science

Sam Harris on Morality: A Critique

I watched a video of Sam Harris talking about morality in February this year (here) and was quite interested in what he had to say on morality.

I was excited to see what  Sam Harris had to say. He is one of the so-called “New Atheists”, and thus I expect him to be on the absolute cutting edge of the philosophical debate between theism and atheism. My excitement built because the video was called “Science Can Answer Moral Questions.” I think there are insurmountable problems with such a claim, but this video claims Sam Harris answers this very question.

After some initial comments in which Harris remarked that people often think science doesn’t have much to say about values, Harris did not wait very long to show how it is that science can indeed interact with values and morality. He states, “Values are a certain kind of fact [sic]; they are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.”

This is literally his argument. I’ve watched the  video twice, trying to see if I missed anything, but I haven’t. This is what he says “Values are… fact[s]…”

I read the comments underneath and I noted that one commenter said “I do not see how the speaker used science to understand morality.” The next commenter replied, “I agree that his current argument is unscientific, and that his examples were somewhat extreme and not well presented.” Okay, so I don’t think I missed anything.

One commenter did say that Harris made (sort of) the following argument:

“-science can tell us what makes people happy
“-a moral decision will increase happiness
“-therefore, we can use science to determine if a decision is good or not”

Now obviously these comments are not authoritative on what Harris was saying, but from this video I see no actual argument. Harris managed to prove nothing. What does it mean to say a moral value is a fact? This is something that most (I’d say all, but there are always exceptions) theists would absolutely agree with. Moral values are facts. So what?

How is it that suddenly declaring moral values facts means that science can now discover moral values? It seems to me as though this is impossible. Construct an empirical test that demonstrates “Rape is wrong” or “Murdering people for one’s own pleasure is wrong.” It seems to me as though this cannot be done. Perhaps the one comment did make some headway, however. On atheistic naturalistic science, consciousness is reducible to brain states. These can be detected by science. Throw in the assumption that what makes people feel good is right and what makes them feel bad is wrong, and we now have a way to determine objective morality!

Well, not so much. One immediate objection is that murder or rape, it could be argued, make the perpetrators quite happy. Who decides which happiness trumps which happiness? Is it a group effort? Gather enough test subjects around when a murder happens, measure their brain waves to determine how many people are happy or sad, check off a box “right” or “wrong” depending on the happiness levels. Repeat as many times as needed for empirical validation, and now we have an objective moral values? I think this view is utterly bankrupt. How can we determine morality by mob?

Not only that, but isn’t it possible that at different time periods in history (or the future) such measurements would come up differently? Suppose that in the future the majority of people believe murder is a happy thing, or at least it is acceptable. Well, on this same test, there would be completely different results. Suddenly, objective morality has changed its mind!

There are other problems, however. How exactly can a moral value even be testable. We can do as above and simply measure happiness in various moral situations, but that doesn’t do anything to test the moral value itself. Instead, it tests how people feel about the moral value. How do we test the value with science? I don’t see any possible way to do so.

One final problem is that Harris, on this argument, seems to take what is “right” to be what people like. This is a huge assumption. How fortuitous it would be that naturalistic evolution managed to line us up exactly with the self-existent moral values such that we would like what is “right”! No, the problem with this is that equating “right” with “pleasure” allows for things like the Nazis. Get enough people who take pleasure in exterminating a populace that is a huge minority, and you have suddenly changed “objective” “right” to be exterminating that populace. Say there are 1,000,000,000 people who each get +1 happiness to exterminate a population of 10 people, who would each get -100 happiness (the maximum!) for being exterminated. Clearly, +1,000,000,000 is better than -100. But is it objectively right to say that exterminating people for +1 happiness is right?

Speaking of the well being of children, Harris says: “Is there any doubt that this question has an answer and that it matters?” Indeed not. I am absolutely astounded that someone like Sam Harris seems to be arguing that there are objective moral values. He has nothing on which he can base them. Dawkins states that “there is at bottom no… evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” In contrast, Harris states that moral values are fact! But he has no grounds to do so. Science cannot show objective morality. It can show the feelings of individuals. These feelings are not objective.

