that are Christian, they are confronted with people saying this is some kind of fallacy (specifically the “No True Scotsman” fallacy, as I was accused of in a previous debate).

The question then stands, is there a definition of what it means to be Christian? Are there people that claim to be Christian and are not, or can anyone claim to be a Christian regardless of their beliefs about, say, the Trinity or the divinity of Christ?

Yes, there is a clear definition of what it means to be Christian, and, apart from these beliefs there is no salvation. The early church defined Christian belief through three “Ecumenical Creeds.” These creeds explicitly state what the Christian belief is, and that apart from this faith there is no salvation. These creeds outline the one Holy Catholic faith (note that Catholic doesn’t only refer to Roman Catholics, but rather to the Catholic Church, the eternal “City of God”), and apart from this faith there is no salvation and no Christianity.

I’ve been listening to a number of debates that I downloaded and a few of them featured John Dominic Crossan (the founder of the misnamed “Jesus Seminar”) verses various conservative Christians. Crossan denies the bodily resurrection of Jesus, he seems to deny in some ways Christ’s deity, he rejects Christianity as the only way, etc. He claims to be Christian. Can we say that he is not Christian? Absolutely. In denying the bodily resurrection, he denies the One True Faith found in the Creeds of the Catholic Faith. There is no fallacy in rejecting that people like this are not Christians, for there is a clear definition of what it means to be a Christian. If one does not believe in the One Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit coequal and coeternal, one is not a Christian. This applies for every statement of belief within the creeds. If one rejects any part of these creeds, they are not Catholic in belief. The Athanasian Creed concludes: “This is the true Christian Faith. Whoever does not faithfully and firmly believe this cannot be saved.”

This is the teaching of the One True Church, this is the teaching of Scripture (which does not contain the Creeds, but from which the Creeds were directly derived), this is the truth.

The creeds are found below:

The Apostle’s Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,

And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God the Father, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and of all things, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen

The Athanasian Creed

Whoever wishes to be saved must, above all else, hold to the true Christian Faith. Whoever does not keep this faith pure in all points will certainly perish forever.

Now this is the true Christian faith: We worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God, without mixing the persons or dividing the divine being. For each person — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — is distinct, but the deity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory and coeternal in majesty. What the Father is, so is the Son, and so is the Holy Spirit.

The Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated; The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet they are not three who are eternal, but there is one who is eternal, just as they are not three who are uncreated, nor three who are infinite, but there is one who is uncreated and one who is infinite.

In the same way the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, and the Holy Spirit is almighty. And yet they are not three who are almighty, but there is one who is almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord; yet they are not three Lords, but one Lord.

For just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually to be God and Lord, so the true Christian faith forbids us to speak of three Gods or three Lords. The Father is neither made not created, nor begotten of anyone. The Son is neither made nor created, but is begotten of the Father alone. The Holy Spirit is neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeds from the Father and the Son. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

And within this Trinity none comes before or after; none is greater or inferior, but all three persons are coequal and coeternal, so that in every way, as stated before, all three persons are to be worshiped as one God and one God worshiped as three persons. Whoever wishes to be saved must have this conviction of the Trinity.

It is furthermore necessary for eternal salvation truly to believe that our Lord Jesus Christ also took on human flesh. Now this is the true Christian faith: We believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is both God and Man. He is God, eternally begotten from the nature of the Father, and he is man, born in time from the nature of his mother, fully God, fully man, with rational soul and human flesh, equal to the Father, as to his deity, less than the Father, as to his humanity; and though he is both God and Man, Christ is not two persons but one, one, not by changing the deity into flesh, but by taking the humanity into God; one, indeed, not by mixture of the natures, but by unity in one person.

For just as the reasonable soul and flesh are one human being, so God and man are one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty, and from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. At his coming all people will rise again with their own bodies to answer for their personal deeds. Those who have done good will enter eternal life, but those who have done evil will go into everlasting fire.

This is the true Christian Faith. Whoever does not faithfully and firmly believe this cannot be saved.

The Teleological Argument

The “Teleological Argument,” which is also known as the “Argument from Design,”  has been popularized by the Intelligent Design movement, though the version I defend below is cosmological rather than biological.

The Teleological Argument is an inductive argument that doesn’t attempt to prove that God exists, but rather argues to justify or confirm that belief. In other words, it can function much like the Argument from Religious Experience in providing warrant, not proof, for belief. It’s an inductive argument that seeks to increase the probability of theism, not prove it.

