This blog post is largely in response to Danny Pelichowski's post on Natural Theology at Theological Sharpening.
I want to say that in some sense we want to agree with Danny and say that natural theology as defined as arguments from the natural world that man conjures up about God that is not revealed by God is unbiblical. Thus, natural theology then is wholly unsupported by the Bible.
But does this mean that one can not use arguments like the cosmological, ontological, teleological, and transcendental arguments for God’s existence?
I answer: No. The Bible teaches very clearly that God reveals himself generally to all mankind and would not be unreasonable to think that this might include mediate or discursive sorts of revelation. As the Paul teaches:
Romans 1:18-20 "18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse."
General revelation would be that revelation that God has revealed to us through nature and conscience that is distinct from special revelation which is written and shows us salvation through Christ.
Thus, there is a general revelation. This general revelation is immediate and mediate as Reformed Theologian Michael Horton affirms. But R.C. Sproul thinks that general revelation is only mediate. Immediate is that we have revelation through our faculties without any sort of argument, it is just properly basic. Mediate would be the revelation that God gives us through arguments. These arguments would be God given since it is revealed.
One might object to this by saying that reason cannot be revelation because this would make us rationalist. I would agree with this, but I am saying that reason is an instrument to apprehend general revelation. That is: reason is a minister that helps see what God has revealed to us. If someone objects to this notion then they would have to object to us reasoning and using our sense perception to read the Bible. But we all know we can read the Bible with sense perception and reasoning.
Natural Theology is a false theology, without God revealing himself to us we would know nothing about him; every act of revelation is God condescending to our level because he is the greatest possible being and we are finite and sinful. Thus, I conclude that General revelation is biblical and perfectly compatible with the traditional and transcendental arguments.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Aristotle On Moral Responsibility: A Reformed Analysis Of Ethics Book III
My project is to analyze Aristotle’s claims in Book III of Nicomachean Ethics regarding actions performed out of ignorance and determine whether or not they are valid in respect to Biblical teaching. First he claims that a man who performs a wrong action out of ignorance does so neither voluntarily nor involuntarily, but what he calls “non-voluntarily”. Second he claims that if a man is ignorant not just of the morality of a particular action but of the universal moral rule itself, then he is wicked. My thesis is that Aristotle’s first claim is valid in respect to the Bible, but not his second claim. My plan is to briefly summarize Aristotle’s discussion of what constitutes voluntary and involuntary action, then to explain in more detail the two claims I have mentioned above, and finally to critique those two claims from a Biblical standpoint.
Aristotle begins his discussion of voluntary and involuntary actions by addressing what he sees as the differences between them. Essentially what he ends up claiming is that the only way an action can be considered involuntary is if it is totally compelled by some force which is external to the agent of the action, while the agent takes no willful part in the action whatsoever. So, suppose a man’s family is taken hostage and a ransom is demanded. Though the man may not want to pay the ransom he will choose to pay it anyway because he wants his family back safely. In this case, we would not call the action involuntary because the man chose to act and caused, by his own power, the action to occur. Thus, even though external forces were compelling him, it was a voluntary action.
Continuing from this first claim, Aristotle also concludes that it would be foolish to blame external circumstances rather than oneself for performing any action that the agent chooses to perform. External circumstances, he says, can be said to be involved in every action that one does, whether it be good or bad. If we are going to blame those circumstances for our actions instead of blaming ourselves when the actions are bad, we must also give credit to those circumstances rather than give credit to ourselves when our actions are good. As Aristotle observes, not many are readily willing to admit that they are not responsible when they do good things.
With a basic understanding of voluntary and involuntary action established, Aristotle moves on to actions performed out of ignorance. Here Aristotle adds the third class of actions; the non-voluntary acts. He claims that if a man is ignorant of the fact that he has performed a wrong action he cannot be considered voluntary, from a morally culpable standpoint, for he was unaware of the fact that the action was wrong. Had he not been ignorant, had he known that the action was wrong, he may not have done it. However, if he never learns of his ignorance, if he never discovers that the action was wrong and thus he is never regretful for it, neither can he be considered involuntary. He was not aware of the moral implications of the action either way, thus he was simply non-voluntary. Having established this conception of ignorance with regard to moral action, Aristotle then makes a distinction between being ignorant of particulars and ignorant of universals. For example, if a man knows that it is wrong to steal the property of others, but he does not know that a certain animal belongs to his neighbor and so he takes it, he is aware of the universal (namely, that it is wrong to steal), but he is unaware of the particular (namely, that this particular animal belongs to his neighbor and thus taking it would be stealing). In this case, Aristotle would excuse the man and say that his action was non-voluntary (and, if the man later discovers his misdeed and is penitent, the action is then involuntary). However, if a man is unaware of the universal, that it is wrong to steal the property of others, Aristotle says that such a man is not innocently ignorant, but wicked! He further asserts, “Every wicked man is in a state of ignorance as to what he ought to do and what he should refrain from doing.” Thus his conclusion is that a wicked person is such because he is ignorant of the right thing to do. This he would consider a moral defect on the part of the person, and thus he is still responsible for his wickedness.
Aristotle then ends this discussion of voluntary, involuntary and non-voluntary actions with one final thought on moral responsibility. He claims that voluntary actions must be those whereupon the initiative lies within the agent performing the action, even if that initiative be the baser passions or appetites. This effectively rejects the modern notion of “crimes committed in the heat of passion” as a defense for ones actions. The next question is, do we not also perform good acts out of passion or appetite? It would seem that we do. As before, with the attempt to blame ones bad actions on circumstances, this is merely an attempt by some to blame bad actions on passions. But this would effectively categorize all good actions as being voluntary and all bad actions as being involuntary, which Aristotle says is “ridiculous, since the cause in both cases is one in the same.” He concludes that, “Both are to be avoided; but the irrational emotions are considered no less a part of human beings than reasoning is, and hence, the actions of a man which spring from passion and appetite are equally a part of him.”
With all this in mind let us consider the validity of Aristotle’s claims when held up to scripture. The first claim seems rather self-evident. If a person is ignorant that an action is wrong; say they offended someone without knowing it or honestly forgot to do part of a homework assignment and said that they had completed it all, we would not hold them morally responsible for such actions. It seems obvious to me that this claim is valid in respect to Biblical teaching and no more need be said about it. What is truly important, both to Aristotle and to the Christian, is that a man be aware of the universal rules that should guide the way he lives, for example, that it is not right to offend others or to lie about completing your homework. This is Aristotle’s next point.
Essentially Aristotle is saying that men’s wickedness is intimately tied to their ignorance of universal moral principles, in a kind of causal relationship. So the most immoral person you can imagine is one who is ultimately ignorant of the fact that lying, stealing, murder and so forth are all morally wrong. What first struck me as odd was that he considered this ignorance to still be worthy of reproach. Most modern thinkers would use the excuse of ignorance to free people from moral responsibility, not to condemn them. Upon reflection and a deeper reading of the text I realized that what Aristotle is really saying is this: men who are ignorant of the fact that it is wrong to steal are still voluntarily stealing, and thus are still responsible for their actions. On the other hand, the man who knows that stealing is wrong, but who does not know in a particular instance that he is stealing, is not voluntarily stealing, and thus is not responsible for the action.
