Should Christians Engage in Natural Theology?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm2H5dQ84Oc


C Stephen Evans

Hayward Lectures 2012, Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University Nova Scotia.

Lecture 1:

Should Christians engage in Natural Theology?

 And if so, how do we go about it?

God has always called some to defend him: Ancient World. Atheists (rejection of local Gods), superstitious- Miracles, subverters due to social stances. Justin Martyr.

1 Peter 3:15- Give reason- faith is reasonable.

New Atheists: Four Horsemen- Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris.

• -          Distinguishing Factor: Religion is not just wrong but it is dangerous.
• -          None of them have much experience, knowledge or awareness of philosophy of religion.
• -          Some atheists are embarrassed by them.

Dawkins has a novel argument: Designer must be more complex.

• -          But: Divine simplicity.
• -          There is no real reason to believe this premise.

Brash confidence:

• -          They want to write best sellers.
• -          Religion is not just wrong but Ethically and socially harmful.
• -          Questioning the idea of religious tolerance.
• -          Reversal of previous thoughts. Previously, people thought LACK of religious belief was so bad that we should be wary of it. Could be harmful. Now, have we gone full circle?
• -          Baptists stood up for religious freedom in this environment.

So, how should we respond?

• -          Theologians and Biblical Scholars should point out the flows in how they read the Bible in wooden ways.
• -          Plantinga, John Polkinghorne, Collins etc (Recommended) have shown the science and religion are compatible.
• -          Christian doctrine of sin shows that ethical failures of Christians shouldn’t be surprising.
• -          But New Atheist analysis of ethical actions of Christians is one sided. They exaggerate wrongs but don’t give credit where it is due.
• -          Justice, rights and wrongs: Wolsterstorff. Doctrine of human rights stems from Biblical faith and nowadays there is no adequetae replacement for Biblical vision.
• -          Jeffrey Burton Russell: Clearing the air, exposing the myths about Christianity.
• -          Stark: The Victory of Reason. May go too far in answering. Starks analysis may be unbalanced towards the other side! But, makes a convincing historical case- science etc stem from faith, not from some secular ideas. 
• -          Good to point out their weaknesses in social analysis/ethics etc. However, at a basic intellectual level we must show why a reasonable person can believe in Christianity. Failure to clearly articulate this simply plays into the New Atheists’s hands. 
• -          First sin of religious believers in their eyes is not to follow reason.
• -          A central idea of Christianity (and some other faiths) is: God exists.
• -          Response from Christians has been Natural Theology. Eg: Mere Christianity.
• -          Philosophers have done Natural Theology. However, it is not prominent in theology. Some view it with suspicion.
• -          This has given NA’s some ground. They see religious belief as Zero grounds, all faith which means no evidence. Eg: Dawkins at Cambridge.
• -          “Defined themselves into epistemological safe ground”. No public voice makes it appear that no serious case can be made. “What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof” (Hitchens).
• -          NA’s are evidentialist in their epistemology.

How to respond?

• -          Attack their epistemology. Eg: Reformed epistemology. Sensus divinitas NOT belief by evidence. That kind of belief in God can be ”Properly basic”. It is a foundational belief. No argument or evidence? That’s ok.
• -          I am sympathetic towards it .Plantinga/Wolsterstorff. It’s simple contentions are correct. But, it shouldn’t be our whole response. To argue that religious belief can be grounded without arguments or evidence is not the same as arguing that there are no good arguments or evidence.
• -          There is both propositional and non propositional evidence.
• -          Views of RE’s can be re stated.
• -          However in simple terms it looks like confirmation of NA claims. Ie: There is no evidence (if we say “religious belief can be grounded without).
• -          2 stage apologetics- One: Reasons why faith in God can be rational THEN two- reasons why revelation rational.
• -          Why NT not prominent amongst protestant theologians?
• -          Perhaps enlightenment views have debilitated NT.
• -          Other reasons: Widespread suspicion that it undermines centrality of revalation.
• -          But NT is revelation too. But, “Special” revelation from General revelation. Karl Barth. I am sympathetic to some of his reasons against NT.
• -          “Transcendence” and above us. We will end up creating God in our own image.
• -          Paul Moser has criticised. NT leads to thin theism. Abstract metaphysical claims. IF there’s a God, he isn’t interested in us knowing propositions, rather he is personal and wants us to know him. Spectator Evidence doesn’t cut the mustard of personal transformation.
• -          (TDE Note: Craig response to evil borrows heavily from this).
• -          We submit to God’s terms not vice versa.