Robin Collins wrote the chapter on the Teleological Argument in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, entitled “The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-Tuning of the Universe.” I can honestly say that I only understood about 70-80% of the material. While there is a large amount of hefty philosophical argumentation involved, it was the double-dose of astronomy and physics (things I have an average-at-best understanding of) that kept me from fully understanding this chapter. That said, I think That I understood enough to have the core of the argument intact. Collins argues that the universe has been “fine-tuned” to be a Life-Permitting Universe (LPU). He states that “This fine-tuning falls into three major categories: that of the laws of nature, that of the constants of physics, and that of the intial conditions of the universe…” (BCNT, 202).

I have long been skeptical of the usefulness of the Teleological Argument, but Collins puts forward a rather subdued version, in which he doesn’t loftily claim to prove God’s existence, but rather to state that “…given the fine-tuning evidence, LPU strongly supports T[heism] over the [Naturalistic Single Universe Hypothesis (hereafter referred to as the NSU)]” (205). Thus, instead of arguing that theism is true based on teleology, he argues that naturalism is less likely than theism based on teleology.

Collins pits the “Theistic Hypothesis” (as he calls it, T) against the NSU. He introduces the “Likelihood Principle,” which, in my own stripped down version basically states that if there is some evidence, e in favor of a hypothesis (say, T) over another (NSU), then T is more likely (205). All of this sounds, as I said, very subdued. The Teleological Argument as Collins presents it is not an end-all, be-all argument to convince everyone, but rather seems to be a justification for belief.

Now we must return to the evidence for fine-tuning. As previously stated, this falls into three categories: the laws of nature, the constants of nature, and the intial conditions of the universe (202). The laws or principles of nature that are required for “self-reproducing, highly complex material systems” (211) are 1) a universal attractive force, such as gravity 2) a force similar to the strong nuclear force, 3) a force similar to electromagnetic force, 4) Bohr’s Quantization Rule or something similar (electrons occupy only fixed orbitals [213]), and 5) the Pauli Exclusion Principle (“no two fermions… can occupy the same quantum state” [213]). The reason such things are required is because without #1, things would just float around everywhere, #2 allows for nucleons to stay together, without which it seems obvious there would be no complexity, #3, if it were not true, would mean there were no atoms (for nothing could hold them in orbit [212]), #4 allows electrons to keep energy, and #5 directly allows for complex chemistry (“without this principle, all eelectrons would occupy the lowest atomic orbital…” [213]) (211).

The constants of physics also are essential for an LPU. These include the constant of gravity and the cosmological constant (214, 215). Both of these seem necessary for the existence of life. The cosmological constant, for example, states that when it is positive, it will act as a repulsive force, but when negative, it will act as a negative force. If  this constant had been different than it is, then the universe would have expanded or collapsed too quickly for stars and galaxies to form (215).

Naturalistic alternatives will be lacking. For example, one of the most likely alternatives for the naturalist is to discover some set of laws such that they explain the cosmological constant being what it is. But if this is the case, the naturalist has only pushed the question up one step higher, for now one could ask for an explanation for the fine-tuning of such a law. Another problem is that, as always, it seems the naturalist is assuming that an explanation will be discovered (219). There are a few problems with this in itself. One is that it is an argument to the future, which is a logical fallacy. One cannot simply state that one’s position is correct by stating that one day it will be demonstrated. Further, the naturalist may claim the theist has now created a “God of the gaps.” This is another fallacious way to attempt to argue against the theist. As stated before, the assumption that science will one day fill in every gap is a fallacy: argument to the future. Naturalists create their own “science of the gaps” in which they assume every gap will be filled by science. Another problem is that in order for the naturalist’s objection “God of the gaps” to work, it must carry weight for the theist, lest it be question-begging in nature. Yet there is no plausible way that, given theism, appealing to God for explanation of some concept should be ruled out a priori. Thus, the naturalist begs the question in objecting in a “God of the gaps” fashion. Further, such an objection as the “God of the gaps” is question begging in that they assume the theist is proposing theism as a scientific hypothesis. This is not the case. The theist is proposing God as a metaphysical and philosophical explanation, not a scientific one (225). Not only that, but if, for example, there is some theory of everything yet to be discovered, this would only push the fine-tuning up one level, and the naturalist would have to explain the existence of this theory of everything. The Teleological Argument doesn’t lose weight in light of such objections.

The Teleological Argument Collins brings forward is (my very summed up version, though all of the following are direct quotes):

“1) Given the fine-tuning evidence, LPU is very, very epistemically unlikely under NSU…

2) Given the fine-tuning evidence, LPU is not unlikely under theism…

3) Theism was advocated prior to the fine-tuning evidence (and has independent motivation)

4) Therefore, by the restricted version of the Likelihood Principle, LPU strongly supports Theism over NSU (207)”

The first premise is one that should not really be all that heavily debated. Just as one example, the cosmological constant is fine tuned to about 1 part in 10^120 (Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig, 159). There are many other constants that have such unfathomably small likelihood of occurring. The difference is in how one explains this. Some argue for brute fact (it just is), but others argue based on the multiverse hypothesis.