Scripture is very clear, however, that no man is ignorant of the universal moral principles, which we would call God’s law. To use Biblical language, we would say that all men are “without excuse.” God’s invisible attributes are plainly revealed in nature and His law is written on our hearts. We cannot claim ignorance of what we ought to do.
A counter-example might seem to fit here: what of the psychopath? A person who seems so apart from reality and reasonable thinking that he must be ignorant of what is right and wrong? This is where Aristotle’s comment on wrong actions committed due to the passions comes in. I would argue that the psychopath is no more ignorant of right and wrong than anyone else, but rather he is ruled by his passions and not his reason. When the psychopath desires to kill he kills, when he desires to steal he steals, and so on. There is no rationality guiding his actions, but as Aristotle aptly points out, his appetitive and passionate desires are no less a part of his humanity, his self, then is his reason. Thus we can reasonably conclude that such a person is merely ruled more by passion than reason and is still very much aware of moral universals.
What Aristotle didn’t have, what we might say is the final piece he needed to finish the puzzle, was a right view of human nature. Specifically, that our nature is fallen and in bondage to sin. Aristotle seems to conclude that the only reason a person would willingly choose to do evil is if he is at least partially ignorant of the fact that his action is actually evil. But the Bible shows us that men choose to do evil because our sinful nature naturally inclines us to do so. We are well aware that stealing is evil, but we choose to steal anyway because we cannot help but sin.
This still leaves us with some questions. Again, let use the psychopath as our example. It seems that the psychopath really doesn’t know that what he’s doing is wrong, even if his appetites rule him. Or perhaps a better example might be that the majority of people in today’s society don’t see anything wrong with having premarital sex with multiple partners, aren’t we to conclude that they are ignorant that such acts are wrong? Here we are forgetting an important metaphysical quality of humanity, namely the conscience. Immortalized by the Disney character Jiminy Cricket, the conscience is the exemplification of the law of God that is written on our hearts. It is that nagging feeling that people get when they know something is wrong. The more people suppress their consciences, the shorter and smaller those nagging feelings become until they are barely noticeable at all. But would it be reasonable to conclude that once a person no longer notices his conscience he is now suddenly ignorant of a moral principle that he knew before? Of course not. Moreover, most people understand why monogamy is such a good thing, but they choose to ignore that knowledge because promiscuous sexual activity is, in the moment at least, more desirable to them. In addition to this, scripture tells us that God gives depraved people over to their depravity, in essence giving them over to a place where they no longer feel that little nagging feeling.
Finally, Aristotle was equally unaware of the fact that, due to man’s corrupted moral state, he can only perform good actions and be a moral person by the grace of God. It is not a simple matter of knowing universal moral principles, because scripture is clear that all men know these. As with all things, it is entirely a matter of God’s sovereign grace.
Thus Aristotle provides an excellent definition of what constitutes voluntary and involuntary actions, but he fails to determine what makes men wicked. Ultimately this is due to the fact that Aristotle was lacking the divine or special revelation necessary for him to fully grasp the relationship between God, man, and sin. But for his part, Aristotle was certainly on the right track, and actually ends up providing a good philosophical case for how men can still be responsible for sinful actions in the face of their corrupted sinful natures.
Aristotle begins his discussion of voluntary and involuntary actions by addressing what he sees as the differences between them. Essentially what he ends up claiming is that the only way an action can be considered involuntary is if it is totally compelled by some force which is external to the agent of the action, while the agent takes no willful part in the action whatsoever. So, suppose a man’s family is taken hostage and a ransom is demanded. Though the man may not want to pay the ransom he will choose to pay it anyway because he wants his family back safely. In this case, we would not call the action involuntary because the man chose to act and caused, by his own power, the action to occur. Thus, even though external forces were compelling him, it was a voluntary action.
Continuing from this first claim, Aristotle also concludes that it would be foolish to blame external circumstances rather than oneself for performing any action that the agent chooses to perform. External circumstances, he says, can be said to be involved in every action that one does, whether it be good or bad. If we are going to blame those circumstances for our actions instead of blaming ourselves when the actions are bad, we must also give credit to those circumstances rather than give credit to ourselves when our actions are good. As Aristotle observes, not many are readily willing to admit that they are not responsible when they do good things.
With a basic understanding of voluntary and involuntary action established, Aristotle moves on to actions performed out of ignorance. Here Aristotle adds the third class of actions; the non-voluntary acts. He claims that if a man is ignorant of the fact that he has performed a wrong action he cannot be considered voluntary, from a morally culpable standpoint, for he was unaware of the fact that the action was wrong. Had he not been ignorant, had he known that the action was wrong, he may not have done it. However, if he never learns of his ignorance, if he never discovers that the action was wrong and thus he is never regretful for it, neither can he be considered involuntary. He was not aware of the moral implications of the action either way, thus he was simply non-voluntary. Having established this conception of ignorance with regard to moral action, Aristotle then makes a distinction between being ignorant of particulars and ignorant of universals. For example, if a man knows that it is wrong to steal the property of others, but he does not know that a certain animal belongs to his neighbor and so he takes it, he is aware of the universal (namely, that it is wrong to steal), but he is unaware of the particular (namely, that this particular animal belongs to his neighbor and thus taking it would be stealing). In this case, Aristotle would excuse the man and say that his action was non-voluntary (and, if the man later discovers his misdeed and is penitent, the action is then involuntary). However, if a man is unaware of the universal, that it is wrong to steal the property of others, Aristotle says that such a man is not innocently ignorant, but wicked! He further asserts, “Every wicked man is in a state of ignorance as to what he ought to do and what he should refrain from doing.” Thus his conclusion is that a wicked person is such because he is ignorant of the right thing to do. This he would consider a moral defect on the part of the person, and thus he is still responsible for his wickedness.
Aristotle then ends this discussion of voluntary, involuntary and non-voluntary actions with one final thought on moral responsibility. He claims that voluntary actions must be those whereupon the initiative lies within the agent performing the action, even if that initiative be the baser passions or appetites. This effectively rejects the modern notion of “crimes committed in the heat of passion” as a defense for ones actions. The next question is, do we not also perform good acts out of passion or appetite? It would seem that we do. As before, with the attempt to blame ones bad actions on circumstances, this is merely an attempt by some to blame bad actions on passions. But this would effectively categorize all good actions as being voluntary and all bad actions as being involuntary, which Aristotle says is “ridiculous, since the cause in both cases is one in the same.” He concludes that, “Both are to be avoided; but the irrational emotions are considered no less a part of human beings than reasoning is, and hence, the actions of a man which spring from passion and appetite are equally a part of him.”