At best, all the atheist can do is distill the feelings of the mob into a general recommendation for morality one way or another. I’m not saying atheists cannot be moral people (indeed, I think often many atheists are extremely moral individuals, with much to commend them in this regard), rather, I would argue that atheists have no basis for their morality. Such morality can be based on the feelings of the majority, but it can never be stated that these are objectively right or wrong.

It is telling, further, that someone like Harris admits that there are indeed objective values such as right and wrong. It is quite unfortunate, however, to have to watch him fumbling to try to explain them. The atheistic universe is exactly as Dawkins portrays it, “there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” Thankfully, theists have something on which to base objective morality: God. The universe, on theism, has such things as objective moral values, it has design, it has purpose, it has good and evil, and instead of blind, pitiless indifference, it has a God who cares specifically about each creature in this universe.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from cited material which is the property of its respective owner[s]) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

The Origins Debate Within Christianity

This post is a collection of links to the series I’m doing on the “Argument within Christianity.” I’d make it all nice and pretty if I wasn’t computer illiterate. I will update this post as my series continues.

Introductory Post “The Argument Within Christianity: Evolution, Intelligent Design, or Creationism?”

Theistic Evolution 1 Theistic Evolution 2 Theistic Evolution 3 Theistic Evolution 4

Old Earth Creationism 1 Old Earth Creationism 2 Old Earth Creationism 3

Young Earth Creationism 1 Young Earth Creationism 2 Young Earth Creationism 3 Young Earth Creationism 4

Intelligent Design 1 Intelligent Design 2 Intelligent Design 3

Christian Presuppositions and Science

The Interaction of Science and Faith

Guest Post 1: Matt Moss Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

The Dialogue Proceeds: Young Earth Creationism

This is part in a series of posts I’m working on concerning the “Argument within Christianity” on the origins of the universe and life. Other posts can be viewed here.

Young Earth Creationism holds that the Genesis 1-3 account is to be literally read. The days mentioned are literal 24-hour days. The Creation account is not metaphorical or some kind of theological rendition of Creation, but is a literal, scientifically accurate (when science is viewed through this lens) account of the origin of the universe.

Central to Young Earth Creationists (hereafter YECs) is the idea that people can look at the exact same scientific data and take different interpretations. I remember a man coming to speak on campus about YEC and he said that he looks at the exact same evidence as other scientists, and simply comes away with a different interpretation.

So what does it mean to take the same evidence and look at it with different interpretations? One is the age of the earth. A prominent and important site for YEC scientists is the Mount St. Helens eruption site. This site has provided a number of startling findings. Specifically, YECs point to the layers of sediment deposited by the volcano as showing there could be a different interpretation of geologic time. In the space of a few days, Mount St. Helens deposited up to 600 feet of sediment. This sediment looks like the sedimentary deposits found throughout the geologic record across the world (Morris). Other evidence includes the fact that a canyon formed, complete with a redirected river flowing through it, trees were deposited standing up (similar to petrified forests), and peat moss deposits that could eventually lead to coal (Morris).

Thus, YECs take this as evidence for the Genesis account and creation in a few ways. First, if there was a worldwide flood, then it is possible that there would exist worldwide sedimentary deposits that are quite uniform. If canyons can form so quickly from a volcano, then could not other canyons that are often cited as having taken millions of years to form have been formed by an event like the flood or other volcanic activity surrounding the Flood (Morris)?

It seems like, on a YEC perspective, the Flood is the answer to a great many questions, including the evidence from geology for the age of the earth (YECs would say it is sediment deposited and compacted by the flood), canyons, fossils, etc.

I always find things like this greatly appealing, but I do have a few problems. I must stress again that I am not a scientist. Thus, I am not someone to go through and evaluate scientific claims in any scholarly fashion, as I don’t have the knowledge to do so. I try to stay on top of things by reading reports, whatever books I have or get a hold of that have to do with science, but the bottom line is that it isn’t my main interest. Anyway, these are the problems I have, with my layman’s knowledge of science:

1. What about evidence from astronomy for the age of the universe?

2. How does one go about putting things like this into a scientific model (again, not that this is the standard for truth of any claim, but it is the standard for science, and if the YEC perspective wants to compete on this level, it must provide a competing model that involves tests)?

3. Can we really take evidence from something like the Mount St. Helens eruption and assume things about the Flood because of it?