Anti Naturalism

• -          We can accet all of these claims and STILL see value in NT response to New Atheism.
• -          Value can be in “Anti naturalism”.
• -          Imagine not religious believer, what shou;d they think? Is the most reasonable view of our universe, naturalism? “Nature is all there is”? Should reasonabke non believers be atheists? No. There are problems with naturalism. There are difficulties. We reconceive NT as a defense of anti naturalism. Point to aspects of our natural world that point beyond nature. Natural Signs. Points towards a profound mystery. NT articulates questions that a reasonable person ought to ask. Even if N theologians cant adequetyl answer them, NT will point us in the direction of being open to the kinds of Answers that Barth and Moser would like.
• -          I deny that naturalism is the most reasonable view of reality that one can take, even if they aren’t a believer.
• -          Epistemic situation of someone who is confronting the reasonableness of naturalism vs rivals.
• -          Where does burden of proof lie? What kind of evidence would we expect there to be if God exists and wants a relationship with us?

Burden of Proof

• -          Flew’s the presumption of atheism.
• -          They think of God as if he were one more thing in the universe. Eg “We all agree the universe contains dogs, cats, quarks, black holes”. Theist goes beyond this basic common ground. Like believing in the Loch Ness monster.
• -          If this were the case YES believer would have a burden.
• -          It’s about does the universe have a certain character or not? Is there a sustaining power behind it all?
• -          Is there a purpose? Or does everything exist on it’s own? Is the universe one big brute fact among many brute facts??
• -          Theist and naturalist don’t just disagree about God, they disagree about everything.
• -          Atheist mistake: Confuse commitment to naturalism (metaphysical) with commitment to science. But, theists and atheists don’t disagree about scientific facts and data!
• -          Question of naturalism: Is nature all there is?
• -          Science investigates the natural world, but it is not fit to investigate whether there is more than the natural world.
• -          Theist holds that scientific laws hold because of God’s creative activity. Atheist has no explanation. But, ultimately the question of whether there is more is a philosophical question. Like most philosophical question,s this can’t be strictly proven either way. If by prove we mean an argument that no reasonable person could doubt.
• -          God’s existence cnnot be proven. But neither can naturalism. Proof in this sense is an ideal.
• -          What is reasonable is asking which rival worldview makes the most sense?

Evidence

• -          What kind of evidence should we expect to find, if God did exist.
• -          If God is a hypothesis, we should ask what consequences would follow if that hypothesis was true.
• -          Some kind of knowledge would be available and widely available. It would be bizarre if you had to have a phd in philosophy or understand quantum physics to have a knowledge of God. We’d expect it to be fairly pervasive and easy to find.
• -          Christianty theology assumes a certain kind of r’ship: Freely, motivated by God’s goodness not coercion or fear. If God’s existence was too obvious, that would not make sense of this. It would have to be dismissable. Ambigious. Able to be explained away. Easily resistible.
• -          Pascal Pensees quote. Signs seen by those who seek but not by those who deny.
• -          WAP and ERP. Two Pascallian constraints on evidence for God’s existence.

To do NT, we must have three things right:

• 1.       Anti naturalism, rather than positive, complete knowledge of God. It’s goal is to tell us that there’s something beyond the natural world.
• 2.       Burden or proof must be right. No presumption of atheism. All rival worldviews are accountable to reason.
• 3.       Right view of the kind of evidence that it is reasonable to seek.
•  

Questions

Constantly changing evidence. Don’t wanna hitch our wagon to the latest scientific evidence. Eg: If we had to wait until modern physics was finalised to know whether there was a God. Eg: Fine Tuning argument which is based on relatively recent science. There may be value a nd something in these arguments but ultimately We would expect universal aspects of human experience. WAP principle. BUT Can still be “defeater” against WAP. So defeaters must be considered. Defeaters of signs must be considered. My view is that the signs are neither supported by nor threatened by scientific evidence.