With all this in mind let us consider the validity of Aristotle’s claims when held up to scripture. The first claim seems rather self-evident. If a person is ignorant that an action is wrong; say they offended someone without knowing it or honestly forgot to do part of a homework assignment and said that they had completed it all, we would not hold them morally responsible for such actions. It seems obvious to me that this claim is valid in respect to Biblical teaching and no more need be said about it. What is truly important, both to Aristotle and to the Christian, is that a man be aware of the universal rules that should guide the way he lives, for example, that it is not right to offend others or to lie about completing your homework. This is Aristotle’s next point.
Essentially Aristotle is saying that men’s wickedness is intimately tied to their ignorance of universal moral principles, in a kind of causal relationship. So the most immoral person you can imagine is one who is ultimately ignorant of the fact that lying, stealing, murder and so forth are all morally wrong. What first struck me as odd was that he considered this ignorance to still be worthy of reproach. Most modern thinkers would use the excuse of ignorance to free people from moral responsibility, not to condemn them. Upon reflection and a deeper reading of the text I realized that what Aristotle is really saying is this: men who are ignorant of the fact that it is wrong to steal are still voluntarily stealing, and thus are still responsible for their actions. On the other hand, the man who knows that stealing is wrong, but who does not know in a particular instance that he is stealing, is not voluntarily stealing, and thus is not responsible for the action.
Scripture is very clear, however, that no man is ignorant of the universal moral principles, which we would call God’s law. To use Biblical language, we would say that all men are “without excuse.” God’s invisible attributes are plainly revealed in nature and His law is written on our hearts. We cannot claim ignorance of what we ought to do.
A counter-example might seem to fit here: what of the psychopath? A person who seems so apart from reality and reasonable thinking that he must be ignorant of what is right and wrong? This is where Aristotle’s comment on wrong actions committed due to the passions comes in. I would argue that the psychopath is no more ignorant of right and wrong than anyone else, but rather he is ruled by his passions and not his reason. When the psychopath desires to kill he kills, when he desires to steal he steals, and so on. There is no rationality guiding his actions, but as Aristotle aptly points out, his appetitive and passionate desires are no less a part of his humanity, his self, then is his reason. Thus we can reasonably conclude that such a person is merely ruled more by passion than reason and is still very much aware of moral universals.
What Aristotle didn’t have, what we might say is the final piece he needed to finish the puzzle, was a right view of human nature. Specifically, that our nature is fallen and in bondage to sin. Aristotle seems to conclude that the only reason a person would willingly choose to do evil is if he is at least partially ignorant of the fact that his action is actually evil. But the Bible shows us that men choose to do evil because our sinful nature naturally inclines us to do so. We are well aware that stealing is evil, but we choose to steal anyway because we cannot help but sin.
This still leaves us with some questions. Again, let use the psychopath as our example. It seems that the psychopath really doesn’t know that what he’s doing is wrong, even if his appetites rule him. Or perhaps a better example might be that the majority of people in today’s society don’t see anything wrong with having premarital sex with multiple partners, aren’t we to conclude that they are ignorant that such acts are wrong? Here we are forgetting an important metaphysical quality of humanity, namely the conscience. Immortalized by the Disney character Jiminy Cricket, the conscience is the exemplification of the law of God that is written on our hearts. It is that nagging feeling that people get when they know something is wrong. The more people suppress their consciences, the shorter and smaller those nagging feelings become until they are barely noticeable at all. But would it be reasonable to conclude that once a person no longer notices his conscience he is now suddenly ignorant of a moral principle that he knew before? Of course not. Moreover, most people understand why monogamy is such a good thing, but they choose to ignore that knowledge because promiscuous sexual activity is, in the moment at least, more desirable to them. In addition to this, scripture tells us that God gives depraved people over to their depravity, in essence giving them over to a place where they no longer feel that little nagging feeling.
Finally, Aristotle was equally unaware of the fact that, due to man’s corrupted moral state, he can only perform good actions and be a moral person by the grace of God. It is not a simple matter of knowing universal moral principles, because scripture is clear that all men know these. As with all things, it is entirely a matter of God’s sovereign grace.
Thus Aristotle provides an excellent definition of what constitutes voluntary and involuntary actions, but he fails to determine what makes men wicked. Ultimately this is due to the fact that Aristotle was lacking the divine or special revelation necessary for him to fully grasp the relationship between God, man, and sin. But for his part, Aristotle was certainly on the right track, and actually ends up providing a good philosophical case for how men can still be responsible for sinful actions in the face of their corrupted sinful natures.
The Concept of Archetypal Knowledge
I have argued against Thomas Aquinas' doctrine of analogy of names as a tenable theological doctrine on the grounds that it in effect places God outside the reach of human experience and conceptualization and thereby precludes any meaningful theological reference. Yet, I realize that in positing the archetypal/ectypal view of the Protestant Scholastics, we are also dealing with a notion that is definitionally inaccessible to human experience and conceptualization, namely, God's archetypal knowledge. In this post I hope to show that "the archetypal knowledge of God" is in fact a meaningful theological reference to certain experienced qualities which we hold in mind as a concept outlining or suggesting the shadow contour of something which is itself inaccessible.
In my last post, I suggested that we should hold to a Protestant Scholastic archetypal/ectypal epistemological framework (henceforward PSE) in considering the relation between divine and human knowledge. I also suggested that within this framework we should hold to a theory of theological names under which our names and descriptive terms for God and His attributes make direct reference to experienced qualities held in the mind as concepts. I argued that we should dispense with Thomas' doctrine of analogy of names since under this doctrine our names and descriptive terms for God and His attributes do not make reference to experienced divine qualities held in the mind as concepts and are therefore reduced to meaningless utterances when predicated of God.
However, I noted that Thomas' cause in positing his doctrine of analogy of names was noble, namely, to recognize the vast metaphysical difference and established distance between God and creatures, and the sense of God’s utter incomprehensibility so unmistakably conveyed in Scripture. Under the PSE we may respect this difference, distance, and incomprehensibility while preserving the immanent meaning of our theological names and terms, two desiderata which may at first seem at odds with one another, but which are both clearly prescribed in Scripture. This is achieved under the PSE by distinguishing between God's original underived, or archetypal knowledge of Himself and of His creatures, and copied derived, or ectypal knowledge of God and creatures communicated by God to the creatures, and possessed by them. The content and form or mode of God's archetypal knowledge are entirely inaccessible an inscrutable to us as creatures, while God himself and other creatures are known by us ectypally, the content of this knowledge being communicated or revealed to us by God in a form which we, given our finite created epistemic constitution and apparatus, are capable of grasping.
As mentioned above, the concept of God's archetypal knowledge, an essential component of the PSE, is likely to raise skeptical questions. If our epistemological framework is founded on a notion that is entirely inaccessible and inscrutable to us, does it not quickly topple to the ground? If we are definitionally barred any experiential, or conceptual approach to the content and form of God's archetypal knowledge, how can we know such a thing exists or say anything meaningful about it, let alone build an epistemology on its foundation?