4. Where is the positive case? Rather than attacking all other views, where is the scientific case building bottom up a YEC explanation of the universe? I think this is absolutely essential for YEC to offer any competition to Old Earth Creationism, Theistic Evolution, or Intelligent Design. Hugh Ross has done well for the OEC view (here), but as far as I know, YECs have no comparable case.

Sources:

Morris, Dr. John D. “Lessons from Mount St. Helens.” http://www.icr.org/article/lessons-from-mount-st-helens/.

My notes from a talk on campus which I don’t feel like looking up a way to officially cite

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Scientific (Evolutionary) Explanations of Religion

It is baffling to me that some, particularly the “New Atheists” seem to think that if we were to find some kind of biological “hard wiring” into our brains of religious belief, it would prove that God does not in fact resist and that we are simply machines driven by biological and sociological means to believe in some mystical being.

Why is this? What is the reason that evidence for scientific accounts of the origins of religion would somehow undermine religion itself? There aren’t reasons offered. It is always just assumed that if science can explain something, that precludes any other kind of explanation. This is a blatant genetic fallacy, also known as the fallacy of origin. Explaining how some belief came to be does not mean that belief is false.

The argument seems to be:

1) If science can explain some belief as being hard-wired into the brain, that belief is false

2) Religion (supposedly) is hard-wired into the brain.

3) Therefore, religion is false.

Premise 1 is obviously fallacious by the genetic fallacy. Just arguing that some belief is hard-wired into the brain does not make that false. If something springs to mind because of our cognitive predisposition to believe something, that does not mean that this “thing” that springs to mind is false. We believe, for example, in the existence of other minds innately, despite being unable to enter other minds and show that they are operating in a similar fashion as our own (God is Great, God is Good 102).

Though the argument is trying instead to show that belief in God is not really due to the fact that God is actually there, but rather due to some kind of naturally arising belief that we have evolutionarily forced into our brains. Thus, when we experience something that we may take to be supernatural in origin, we are only taking it in such a way because we are genetically predisposed to do so. But again this is a genetic fallacy and it doesn’t actually attack the religious beliefs themselves.

It could just as easily be the case that the Bible and most of human history are correct when they assert that the natural world gives evidences of God’s existence, and that man can have natural revelation of God by seeing His works revealed in the world. Not only that, but it is clear that the argument in the above paragraph is wrong. Let me take an example from Michael Murray in God is Great, God is Good.

“I believe there is a deer in the neighborhood because I can see its tracks in the mud in my yard. I can’t see it directly, but I see things that are causal consequences of the deer’s presence, and this triggers in me a belief that it is around. What this line of argument does not see or even acknowledge is the possibility that the mechanism s that lead us toward belief in God might be, like the deer tracks, causal consequences of God’s activity” (103). Thus, the conclusion that God does not exist simply because we may have triggers in our minds that lead us to believe something is God’s activity does not exclude the existence of God.

There simply is no good argument against the existence of God that can come from some kind of scientific explanation of religion. All such arguments fall to the genetic fallacy or would seem to argue against any kind of belief formation based on cognitive evidences.

Source: Murray, Michael. “Evolutionary Explanations of Religion.” God is Great, God is Good. Edited by William Lane Craig and Chad Meister.

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The Argument Begins: Theistic Evolution

This post is the second in a series discussion the Argument about Creationism/Intelligent Design/Evolutionism in Christianity specifically. Click here for links to the rest of this series.

Theistic Evolution is probably the group I am farthest from, largely because I do still see some problems with the evolutionary theory (noting that I am no scientist or expert in the field) and I also have problems with the theological arguments advanced by Theistic Evolutionists in supporting their view.

I have decided to start off by reading a selection from Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, edited by Keith B. Miller. I start with Theistic Evolution because I want to survey fairly as many sides of the debate as possible. The article I started with is called “Christology, Evolution, and the Cross” by George L. Murphy.

The essay is exclusively a theological one; it is dealing with the issue of Christology in light of evolution. Murphy argues that God, on evolution, can be seen as working in the world just as He worked in the world through Christ. Christ humbled Himself when he became man. So, too, argues Murphy… “God voluntarily limits his action in the world, rather as a parent limits what he or she does to allow a child to grow and gain some understanding of its world and control of its environment and life” (372).