NA a fad? Probably not. It has a cultural influence and impact. It’s stretched far. Atheists joining together.

Affecting families? Yes. Need to show not just intellectual but understand the attraction of their writing etc. Stuents with fundamentalist readings or no knowledge or bible can be easy pickings.

Calvinism- no need for apologetics? Do the Pascallian constraints lend themselves to this kind of thinking?

Evidence doesn’t have to be propositional. Signs can have an immediate impact. Sign becomes focus of reflection and we articulate them. That’s where the arguments come from. Don’t impact everybody but always retain appeal.

Common Sense Realism George Marsden. Are you opening yourself up to the dangers that this kind of thinking opened itself up to.

Quotable

Rarely are truer words spoken than these:

The most signal failure of the atheist project is not that it insists on analysing religion in narrowly scientific terms, or that it cherry picks history in support of its case. It is that with its evasions and its incuriosity, its sloppy arguments and its unwillingness to question its own assumptions, it debases the currency of rational inquiry that it so claims to champion.

In doing so, its exponents shoot themselves in the foot while backing the wrong horse. This might make for a diverting YouTube video, but as a basis for public debate it is as empty as the heavens above.

From Here "The Failure of the atheist project" by Angus Macdonald

Those who advocate the extension of marriage to same sex couples have been very strong on the value of equality but almost silent on the nature of marriage they want equal access to. Whereas those who defend marriage as it is currently defined seem unable to say exactly what its value and worth is and why the institution would suffer from extension to same sex couples. A meaningful discussion about the value and purpose of the institution of marriage itself has not taken place.

From Marriage Equality or The Destruction of Difference? by Scruton and Blond


These kinds of issues will inevitably remain vexed. Public opinion decides what is offensive, and public opinion is always changing. Some of today's acceptable comments are tomorrow's taboos and vice versa. So as standards change there will always be those who are out of step with the rest.


- Me, on people taking offense at the comments of others. 

Science and Ethics

A few weeks ago John Dickson finally made it onto ABC's Q and A program. This was a long time coming because, being a big fan of Dickson, I'd noticed people suggesting he should go on for quite a while. Notably, after Cardinal Pell's appearance with Richard Dawkins.

I highly recommend watching the episode- it covered topics such as what Christianity says about science, what science says about ethics, the teaching of creationism in schools and more. It's good to see Dickson showing the Australian public a reflective, thought out, reasonable Christian position on many issues, in contrast to the brilliant mind of a brilliant scientist appearing unintelligent and poisoned by his scientistic philosophical bias.

Anyway, I have a minor claim to fame from last week's episode- a tweet of mine appeared on the show! See the above video at 8:22.

My tweet was:

Science helped create the atomic bomb. Ethics?

To elaborate, my tweet was prompted by Krauss's response to the first question of the night, where the audience member asked where our values will come from if we place our future hope in science instead of religion, given that science has no ethical boundaries. Krauss's response was incredibly disingenuous. He claimed that truth telling and full disclosure is central to science, and therefore science promotes ethics.  

If Osama Bin Laden orchestrates a terrorist attack and then admits his involvement, is he then being ethical because he's telling the truth? No. Ethics is much bigger than that. Science tells us what is (eg: "This is a cell") but it cannot tell us what we ought to do ("We ought to save lives by cloning this cell"). The motivations for deciding what we should or should not do with information must come from somewhere external to the impersonal scientific method. In other words, even if science can consistently manage to progressively find the truth about the universe, this doesn't mean it can then tell us what to do with that truth. It tells us nothing about that.

God and Evidence

The question of God's existence is alive and well in contemporary culture, and for this we must heap much praise on the likes of Richard Dawkins. He came along and wrote a little book called The God Delusion which has been a best seller for the past 5 years. Whilst I'm fairly young, the impression I get is that the issue has finally escaped from the halls of University Campuses and found it's way into mainstream newspapers and even onto public buses in various locations around the world!