I propose that the designation "God's archetypal knowledge" is a meaningful reference to experienced qualities held in the human mind as a concept, which particular qualities together point to something entirely beyond the human experiential ken, yet give some hint as to this something's nature.
"God's archetypal knowledge" may be defined for the human knower as "that inexperiencable x of which God's knowledge as ectypally revealed is a copy or image." Thus the three subsidiary concepts which together lead us to grasp the concept denoted by "God's archetypal knowledge" are 1) inexperiencable x 2) God's knowledge as ectypally revealed and 3) copy or image. Let us examine each of these in more detail.
1) inexperiencable x (forgive the verbal pastiche): Somewhat ironically, as we are defining a concept as a grouping of experienced qualities held in the mind, we have many concepts of things which definitionally cannot be experienced. In each of these cases experienced qualities which are somehow affected by that which cannot be experienced point together to the "x" which cannot be experienced. For example, we know much about infared radiation from its experienced and measurable effects, yet the thing itself to which the term "infared radiation" refers is by definition inexperiencible. Likewise, atoms are inexperiencible x's whose concept we grasp only in terms of experienced effects. Indeed as hitherto unexperienced qualities or combinations of qualities are entering and exiting our experience constantly from "beyond" our experiential ken, we have the idea of what it is for an x to be beyond our experience. It is not much further a step to say we have an idea of what it is for some x's to be of such a type that they will remain forever beyond our experience.
2) God's knowledge as ectypally revealed: This is a rather thick and remote concept to us since it involves a reach of empathy much like that which enables us to grasp the concept of other human minds' knowledge, only stretching (one might say) infinitely further. Though we cannot experience the subjective experience of other human beings, and so cannot hold directly experienced qualities of other minds' knowledge in our minds as a concept, through a process of empathy fueled by intuition we can have some indirect "experience" of what it is like for a fellow human being to experience the world. This may seem a dubious notion, and our knowledge of other minds has indeed been challenged by skepticism that has arisen with philosophers who have noted our very lack of experienced qualities of other minds' experience from which to form a substantive concept. Though the conceptual inference through which we arrive at knowledge of other minds could occupy pages of analysis, here let it suffice to posit we have intuitive warrant for our belief in other minds so that we may be said to have knowledge of other minds, and to the extent that we have knowledge of other minds, the concept - or grouping of (in this case indirectly) experienced qualities held in the mind - of other minds is presupposed. Similarly, as God reveals Himself ectypally to us as a knowing being, and displays some indication of the exhaustive infallible immediate way in which He knows, we are led to some (indirectly, and anthropomorically) experienced qualities of what it is like for God, as ectypally revealed, to experience and know things. This may seem blasphemously inordinate to suggest we may presume the slightest inkling of empathy Godward, and it must be reemphasized that indeed we cannot fathom or approach His archetypal knowledge, and that in His ectypal revelation of Himself the knowledge and wisdom of God as we experience Him is far "above" what we can grasp through empathy. However, God condescends so far as to lead us, in anthropormorphic modes and categories, to conceptualization of His own experience and knowledge. When God inspires the words in Scripture, "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to these whose heart is blameless before Him" (2 Chron. 16:9), though it is clear that the revelation is radically anthropomorphized, we begin to grasp through empathy what it is like for God to perceive all the earth at the same time. When we hear the inspired words, "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them," (Ps. 139:16) we begin to grasp through empathy what it is like for God to posses infallible foreknowledge. Whenever we speak about the knowledge of God as ectypally revealed, it is these (indirectly) experienced qualities held in the mind as a concept, to which we refer.
3)copy/image: This relational concept is, in one sense, quite commonplace and the experienced qualities of which it is composed are easily analyzed. Here we are concerned with the relational concept composed of experienced qualities involved in the comparison between God as ectypally revealed and human beings. We experience certain qualities in God as He reveals Himself to us which may be differentiated and held in the mind as specific concepts to which we refer by terms such as "God's righteousness." We experience certain qualities in human beings which distinctly resemble (or oppose) those qualities experienced in God across the ontological difference which may be held in the mind as concepts then referred to by terms such as "human righteousness." We hold together in the mind the qualities experienced in human beings that resmble those experienced in God, and the qualities experienced in God Himself as reveled as a concept referred to by the word "image." As we concptualize various distinct qualities experienced in humans which resemble distinct qualities experienced in God as the several ways in which humans "image" God, we may begin to recognize certain commonalities in all of these ways so that humans may be understood in a comprehensive sense to "bear the Divine image."
Through analysis of these three subsidiary concepts we may come quite clear on together exactly to which experienced qualities we are referring in speaking of, "God's archetypal knowledge," namely, those expereince qualities compassed under, "an inexperiencable x of which God's knowledge as ectypally revealed is the image." Knowing God's archetypal knowledge is, like infared, existent, but beyond our capacity to experience, we know it is "out there" but do not hope or expect to eventually experience it. As through empathy we know something of what it is like for God, as He reveals Himself ectypally, to know things, and as we know this way of knowing things to bear the image of the way in which He knows things archetypally, and as we know what it is for some human quality (in this case our knowledge of what it is like for God as ectypally revealed to know things) to bear the image of a Divine quality, we may understand these conceptually grasped qualities to lead us in a meaningful way to an outline or shadow of that which we know is "out there" but which can never be experienced. Thus, "God's archetypal knowledge is a meaningful reference and may be legitimately posited as foundation of the PSE.
In my last post, I suggested that we should hold to a Protestant Scholastic archetypal/ectypal epistemological framework (henceforward PSE) in considering the relation between divine and human knowledge. I also suggested that within this framework we should hold to a theory of theological names under which our names and descriptive terms for God and His attributes make direct reference to experienced qualities held in the mind as concepts. I argued that we should dispense with Thomas' doctrine of analogy of names since under this doctrine our names and descriptive terms for God and His attributes do not make reference to experienced divine qualities held in the mind as concepts and are therefore reduced to meaningless utterances when predicated of God.
However, I noted that Thomas' cause in positing his doctrine of analogy of names was noble, namely, to recognize the vast metaphysical difference and established distance between God and creatures, and the sense of God’s utter incomprehensibility so unmistakably conveyed in Scripture. Under the PSE we may respect this difference, distance, and incomprehensibility while preserving the immanent meaning of our theological names and terms, two desiderata which may at first seem at odds with one another, but which are both clearly prescribed in Scripture. This is achieved under the PSE by distinguishing between God's original underived, or archetypal knowledge of Himself and of His creatures, and copied derived, or ectypal knowledge of God and creatures communicated by God to the creatures, and possessed by them. The content and form or mode of God's archetypal knowledge are entirely inaccessible an inscrutable to us as creatures, while God himself and other creatures are known by us ectypally, the content of this knowledge being communicated or revealed to us by God in a form which we, given our finite created epistemic constitution and apparatus, are capable of grasping.