Further, Murphy argues against those who may accuse Theistic Evolutionists of being deistic in nature. He states that “God does not simply stand above the evolutionary process and make it happen. In the incarnation God becomes a participant in the process…” (375). Thus, God does in fact participate in a very theistic manner.

Further, Murphy raises a point I find very interesting (if initially somewhat strange). If evolution is true, then God coming as fully human includes that evolutionary history within mankind. Thus, Jesus, the incarnate God, literally takes the sins of the world upon Himself. Not just the sins of mankind, but all things. Murphy cites Colossians 1:20 (here in context with 19) “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Murphy argues that on Theistic Evolution, people can take this quite literally. Being fully man and fully God, Christ was taking on the reconciliation of all things (having the history of creatures’ DNA), not just mankind. Jesus is the liberation that all creation was looking toward (385).

I find these points something to think about for a while, but I must object to Murphy’s view on a few aspects. Murphy, following the quote cited from page 375, states that God is redeeming the “…losers in the ‘struggle for survival’–for in the short run Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate are the survivors. And the resurrection of the crucified means that natural selection, important as it is as an evolutionary mechanism, is not God’s last word. There is hope for those who do not survive” (375).

I’m really not sure what to make of this. I think that Murphy is reading way too much into these verses. It seems that he does this often–reading evolution into parts of Scripture that don’t even seem to closely reflect it (if, indeed, any of Scripture can be said to reflect evolutionary theory, a claim that I find dubious at best). But taking his argument as it stands, it seems fairly interesting. Looking at the large scheme of things, a Theistic Evolutionist can offer an apology for Christianity from an argument of this sort. Why does God use death (natural selection) to bring about good (i.e. humanity and later redemption)? The Theistic Evolutionist can now answer “Christ is the answer” (just as one may answer with Covenantal Theology the problem of evil). Christ came in order to give God’s final answer to the perceived wrongness of the world. He came to promise an eternal life and redemption to all creation. It’s certainly a very different view than anything I’ve read before, and one I will contemplate as I continue my studying.

Ultimately, I’m not convinced by Murphy, but I think that he has shown me that the Theistic Evolution side does take Scripture seriously and that they are very sincerely Christian. He notes that “Every aspect of genuine human nature is saved only by… God in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ” (379).

There are some major problems with Theistic Evolution that I maintain. The first is an explanation of the “Image of God” in mankind. If man is simply evolved from lower lifeforms, what is the “Image of God”? Further, how does one perform Theistic Evolutionary exegesis (not eisegesis) on God’s special creation of man out of dust? The second major problem is original sin. If the wages of sin are death, how was their death before sin? These are questions that stand unanswered as of yet in my reading, and I don’t see any easy answers forthcoming.

Some criteria, on my view, for an acceptable explanation of the origins of life include: 1) God’s specific interaction with nature in a theistic, rather than deistic sense (and I believe Murphy may have dealt with this on a small scale in his essay) 2) An adequate explanation of original sin and its meaning with creation and the origins of life (and must thus include an account of redemption through the divine Christ), and 3) An adequate explanation of the special creation of Adam and Eve. These points still have some pretty heavy weight against theistic evolution.

I want to note that one very valid point that Theistic Evolutionists make is that, as far as scientific inquiry goes, critics of evolution must offer a competing scientific model. It’s all well and good to criticize evolution and point out the flaws in the theory, but what can replace it? One may try to answer that this seems like a positivistic claim- why should we, as Christians, have to argue within current scientific means for a Creationist account? I think that this counter is ineffective, however, as it is true that scientifically speaking (not philosophically or religiously speaking), one must offer a competing model if one wants to overthrow the current one. This is a question I will be exploring in the future, as I have read parts of works in which competing models are indeed offered (such as Intelligent Design or Hugh Ross’s “Creation as Science” model).

I’ve been getting into a bit of a rut with what I’ve been reading, and this kind of makes all of it fresh again. I’ll be interspersing theological articles and books throughout. For me, the most important thing in this debate is Scripture and sound doctrine. Whatever side is right is that which stands closest to the absolute authority and truth of God’s Word. I’m looking forward to looking at the scientific aspect of the debate, in order to see how the sides present their cases.

For further reading/sources:

Murphy, George L. “Christology, Evolution, and the Cross.” Perspectives on an Evolving Creation. Edited Keith Miller. 2003.