The question is usually framed in the context of how much evidence there is for God's existence. We see the proponents weighing the reasons there are for thinking that God exists against the reasons for thinking that God is the greatest delusion in the history of humankind. And that's all good and well, away we go to happily assess the weight of evidence, right? Wrong. Before we even consider what evidence there is that God exists, we should ask the question of what evidence we should expect to see in the case that God did exist. This is the first and most foundational question in the whole discussion. Absence of evidence A for thing X is only evidence of X's absence if we should expect to see evidence A in the case that X did exist. Yet unfortunatly, this is rarely discussed. People generally argue that there's plenty of evidence for God, that there's enough evidence for God, or that there's no evidence, or some other position on the continuum.

The issue is more complicated than I've said here. For example, what type of evidence we should expect to see is a kind of subset of the initial question. And another question, which is even more foundational, is What is evidence anyway? However the principle is clear enough that it can help hugely without needing to complicate matters with these other questions. If people simply asked this question before talking about what evidence there is for God, it would solve a whole lot of problems and make the discussion much clearer.




[November 2011]

The Biggest Bubble?

David Marshall made an interesting comment in the latest Apologetics 315 interview:

"I'm not a real big fan of inerrancy, because it's kind of like blowing up a big balloon and then asking the opponent to pop the Bubble, pop the balloon with a pin. Even if the Bible is without error, I wouldn't be a fan of the doctrine because I think it's bad strategy. The materialist, skeptics and atheists, they've blown up the biggest balloon of all and that balloon is materialism. They're saying that not one single miracle has ever happened in the history of the universe. Well I'm sorry but they do happen. And that's another contribution of missions. Working as a missionary in Asia, I found that God did sometimes answer prayer, sometimes the answers changed lives in amazing ways. Now of course there's all kinds of difficulties about proving that, and we can't use the scientific method to test a historical claim, but it's much more fun to make a positive argument for something than to defend against somebody else's attack".

There's two interesting comments here that are worth expanding on so I've highlighted them. One is the nature of historical events. By definition, Historical events happen once. And by definition, Science looks for repeatable patterns. So by mere definition, we can't expect historical events to meet the standards of scientific evidence. Does this mean that we can never have reliable evidence for Historical events? No, clearly not. Not unless you believe documents, writings, archaological findings, eye witness reports and all manner of historical data are all conceptually incapable of providing evidence for something.

The more interesting comment is the first bolded part where Marshall refers to Materialism as "The Biggest Bubble". Marshall is referring to what I call The Problem of Total Denial. To me, this is the single biggest problem for materialism and for naturalism. The problem is this: If they're consistent, Materialists and Naturalists must deny the many reported events and occurences in the world which do not fit into their paradigm. They must take many reports and then either deny that the event happened as it was described, or find a naturalistic explanation for it. I will write about this more in the future as I really want to develop my thinking on the issue. In the books I've read on Philosophy, Apologetics, the Historicity of Jesus etc, this is an issue that doesn't receive nearly enough coverage. It is truly underrated. I'm glad Marshall reminded me of it!

The Classical Christian View on Sexual Relationships and What it means

The Classical Christian View on Sexual Relationships....and What it means.

That's the title I've given to John Dickson's talk at Storey Hall, Swanston st on 6 September, 2012.  Below are my notes from the event. Note that this is also now available on Ridley's website. Have a listen!

(I started typing the below notes straight after the event, and am posting them anyway. If you don't have time to listen to the 35-40 minute talk then these condensed notes will work for you).

____________________________________________________________________

Purpose: Not to convince you that homosexual behaviour is wrong. Not to convince you that Christians should block gay marriage. The purpose is simply this: To demonstrate that the Classical Christian view is not inherently hateful and bigoted.

In our society today, there is a dichotomy fuelled by the media. Either you are a tolerant, loving person or you are a HATEFUL HOMOPHOBE!

The high culture view for at least 10 years, and now increasingly the popular view is that Christians are just hateful bigots. Example, David Marr on Q and A.