As mentioned above, the concept of God's archetypal knowledge, an essential component of the PSE, is likely to raise skeptical questions. If our epistemological framework is founded on a notion that is entirely inaccessible and inscrutable to us, does it not quickly topple to the ground? If we are definitionally barred any experiential, or conceptual approach to the content and form of God's archetypal knowledge, how can we know such a thing exists or say anything meaningful about it, let alone build an epistemology on its foundation?
I propose that the designation "God's archetypal knowledge" is a meaningful reference to experienced qualities held in the human mind as a concept, which particular qualities together point to something entirely beyond the human experiential ken, yet give some hint as to this something's nature.
"God's archetypal knowledge" may be defined for the human knower as "that inexperiencable x of which God's knowledge as ectypally revealed is a copy or image." Thus the three subsidiary concepts which together lead us to grasp the concept denoted by "God's archetypal knowledge" are 1) inexperiencable x 2) God's knowledge as ectypally revealed and 3) copy or image. Let us examine each of these in more detail.
1) inexperiencable x (forgive the verbal pastiche): Somewhat ironically, as we are defining a concept as a grouping of experienced qualities held in the mind, we have many concepts of things which definitionally cannot be experienced. In each of these cases experienced qualities which are somehow affected by that which cannot be experienced point together to the "x" which cannot be experienced. For example, we know much about infared radiation from its experienced and measurable effects, yet the thing itself to which the term "infared radiation" refers is by definition inexperiencible. Likewise, atoms are inexperiencible x's whose concept we grasp only in terms of experienced effects. Indeed as hitherto unexperienced qualities or combinations of qualities are entering and exiting our experience constantly from "beyond" our experiential ken, we have the idea of what it is for an x to be beyond our experience. It is not much further a step to say we have an idea of what it is for some x's to be of such a type that they will remain forever beyond our experience.
2) God's knowledge as ectypally revealed: This is a rather thick and remote concept to us since it involves a reach of empathy much like that which enables us to grasp the concept of other human minds' knowledge, only stretching (one might say) infinitely further. Though we cannot experience the subjective experience of other human beings, and so cannot hold directly experienced qualities of other minds' knowledge in our minds as a concept, through a process of empathy fueled by intuition we can have some indirect "experience" of what it is like for a fellow human being to experience the world. This may seem a dubious notion, and our knowledge of other minds has indeed been challenged by skepticism that has arisen with philosophers who have noted our very lack of experienced qualities of other minds' experience from which to form a substantive concept. Though the conceptual inference through which we arrive at knowledge of other minds could occupy pages of analysis, here let it suffice to posit we have intuitive warrant for our belief in other minds so that we may be said to have knowledge of other minds, and to the extent that we have knowledge of other minds, the concept - or grouping of (in this case indirectly) experienced qualities held in the mind - of other minds is presupposed. Similarly, as God reveals Himself ectypally to us as a knowing being, and displays some indication of the exhaustive infallible immediate way in which He knows, we are led to some (indirectly, and anthropomorically) experienced qualities of what it is like for God, as ectypally revealed, to experience and know things. This may seem blasphemously inordinate to suggest we may presume the slightest inkling of empathy Godward, and it must be reemphasized that indeed we cannot fathom or approach His archetypal knowledge, and that in His ectypal revelation of Himself the knowledge and wisdom of God as we experience Him is far "above" what we can grasp through empathy. However, God condescends so far as to lead us, in anthropormorphic modes and categories, to conceptualization of His own experience and knowledge. When God inspires the words in Scripture, "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to these whose heart is blameless before Him" (2 Chron. 16:9), though it is clear that the revelation is radically anthropomorphized, we begin to grasp through empathy what it is like for God to perceive all the earth at the same time. When we hear the inspired words, "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them," (Ps. 139:16) we begin to grasp through empathy what it is like for God to posses infallible foreknowledge. Whenever we speak about the knowledge of God as ectypally revealed, it is these (indirectly) experienced qualities held in the mind as a concept, to which we refer.
3)copy/image: This relational concept is, in one sense, quite commonplace and the experienced qualities of which it is composed are easily analyzed. Here we are concerned with the relational concept composed of experienced qualities involved in the comparison between God as ectypally revealed and human beings. We experience certain qualities in God as He reveals Himself to us which may be differentiated and held in the mind as specific concepts to which we refer by terms such as "God's righteousness." We experience certain qualities in human beings which distinctly resemble (or oppose) those qualities experienced in God across the ontological difference which may be held in the mind as concepts then referred to by terms such as "human righteousness." We hold together in the mind the qualities experienced in human beings that resmble those experienced in God, and the qualities experienced in God Himself as reveled as a concept referred to by the word "image." As we concptualize various distinct qualities experienced in humans which resemble distinct qualities experienced in God as the several ways in which humans "image" God, we may begin to recognize certain commonalities in all of these ways so that humans may be understood in a comprehensive sense to "bear the Divine image."
Through analysis of these three subsidiary concepts we may come quite clear on together exactly to which experienced qualities we are referring in speaking of, "God's archetypal knowledge," namely, those expereince qualities compassed under, "an inexperiencable x of which God's knowledge as ectypally revealed is the image." Knowing God's archetypal knowledge is, like infared, existent, but beyond our capacity to experience, we know it is "out there" but do not hope or expect to eventually experience it. As through empathy we know something of what it is like for God, as He reveals Himself ectypally, to know things, and as we know this way of knowing things to bear the image of the way in which He knows things archetypally, and as we know what it is for some human quality (in this case our knowledge of what it is like for God as ectypally revealed to know things) to bear the image of a Divine quality, we may understand these conceptually grasped qualities to lead us in a meaningful way to an outline or shadow of that which we know is "out there" but which can never be experienced. Thus, "God's archetypal knowledge is a meaningful reference and may be legitimately posited as foundation of the PSE.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A Calvinistic Determinist Defense for the Problem of Evil
It has been often objected by free will theists and atheists alike that the belief in God with the conjunction of Calvinistic Determinism is irrational because it cannot give an adequate answer to the atheological argument from evil. This argument has been popularly called the “Problem of evil.” In this post we will look at how this problem arises in Christian theistic philosophy and how a Calvinistic Determinist might possibly respond to this objection.
The Problem of Evil:
The problem arises with the conjunction of the following propositions:
P1: God is morally perfect
P2: God is omnipotent (being able to bring about all logically possible good things)
P3: God is omniscient (knowing all true propositions)
P4: Evil Exists
There is no obvious contradiction here unless one adds in this proposition:
P5: P1 entails that God ought to stop all evil as much as he possibly can
One could merely reject P5 on the basis of this proposition, namely P6:
P6: God has a morally sufficient reason for strongly actualizing evil in the world
Now one might ask “what would that morally sufficient reason be?” To this question I would give two possible responses. First, though, I should note that this is a defense and not a theodicy. The difference between a defense and a theodicy is that a defense shows how the propositions above are just logically possible, whereas a theodicy attempts to show the reason for why God allows or causes evil in the world. In writing this I do not pretend to be so presumptuous as to know the mind of God, rather I am merely showing that there is no contradiction between Calvinistic determinism and evil.