Collins argues in various ways against the multiverse hypothesis scientifically. I will present my own argument, which is philosophical in nature. If our universe is one of many (perhaps infinitely many), then a number of logical problems arise. One is the problem of discovery. If we are granting naturalism, then how do we scientifically discover these other universes, if, based on the multiverse hypothesis, we cannot? Not only that, but there are modal problems with the multiverse hypothesis. Given an infinite number of universes that exist, then it seems highly likely there are other “J.W. Wartick”s in these universes. But there would likely be a far greater number in which there is no “J.W. Wartick” (much to the chagrin of the inhabitants!). If this is the case, then I simultaneously exist and do not exist, which is contradictory. But, it could be argued, these other “J.W. Wartick”s are not actually me, they are alternate mes in entirely different universes! This only introduces other problems, such as identity.

This problem is another discovery problem, but this one does not exist in a scientific sense but a philosophical one. How, for example, do we identify these other universes? How do we discover their properties? How do we infer any truths about our universe if, as stated just before, they are entirely different universes, and one cannot say that there are two “J.W. Wartick”s out there? In other words, if we state that the problem of “J.W. Wartick” existing and not existing isn’t a problem because these universes are not our own and are entirely different, how then do we derive knowledge of our own unverse from these hypothetical universes in the sense that we infer that our own universe isn’t all that unlikely given that we are one in infinite (or a great many)? One cannot have it both ways.

Others modify the multiverse hypothesis to say that there really aren’t infinite universes out there, but rather only those with laws similar to our own, selected by a sort of naturalistic machine that determines which universes are and are not possible. But if this is the case, then we have again only shifted the problem of our own existence from one point on the ladder to another. What determines this “machine” that selects universes non-arbitrarily (for it must not be arbitrary if we are using it to try to explain apparent fine-tuning)? Thus, this hypothesis doesn’t solve anything.

Then there is what Collins calls the “Weak Anthropic Principle objection.” I believe this is the claim Dawkins was making that I analyzed in another post. Collins writes, “According to the weak verson of the so-called Anthropic Principle, if the laws of nature were not fine-tuned, we should not be here to comment on the fact. Some have argued, therefore, that LPU is not really improbable or surprising at all under NSU, but simply follows from the fact that we exist” (277). There are a few problems with this, as I pointed out in the post I linked with Dawkins (such as the claim that such a thing is necessarily true that is implicit). But there are even more problems. The first is the argument could simply be restated to argue that our existence as embodied moral agents is extremely unlikely under NSU, but not under theism (277).

More convincing, however, is an example:

Imagine that I am standing to be executed, with 50 sharpshooters ready to fire at me. They fire, and they all miss. Would my response really be, “if they had not missed me, I would not be here to consider the fact?” Such a response is inadequate. One would almost be forced to conclude that there was some reason they all missed, given the background information that had the intention been to kill me, they almost certainly would have killed me (276).

Thus, such a dismissal of the evidence as Dawkins performs misses the mark (pun slightly intended).

Brute Fact must similarly be discareded as an explanation. Dr. Parrish argues in his book God and Necessity (which I recently read and discussed) that Brute Fact is logically undercut as an explanation for a number of reasons. These include that the Brute Fact hypothesis states explicitly that everything is random. If this is the case, then there should be no laws to observe, and, in fact, things should randomly be happening constantly. But Brute Fact proponents may argue that everything was random, but once it started, it was determined (God and Necessity, Stephen E. Parrish, 189).  This, however, ignores the fact that relationships, in Brute Fact, are completely random. There is no reason to believe that, for example, a law should continue to operate how it does, even if we can observe it for a great deal of time doing so. Further, if such things were set in place upon being randomly selected by Brute Facy randomness, there are two major probelms. The first is that Brute Fact has no way to explain why such things should become determined upon selection, and the second is that even if one could get around this first problem, there remains no way to explain why it should always be the case. If everything is random, then everything is random, necessarily. There can be no constants.

Thus, it seems as though theism is the best way to explain the fine-tuning of the universe. Multiverse hypotheses fail in that they have scientific (which I did not discuss) and logical problems. Brute Fact can’t account for constants. Finally, just saying that we are here to observe the universe doesn’t do anything to undermine questions that ask Why are we here, and not somewhere else, or nowhere?

I don’t believe the Teleological Argument proves God exists, but it does add a significant amount of warrant to the belief that He does.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.