 

1. Is this View- that Homosexual behaviour is wrong- actually what the Bible says, or has the church read it's own conditioned, idiosyncratic view into the text?

 

- Leviticus 18:20-24.

²⁰ “‘Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.

²¹ “‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

²² “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

²³ “‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

²⁴ “‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.

 

- Romans 1:26-27.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

 

-( editor: Genesis 2 was performed by a Biblical storyteller before Dickson spoke. This passage also speaks of man becoming one with wife etc, not with man. Strong implicit support for traditional marriage. Dickson mentions this below also but curiously didn't mention it at this point).

 

On face value, it appears that the Bible is clear.

 

But, there are powerful minimising arguments being used against this:

 

2.1 Christians Pick and Choose.

 

The West Wing:

 

 

- However, the writers of the West Wing have conveniently ignored Bible 101, the way the Bible has always been read.

- There are TWO testaments!

- The OT has always been looked at through the prism of Christ.

- Some things are refracted, some things are intensified.

- Classic example: John 8:3-11 woman in adultery. Jesus affirmed the OT ethic but did not affirm the death penalty. Again, some things are affirmed or intensified, others are not affirmed or are refracted.

 

2.2 Homosexuality is Neurophysiologically predetermined.

- The Biblical authors didn't know this, so we should re interpret the Bible through our modern scientific knowledge.

- Some Christians respond by saying "The evidence is biased". Well, some of it probably is biased. However, I spoke to prominent Christian doctor and sexologist Patricia Weerakoon and I asked her to point me in the direction of the best current research on this topic. There are various neurophysical links with homosexuality. They are not fully understood yet, and there is no "gay gene" but it is becoming increasingly clear that there can be neurophysical factors at play- Gays don't "choose to be gay".

 

- Does this minimise the Bible's teachings? Yes and No. The church must show grace towards others who have tendencies (influence by biology) that the Bible speaks to. Example: Addictive behaviour is influenced by neurophysiology as well.

 

- Polyamory is neuro influenced too.

 

- The discussion does not end here.

 

- Example: 40 year old single gay man in my congregation in Sydney. The Bible asks him to be celibate, so he does. Others in John's congregation, who are heterosexual, are remaining celibate until they find someone. Does the hope actually make it harder day by day, or easier?

 

2.3 Jesus didn't forbid it, only Paul.

- Jesus didn't forbid many things. This doesn't mean they're alright.

- Nonetheless, Jesus does implicitly forbid it by his support for Genesis 2.

- There are more sexual practices in the Old Testament than in Playboy. Jesus knew this. The New Testament word "Porneia" doesn't refer to one thing, it refers to what went outside the Jewish norm at the time. ie: Hetero monogamy.

 

2.4 In Biblical times there were no long term gay r'ships, so the Bible can't speak to this topic

- Untrue. Eg: References: GA Williams Roman Homosexuality and K.J Dover's Greek Homosexuality

- Plutarch's Dialogue on Love

- 1st Century Gay marriage was a reality.

 

The Biblical view doesn't arise from ignorance. It arises from a view of what is Good.

 

The Christians are out of step with society because the Bible is.

 

- If The Bible agreed with every social or sexual practice of every society then this would be proof that the Bible isn't eternal wisdom.

 

- Thought Experiment: If there was an eternal book with eternal wisdom, what would it contain? It would have to be out of step with every culture at some point or another.

 

- The Bible isn't out of date, it's out of this date.

 

- (Edit: What Dickson said above is so so so true. It's worth repeating. It sounds a lot like this from Tim Keller, actually....).

 

But..are we Christians automatically homophobes? Does this view make us homophobic?

 

The Bible shouldn't necessarily lead to legislation.

 

- Classical Christians simply are unable to think of other types of marriage. There is only one kind of marriage.