Response 1: Transcendent Response
It could be that God has a morally sufficient reason for causing evil and we simply do not have cognitive access to that aspect of God’s mind. This is perfectly reasonable and coherent given the Reformed emphasis on the creator/creature distinction. Furthermore, Reformed folks have a robust view of this distinction such that they would say that the divine and human intellects never intersect (Scott Clark and most people at Westminster affirm this presupposition). Therefore, given these Reformed presuppositions the problem of evil is hardly a problem.
Response 2: Anselmian Divine Attributes Response
Another possible reason relies on the concept of God as the greatest possible being. God is the greatest possible being so he necessarily is just and gracious to the greatest possible degree. But the problem is that God cannot be gracious if he so chooses to create without the existence of moral evil. Because to be gracious one has to bestow demerited favor toward agents, but there simply can be no such demerit unless an agent S sins. Thus, one such reason for causing human agents to sin is so that God can manifest his graciousness to the greatest possible degree. This greatest degree of graciousness would also entail him sending his Son Jesus Christ into the world to display his graciousness to the greatest possible degree toward sinners.
Another thing that the cross of Christ displays is God’s justice toward sinners. God’s justice is such that it requires manifestation if he is to create. He is so just that he has to manifest a just judgment between the righteous and the unrighteous. This justice is such that he would create lesser beings that are evil just so he can show his greatness through punishing them justly. Thus, in this defense God’s glory as a whole is more important than an individual creature that God creates for the purposes of letting the greatest possible being act as the greatest possible being. Hence, God’s Glory and letting himself act on his creation in accordance with his divine great-making properties is the morally sufficient reason for God causally determining every evil event.
Concluding Remarks:
These all seem like possible Reponses that a Calvinist could give and thus one ought not to abandon Reformed theology on the basis of the problem of evil, since there are at least two possible responses. Reformed theology like this defense puts the emphasis on God’s glory and not on man’s. God’s glory is the greatest possible end because God is the greatest possible being and thus although response 2 may seem offensive to some, but if one looks at things from the perspective of God’s glory being the highest good end, then perhaps the offensive nature of this response will disappear (at the very least, a humble and pious attitude ought to lessen the offense). We live in a world that puts emphasis and attention on the individual man rather than the community and the greatest possible being, so for those of us who are ready they can use this effective Calvinistic Defense against the atheological objection from evil.
The Problem of Evil:
The problem arises with the conjunction of the following propositions:
P1: God is morally perfect
P2: God is omnipotent (being able to bring about all logically possible good things)
P3: God is omniscient (knowing all true propositions)
P4: Evil Exists
There is no obvious contradiction here unless one adds in this proposition:
P5: P1 entails that God ought to stop all evil as much as he possibly can
One could merely reject P5 on the basis of this proposition, namely P6:
P6: God has a morally sufficient reason for strongly actualizing evil in the world
Now one might ask “what would that morally sufficient reason be?” To this question I would give two possible responses. First, though, I should note that this is a defense and not a theodicy. The difference between a defense and a theodicy is that a defense shows how the propositions above are just logically possible, whereas a theodicy attempts to show the reason for why God allows or causes evil in the world. In writing this I do not pretend to be so presumptuous as to know the mind of God, rather I am merely showing that there is no contradiction between Calvinistic determinism and evil.
Response 1: Transcendent Response
It could be that God has a morally sufficient reason for causing evil and we simply do not have cognitive access to that aspect of God’s mind. This is perfectly reasonable and coherent given the Reformed emphasis on the creator/creature distinction. Furthermore, Reformed folks have a robust view of this distinction such that they would say that the divine and human intellects never intersect (Scott Clark and most people at Westminster affirm this presupposition). Therefore, given these Reformed presuppositions the problem of evil is hardly a problem.
Response 2: Anselmian Divine Attributes Response
Another possible reason relies on the concept of God as the greatest possible being. God is the greatest possible being so he necessarily is just and gracious to the greatest possible degree. But the problem is that God cannot be gracious if he so chooses to create without the existence of moral evil. Because to be gracious one has to bestow demerited favor toward agents, but there simply can be no such demerit unless an agent S sins. Thus, one such reason for causing human agents to sin is so that God can manifest his graciousness to the greatest possible degree. This greatest degree of graciousness would also entail him sending his Son Jesus Christ into the world to display his graciousness to the greatest possible degree toward sinners.
Another thing that the cross of Christ displays is God’s justice toward sinners. God’s justice is such that it requires manifestation if he is to create. He is so just that he has to manifest a just judgment between the righteous and the unrighteous. This justice is such that he would create lesser beings that are evil just so he can show his greatness through punishing them justly. Thus, in this defense God’s glory as a whole is more important than an individual creature that God creates for the purposes of letting the greatest possible being act as the greatest possible being. Hence, God’s Glory and letting himself act on his creation in accordance with his divine great-making properties is the morally sufficient reason for God causally determining every evil event.
Concluding Remarks:
These all seem like possible Reponses that a Calvinist could give and thus one ought not to abandon Reformed theology on the basis of the problem of evil, since there are at least two possible responses. Reformed theology like this defense puts the emphasis on God’s glory and not on man’s. God’s glory is the greatest possible end because God is the greatest possible being and thus although response 2 may seem offensive to some, but if one looks at things from the perspective of God’s glory being the highest good end, then perhaps the offensive nature of this response will disappear (at the very least, a humble and pious attitude ought to lessen the offense). We live in a world that puts emphasis and attention on the individual man rather than the community and the greatest possible being, so for those of us who are ready they can use this effective Calvinistic Defense against the atheological objection from evil.
The Dark Side Of Divine Command Theory?: A Response To Erik Wielenberg
In Chapter Two of Value And Virtue In A Godless Universe, Erik Wielenberg introduces two theses that he believes implicitly support Divine Command Theory. The first is the Control Thesis which states that “every logically consistent ethical claim, E, is such that God could make E true.” The second is the Dependency Thesis which states that “every true ethical claim is true in virtue of some act of will on the part of God.” Essentially, the great difference between these two is that in the former God creates ethics (by divine fiat we might say), while in the later ethics is based upon and originates from God’s nature or character. From this, Wielenberg distinguishes between two forms of Divine Command Theory. The first or “strong” form accepts both the Control and Dependency Thesis, while the “weak” form accepts only the Dependency Thesis.