Theistic Evolution – Perspectives.

Works I will be referencing/reading as part of this series:

Perspectives on an Evolving Creation

Mere Creation. Edited by William Dembski.

Ross, Hugh. Creation as Science.

Ross, Hugh. More than a Theory.

Behe, Michael. The Edge of Evolution.

Behe, Michael. Darwin’s Black Box.

Ham, Ken. The New Answers Book 1.

Van Fange, Erich. In search of the Genesis World.

Strobel, Lee. The Case for a Creator.

Collins, Francis. The Language of God.

Rehwinkel, Alfred. The Flood.

Dembski, William. Intelligent Design.

-many more

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The Argument within Christianity: Evolution, Intelligent Design, or Creationism?

I’ve written about evolution before but I wanted to narrow the scope of my discussion to how this debate is happening within Christianity. I explained in my first post on evolution that I am not, nor will I (probably) ever be a scientist or an expert in this field. Thus, what I try to do when I make posts about evolution, Intelligent Design, or Creationism, is bring things up on a layman’s level or bring up issues that I think pertain to the philosophical side of the debate. This is the introductory post for my series. View here for links to all the posts in this series.

Christians are right in the middle of this debate. Polls continue to show that the majority of Americans don’t believe in evolution. Many people seem to think that belief in evolution would somehow undermine God or belief in God. This, I think, is why evolution has become such a hotly debated topic within Christian circles.

Christians, it seems, have (at least) three choices when it comes to evolution:

1) Theistic Evolution- the belief that (neo-)Darwinian evolution is true, but God exists and kind of started the process of somehow (perhaps by creating life, and then letting things happen).

2) Intelligent Design- the belief that (neo-)Darwinian evolution is almost true, but it needs some help. Some things cannot be explained by random mutations and natural selection. Instead, an intelligent designer (read: God) directed and guided this process, stepping in here and there to insure that it continued in a manner the designer wanted.

3) Creationism- the belief that (neo-)Darwinian evolution is false and God created the world and all the “kinds.” Usually this includes a belief in micro-evolution–that the “kinds” mentioned in Genesis can vary, that viruses, and the like do evolve, etc.

Each of these groups can be broken into almost countless sub-categories. I will note just one for now:

Creationism can be broken down into:

1) The name “Old Earth Creationism” generally applies to people who believe the universe is as old as the scientific community holds, but that evolution has serious problems and that God specifically intervened either by creating life at various stages (often referred to as “progressivism”) or by fine-tuning life throughout the process.

2) Young Earth Creationism- God created the world in 6 literal 24 hour periods, resting on the 7th day. Evolution is false (except for micro-evolution) and the world appears ancient because of catastrophic events in our past (such as the Flood).

What exactly is at stake? If you ask me that question, I would have to answer “not much.” I feel strongly as though every side of this debate is greatly over-exaggerating the implications of the debate within Christianity. The Young Earth Creationists often argue that those who go against their view reject the authority of Scripture. This is unfair to those advancing the other positions, who are often looking to the Bible first for their view, while fitting what they view as scientific authority into that framework. On the other hand, theistic evolutionists often accuse those in the Intelligent Design or Creationist camp of ignoring scientific discoveries and evidence. Thus is also unfair, as it simply refuses to acknowledge the great amount of empirical research that is going in in the other areas.

I say that “not much” is at stake because I don’t think that any of these views ultimately excludes saving faith, which is the belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior by the power of the Holy Spirit. None of these views is damaging to such belief, so these views are all compatible with Christian belief. The extent to which they are compatible may be a different matter, and that is something that I intend to include in my analysis in future posts.

So where do I fall in these categories? Honestly, that answer will vary depending on what day you ask me. It’s an issue that I still need to do a lot of investigation into before I settle on one view.

Thus, this post, and ones that will follow, will reflect my investigations into this often explosive issue. I will be writing on things I read from each camp and trying to present them and evaluate them in as neutral a fashion as possible. Will I be unbiased? Obviously not. One can see from my “About” page what my presuppositions are. If a view I read goes against my view in the inerrancy of Scripture, then inerrancy will trump the view. I readily acknowledge my bias in this regard (which is more than a great many people do), so that you, the reader, can know that and take it into account.

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