 

- Everyone discriminates. Every view of marriage discriminates against another type of marriage. (Edit: For example, if you believe that gay marriage is a legitimate form of marriage, do you believe that marriage is between two consenting adults? ie: One man and one woman or one man with another man or one woman with another woman? If so, then you are discriminating against men who want to have two wives. As Bernard Toutounji says here, "Discrimination is the act of making a distinction and choosing between differences. From choosing chicken over ham on your sandwich, to the government deciding that the aged pension will be given at 67 instead of 65; these are discriminations. Without the ability to discriminate, that is the ability to state that one thing is not another thing, we could not have a democratic society. A musical note only has value because of the silence that exists before and after that note, if we were to label the silence as unfair discrimination against sound and remove it, there would only be an ongoing noise").

 

- This does not mean the church has the right to block redefinition legislation.

 

- Democracy. We all vote. This is OK.

 

- Christianity was never meant to be in power. The tools God gave us were PSP- Prayer, Service and Persuasion! No bullying or backroom deals.

 

- C.S Lewis on Divorce- may be applicable to Gay Marriage in our modern age.

 

“Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question-how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mahommedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.” 

 

(Edit: I don't totally agree here. I do agree in theory, to a point, but I think the statement needs a lot of qualification. Maybe a topic for another blog post).

 

 Losing well is a Christian specialty.

 

So...where does all of this lead?

 

- An apology. For allowing our Biblical views to lead to Unbiblical behavior. For belittling people and creating a culture of shame. The heart of Christianity is finding our faults and asking for mercy.

 

- We can't walk away from our Christian view (that homosexual behaviour is not a part of God's plan). But we can serve others.

 

- Recover the genius of Jesus. He had meals with sinners. He flexed the muscle of moral conviction and the muscle of compassion simultaneously. These days the church only does one at once. There are examples of both- Churches who are big on moral conviction and churches who are good at compassion, but we need to be good at both because that's what Jesus did. Jesus took judgement so seriously that he had to die, and he took compassion so seriously that he died for us.

 

- Tolerance is not saying "Every view is equally true and valid". (Edit: That doesn't make sense anyway!). Tolerance is deeply disagreeing and yet deeply loving. This is harder. Eg: Koran/Islam. We disagree theologically but we respect the Muslim community. We may disagree with the materialist 21st century Aussie culture, but we love our materialist, hedonistic friends. We may similarly see same sex acts as a departure from God's will, yet still serve the gay community.

 

I had a conversation with a Ferrari driving atheist at a dinner party. He told me he couldn't entertain Christianity because of it's bigoted and discriminatory attitude towards homosexuality. It's backwards, he said. I paused, and asked him: Is it possible to deeply disagree with someone but profoundly love them? He paused, and then said "Yes, we do that all the time". And then he realised what he'd just said. The blocker to Christianity was removed.

 

Is it possible to deeply disagree with someone and yet profoundly love them?

 

Question Time

(Edit: I took some notes here but not detailed notes like the above).

 

Is the airtime given to certain things and indication of God's view of their importance? Dickson: I'm not sure. But if it is, then we should be focusing more on poverty and helping the least of these.

 

How do we live out what you've suggested- by loving Gays? Individually-Friendships. Ask questions. Listen. Get head around their views. I'm giving this talk but I don't have so much authority and I'm speaking to myself too as I only have two gay friends. One mentioned earlier (church goer), the other a vocal activist. He has asked me to some gay events but my diary hasn't allowed it. I plan on going soon so I can act out some of the above.

 

For the church, welfare on a macro level.

 

Does the Bible ask us to go against our natural inclinations? In all kinds of ways, yes. Christianity asks us to. To find solice and comfort anyway, example the sweet sadness of my churchgoing gay friend.

 

Guide our leaders towards Christian ways? No.

 

Persuade, not legislate. PSP= prayer, service and persuasion.

 

Christians and politics Christians should be public Christians. That is good. We are not meant to be church mice. Make our case- ok. But I object to political tactics. They are sub christian.

 

If AUS overwhelmingly supported Gay marriage and you had veto powers, would you use them? No! But on the other hand if a journo asks me my view on marriage, I will give it.

 

 

 



Natural explanation of religious belief

RJS discusses Natural explanations of religious belief over at Jesus Creed.

This is an interesting topic, and the best discussion I've seen, to date, was by C Stephen Evans in his brilliant book Natural Signs and Knowledge of God.