It is important to consider Wielenberg’s objection to the strong form of Divine Command Theory first (which is essentially an objection to the Control Thesis), since it will play a role in his objection to the weak form. He objects to the strong form by way of an illustration. He asks us to imagine a competition in which the prize is omnipotence. One contestant is a very good person, while the other is very evil. Suppose, he says, that the evil person wins the contest and gains omnipotence. According to the Control Thesis, the evil contestant can now make it such that all of the evil acts he intends to perform (mass slaughter of innocents, torture, etc.) are actually very good. Moreover, he can make it such he is now a morally perfect being, not by changing himself, but by changing the nature of moral perfection. Thus, in the end, evil becomes good and the killing and torture of innocent people is morally commendable. Wielenberg relies primarily on intuition to argue that “there is simply no amount of power that would enable a being to make that true.” He further argues that “This story seems to get things backwards by making morality subject to power.” Fair enough. Our moral intuitions certainly do seem to suggest to us that no amount of power could make such atrocities good. We want to argue, especially as Christians, that morality is somehow objective and fixed, and that it could not be otherwise. At least on the surface, Wielenberg’s argument seems to offer convincing reasons to reject the Control Thesis on just such grounds. And so, for the sake of argument, we will grant him his conclusion.
Now Wielenberg turns his philosophical gun on the weak form of Divine Command Theory, specifically on the Dependency Thesis, which he states as follows, “It is still divine willing that determines which ethical claims are true, but the scope of divine willing is limited by the divine character.” In other words, God still retains the prerogative to say what things humans can and cannot do in certain times and places, but contra the Control Thesis He cannot command simply anything, but can only command those things which are in accordance with His own character, which sets the standard of moral goodness. Wielenberg proposes three objections to this thesis. First, he suggests that “implicit in the proposal is the notion that God has the power to make any logically consistent ethical claim true.” In the weak claim, God’s character prevents Him from making evil things good, but Wielenberg seems to be suggesting that the Control Thesis still manages to slip in the back door, and that we are left with the same problem, just moved back a step. If it were the case that God’s character turned out to be like the evil contestant in Wielenberg’s imaginary story, then even on the Dependency Thesis alone it would still be conceivable that God could make the slaughter of innocents a morally good thing. But Wielenberg has already refuted such a notion.
Wielenberg’s second objection to the Dependency Thesis is even stronger. He argues that an implication of the Dependency Thesis is that nothing is intrinsically good or evil. He says, “If an act of will on the part of God bestows value on something distinct from God, that value cannot be intrinsic.” By intrinsic value he means that a thing is valuable only in virtue of its nature. As an example of an intrinsic evil, he suggests pain. Pain is just bad, in and of itself, without reference to anything else. Conversely, falling in love is intrinsically good; it is simply good for its own sake. Following Chisholm, who argues that any theory of epistemology that doesn’t allow for obvious instances of knowledge should be rejected, Wielenberg suggests that any theory of morality that rejects something as obvious as the fact that some things are intrinsically good or evil should also be rejected.
What might the Christian say in response to these arguments?
In response to Wielenberg's first argument, it seems perfectly reasonable for the Theist to assert two propositions. The first being that it is impossible for God’s character to be different than it is, and the second being that it is impossible to actually change the nature of moral perfection, as the evil contestant does in Wielenberg’s story. The second claim rests on the first. God’s character simply is the definition of moral perfection, and if His character cannot change, than neither can moral perfection. But to the first proposition Wielenberg might ask why God’s character cannot change. The response is simple, because if it did, then He would cease to be morally perfect, and thus cease to be God. At this point, Wielenberg might accuse the Theist of a contradiction. If God’s character cannot change without ceasing to be morally perfect, then isn’t there some outside standard to which we are holding God’s character? To this the Theist may reply that God’s character is indeed the only standard of perfection, and that all things are either good or bad based on their relation to Him alone, but that His character, being what it is, cannot be otherwise. It is simply a brute fact of the universe. For God is the ground of all being, the source and foundation for all reality. He simply is. And he could not be otherwise. If Wielenberg still wishes to object to this claim, then the Theist can quickly remind him that this is precisely what he wishes his reader to believe about the brute moral facts of the universe. Indeed, this is the thesis of his book! Moral facts such as “it is wrong to torture babies for fun” are, according to Wielenberg, real moral entities that exist and simply cannot be otherwise. But as far I can tell, there is no reason to believe that brute moral facts cannot change and not believe that God’s character cannot change. Thus, for Wielenberg to reject the Dependency Thesis for this reason would also be for him to reject his own moral theory.
For the second argument, I believe that two possible responses are open to the Theist. First, it can be argued that since a thing’s nature is given to it by God, it is still possible for something to be either good or evil by virtue of its nature, even though God indirectly made it so. Taking the example of falling in love, a Theist might say that falling in love is most certainly an instance of intrinsic good, its very nature is simply and completely good, but that because its nature was given to it by God, it is ultimately God that has, in a sense, “declared” it to be what it is. It sounds to me as though Wielenberg’s argument is actually saying, “nothing can be good in virtue of its nature because God gave it its nature.” But of course that doesn’t follow. What Wielenberg is really attacking is the notion that falling in love is not good for its own sake, but that it is good because God told us so. What he overlooks is the simple solution that God “told us so” by giving it a nature that was either good or evil.
However, there is another response that seems perfectly reasonable to me, namely that the Theist simply accepts that nothing actually is intrinsically good or evil apart from God. Why is suffering evil? Because God doesn’t want his creatures to suffer. Why is falling in love good? Because God wants us to be happy, and in part because it facilitates the creation of families, children, and society. Wielenberg is relying on the unshakable intuition that pain is evil in and of itself. It is better to keep this obvious truth than to accept a theory that rejects it. But isn’t it just as likely that the unshakable intuition in question is merely that pain is evil, leaving entirely open the question of why or how it is evil? This seems more plausible to me.
In conclusion, I should make clear that I have not attempted to offer reasons for preferring DCT over Wielenber'g Atheistic Moral Realism. I have, however, attempted to provide sufficient reason to reject his arguments against DCT.
It is important to consider Wielenberg’s objection to the strong form of Divine Command Theory first (which is essentially an objection to the Control Thesis), since it will play a role in his objection to the weak form. He objects to the strong form by way of an illustration. He asks us to imagine a competition in which the prize is omnipotence. One contestant is a very good person, while the other is very evil. Suppose, he says, that the evil person wins the contest and gains omnipotence. According to the Control Thesis, the evil contestant can now make it such that all of the evil acts he intends to perform (mass slaughter of innocents, torture, etc.) are actually very good. Moreover, he can make it such he is now a morally perfect being, not by changing himself, but by changing the nature of moral perfection. Thus, in the end, evil becomes good and the killing and torture of innocent people is morally commendable. Wielenberg relies primarily on intuition to argue that “there is simply no amount of power that would enable a being to make that true.” He further argues that “This story seems to get things backwards by making morality subject to power.” Fair enough. Our moral intuitions certainly do seem to suggest to us that no amount of power could make such atrocities good. We want to argue, especially as Christians, that morality is somehow objective and fixed, and that it could not be otherwise. At least on the surface, Wielenberg’s argument seems to offer convincing reasons to reject the Control Thesis on just such grounds. And so, for the sake of argument, we will grant him his conclusion.