One alternative angle that Justin Barrett brings to bear on this topic was discussed by RJS:

Theologians offer intellectual ways to reconcile doctrines such as free will and predestination, grace and merit but people will automatically fall into more “natural” ways of thinking. This is true even of many of those theologians when caught off guard. Such natural response can be studied by telling stories with gaps and recording how people fill in the gaps reflexively in real time.

The gap between these two conceptions is theological correctness. Like political correctness, when our intellectual guard is up, we use the ideas we know we are supposed to use; different ideas than those that come naturally. The further ideas deviate from Natural Religion, the harder they are to use reflexively in real-time situations. (p. 326)

RJS made a comment in response to Scot McKnight which was good:

It is fairly common for people to point out that belief is a “natural” phenomenon and to construct ways in which this tendency evolved – and then to assign religious belief as a (fictional) tag-along. My main point it that this conclusion is based on an assumption about the nature of reality. It is not an objective conclusion from the data.

If God is real, and if he created via evolutionary means, we would also expect a “natural” belief for the kind of reason I give in the post.

I would not argue that the naturalness of religion is evidence for the truth of religious belief, but neither is it an argument against the truth of religious belief. A little critical thinking will show that a metaphysical view shapes the choice of conclusion here.

(Boldings mine).
This is an example of how our philosophical presuppositions provide the foundation for how we interpret data. It is imperative to examine not only our own views, but our own presuppositions underlying those very views. In other words, always keeping one eye on the big picture.

Cosmological Explanation and Occams Razor

Various quotations are taken from here. As usual quotes are in italics and myself in normal font.

So, has our scientific knowledge of the universe, of all that there is, progressed to the point that we can explain all that there is without having to invoke an uncaused causal agency? First, before one proceeds with any scientific account for an explanation, one must notice the metaphysical aspect of the question. This question is a philosophical question, not a scientific question. Can we extrapolate all causes to have the first cause be self-caused?  Using something within the system of “all that there is” to explain the system itself (“all that there is”) is circular. The whole notion is self-defeating.

The ancients tended to lean towards the simplest explanations (a tendency still practiced today with Occam’s Razor). The simplest explanation then seemed to be causal agency–attributing complex events to the will of the gods.

The ancients would attribute storms at sea to the god of the sea and volcanic eruptions to that respective god and so on. Perhaps we don’t need many gods to explain complex various events. It seems that if a god is needed to explain anything then we are left with one God.

Is the simplest explanation of all there is one uncaused causal agent or zero?

It seems that if we use Occam’s Razor to trim the causal agencies down to zero then we no longer have any explanation for anything. 1

Using a causal agent as an explanatory hypothesis doesn’t seem to be an arbitrary ad hoc explanation either, it seems to be the only appropriate explanation that sufficiently fits the explanandum. In the end, having one uncaused causal agent is the best answer to why there is something rather than nothing.

[1]Perhaps there simply is no explanation. Or at least, our tiny finite homo sapien brains simply can't know. But I suggest that it is perfectly reasonable to posit that there is an explanation of some sort- this is in line with our experience, and science itself. That is, things require an explanation, both in our experience and as William Lane Craig said in a recent debate, this is a key principle in science. And following the train of thought taken in the quotes here, it's reasonable to posit an unspecified uncaused agent as that explanation.

Secularism or Democracy?

A facebook discussion has piqued my curiousity.

The issue was gay marriage, which is irrelevant to what I'm about to write, but I want to quote the discussion to set the scene:

Person 1:
Sorry but your comment is very disappointing. Should a Christian girl who knows Gods word really have that opinion. Just sayin

Person 2:
To me, faith shouldn't be a part of the conversation - we are talking about a legal, secular institution in a free democratic society. Government shouldn't discriminate, pure and simple. And both bills before parliament guarantee religious freedom for churches to refuse to marry gay couples if they so wish.

Ignoring the question of gay marriage, I'd like to discuss the mentioning of "secularism" and "democracy". Both ideas are highly cherished by most people in first world Western countries like Australia, but my question is: Which takes precedence?

Democracy is based on the idea that ALL people must have an equal opportunity to have their say. Therefore, if so called "secularism" is going to ignore certain views, ANY views, a priori, before the public discussion even gets started, then to agree with that form of secularism is to admit that you're being undemocratic and discriminatory.

I believe people should always have a democratic right to argue on whatever basis they want to! Then let the majority decide if they're convinced or not- this is what democracy demands. It's the fairest way to do things. If secularism says that "faith cannot be part of the conversation" and therefore any faith viewpoints must automatically be ignored (as Person 2 implied), then that form of secularism should get thrown out, because democracy demands that people must be allowed to voice their opinion (1).

Here's another reason why democracy needs to take precedence over that form of "secularism": Otherwise, we'll soon have governments acting as thought police by deciding which people are actually allowed to speak their views, which views are allowed to be spoken and which views are not. Governments are there to serve the people, not the other way around!

I take it as basically self evident that we should all want to be living in fair societies where all people are allowed to voice their views. If so, then we cannot allow ourselves to uncritically accept the idea that certain viewpoints are to be ignored from the outset.

(1) Person 2 could be taken to be implying that, and this was how I interpreted their statement on my first reading. They might not have intended to imply that. Nonetheless, there are many people who do believe that faith should not be a part of bigger public conversations, and this post was addressed at that particular viewpoint and those bigger issues. The facebook comment was merely what got me thinking about these bigger issues.

My hope for atheists

Last weekend the Global Atheist Convention rolled into Melbourne. Atheism has become, for at least some atheists, a movement. Increasingly atheists are gathering together in public places, as we've seen with the Washington DC Reason Rally and the Global Atheist Convention. To be fair, the Global Atheist Convention attracted 5,000 people which is reportedly a quarter of the [i]weekly[/i] attendance of [i]one[/i] Australian church so we shouldn't get carried away when talking about the levels of gathering. Nonetheless, it is increasing.

But, what to make of this? One thing that's interesting to note is how far the atheist movement is straying from pure atheism.

On the one hand, atheists like to claim that atheism commits them to nothing. They're just committed to denying the existence of God, or so they like to say. And this is entirely true on one level. But by reading about the atheist convention, and glancing over the twitter accounts of internet atheists and atheist groups, and you would get a vastly different impression!

They love talking about gay marriage and child abuse and terrorism and tax exemptions and AIDS in Africa. It's almost like they're really doing their best to muddy the waters and fool everyone into thinking that being an atheist is about joining a reactionary political movement.

Many thinking atheists do realise that terrorism and wars have more to do with politics, sociology and human nature than they do with religion. They realise that you cannot judge a belief system by it's worst proponents who distort the original message. They realise that churches primarily have a social purpose rather than a profit making intention, and thus cannot be labelled businesses in any meaningful sense, and nor should they be paying income tax.

But then the moronic atheists come along screaming "RELIGION IS EVIL! 9/11 shows the problems with irrational thinking and superstition. Ergo, all religion should be wiped out. Duh! Religions are just money making scams anyway. Pass the plate around and watch them all get RICH! Oh and btw, the important issue of Gay marriage is even more evidence of the problems religion is causing society! Jesus probably didn't even exist so why would anyone follow him!" .... and the calm reflection of the thinking atheists is drowned out amidst the ruckus.

Here are all these people claiming to be rational, evidence based thinkers and they come up with nonsense like this- emotional stupidity, reacting to religion with the very same intolerant irrationalism that they accuse religion of being about.

So in the end there's a tension that's caused by all of this. You've got human nature which encourages people to join social groups. The internet has brought the world together and we're seeing atheists come out of their basements and attend reason rallies and atheist conventions and the like. But, there must be some cognitive dissonance happening when some attendees hear the sorts of comments I wrote above - which seriously, are not too far away from the beliefs of many of those who are attending these atheist events- and then realise how utterly stupid they are. "Hang on, I thought we were supposed to be the rational, clear thinking ones! What's going on here!?".

I hope this will help them realise firstly that no single belief/lack of belief, movement or group has a monopoly on thinking. And secondly, that respectful discussion is better than ridicule. But, that might turn out to be a dream. Still, I can dream, can't I?