Now Wielenberg turns his philosophical gun on the weak form of Divine Command Theory, specifically on the Dependency Thesis, which he states as follows, “It is still divine willing that determines which ethical claims are true, but the scope of divine willing is limited by the divine character.” In other words, God still retains the prerogative to say what things humans can and cannot do in certain times and places, but contra the Control Thesis He cannot command simply anything, but can only command those things which are in accordance with His own character, which sets the standard of moral goodness. Wielenberg proposes three objections to this thesis. First, he suggests that “implicit in the proposal is the notion that God has the power to make any logically consistent ethical claim true.” In the weak claim, God’s character prevents Him from making evil things good, but Wielenberg seems to be suggesting that the Control Thesis still manages to slip in the back door, and that we are left with the same problem, just moved back a step. If it were the case that God’s character turned out to be like the evil contestant in Wielenberg’s imaginary story, then even on the Dependency Thesis alone it would still be conceivable that God could make the slaughter of innocents a morally good thing. But Wielenberg has already refuted such a notion.
Wielenberg’s second objection to the Dependency Thesis is even stronger. He argues that an implication of the Dependency Thesis is that nothing is intrinsically good or evil. He says, “If an act of will on the part of God bestows value on something distinct from God, that value cannot be intrinsic.” By intrinsic value he means that a thing is valuable only in virtue of its nature. As an example of an intrinsic evil, he suggests pain. Pain is just bad, in and of itself, without reference to anything else. Conversely, falling in love is intrinsically good; it is simply good for its own sake. Following Chisholm, who argues that any theory of epistemology that doesn’t allow for obvious instances of knowledge should be rejected, Wielenberg suggests that any theory of morality that rejects something as obvious as the fact that some things are intrinsically good or evil should also be rejected.
What might the Christian say in response to these arguments?
In response to Wielenberg's first argument, it seems perfectly reasonable for the Theist to assert two propositions. The first being that it is impossible for God’s character to be different than it is, and the second being that it is impossible to actually change the nature of moral perfection, as the evil contestant does in Wielenberg’s story. The second claim rests on the first. God’s character simply is the definition of moral perfection, and if His character cannot change, than neither can moral perfection. But to the first proposition Wielenberg might ask why God’s character cannot change. The response is simple, because if it did, then He would cease to be morally perfect, and thus cease to be God. At this point, Wielenberg might accuse the Theist of a contradiction. If God’s character cannot change without ceasing to be morally perfect, then isn’t there some outside standard to which we are holding God’s character? To this the Theist may reply that God’s character is indeed the only standard of perfection, and that all things are either good or bad based on their relation to Him alone, but that His character, being what it is, cannot be otherwise. It is simply a brute fact of the universe. For God is the ground of all being, the source and foundation for all reality. He simply is. And he could not be otherwise. If Wielenberg still wishes to object to this claim, then the Theist can quickly remind him that this is precisely what he wishes his reader to believe about the brute moral facts of the universe. Indeed, this is the thesis of his book! Moral facts such as “it is wrong to torture babies for fun” are, according to Wielenberg, real moral entities that exist and simply cannot be otherwise. But as far I can tell, there is no reason to believe that brute moral facts cannot change and not believe that God’s character cannot change. Thus, for Wielenberg to reject the Dependency Thesis for this reason would also be for him to reject his own moral theory.
For the second argument, I believe that two possible responses are open to the Theist. First, it can be argued that since a thing’s nature is given to it by God, it is still possible for something to be either good or evil by virtue of its nature, even though God indirectly made it so. Taking the example of falling in love, a Theist might say that falling in love is most certainly an instance of intrinsic good, its very nature is simply and completely good, but that because its nature was given to it by God, it is ultimately God that has, in a sense, “declared” it to be what it is. It sounds to me as though Wielenberg’s argument is actually saying, “nothing can be good in virtue of its nature because God gave it its nature.” But of course that doesn’t follow. What Wielenberg is really attacking is the notion that falling in love is not good for its own sake, but that it is good because God told us so. What he overlooks is the simple solution that God “told us so” by giving it a nature that was either good or evil.
However, there is another response that seems perfectly reasonable to me, namely that the Theist simply accepts that nothing actually is intrinsically good or evil apart from God. Why is suffering evil? Because God doesn’t want his creatures to suffer. Why is falling in love good? Because God wants us to be happy, and in part because it facilitates the creation of families, children, and society. Wielenberg is relying on the unshakable intuition that pain is evil in and of itself. It is better to keep this obvious truth than to accept a theory that rejects it. But isn’t it just as likely that the unshakable intuition in question is merely that pain is evil, leaving entirely open the question of why or how it is evil? This seems more plausible to me.
In conclusion, I should make clear that I have not attempted to offer reasons for preferring DCT over Wielenber'g Atheistic Moral Realism. I have, however, attempted to provide sufficient reason to reject his arguments against DCT.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Cosmological Arguments For God's Existence: Thomistic, Kalaam, and Leibnizian
In this post I will explain and defend three types of cosmological arguments: Thomistic, Kalaam, and Leibnizian.
Thomistic Cosmological Argument (Craig’s formulation)
P1: Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence (either in the necessity of its own nature or by a external cause)
P2: If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
P3: The universe exists.
P4: The universe has an explanation of its existence.
C: Hence, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God.
Kalaam Cosmological Argument (Craig’s formulation with slight alterations)
P1: Everything that begins to exists has a cause
P2: The universe began to exist (universe = the set of all things that are material, in or are space, temporal, contingent)
P3: Therefore, the universe had a cause
C: Therefore, This cause was from a being that is immaterial, spaceless, atemporal (from the opposite of the properties of the universe).
Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
P1: Every contingent fact has an explanation
P2: Either a contingent fact is explained by an infinite regress or a necessary being
P3: It is false that every contingent fact is explained by an infinite regress (Ockham’s razor)
P4: A contingent fact exit
C: Hence, there is a contingent fact that is explained by a Necessary Being
This is a general exposition of questions that help demonstrate the soundness and validity of all three of the cosmological arguments that I gave above.
Do things need a cause or an explanation?
The fact that 1) things that begin to exist need a cause, or that everything that exists needs an explanation: either an explanation of 2) reason or 3) a cause is largely justified on the basis of a priori knowledge, that is to say our intuitions. If one rejects 1 then as Jonathan Edwards argued, it is hard explain how anything and everything just does not pop into existence uncaused out of nothing. Moreover, if someone did not believe 1 would they really expect that at any passing moment that a giant elephant could pop out of no where uncaused out of nothing? I think that no one really thinks that these sorts of states of affairs are possibly reasonable to believe but if one rejects 1 then it is certainly possibly reasonable that those states of affairs occur.
2 and 3 also seem more reasonable than not, suppose you were walking through the forest with a friend and you came across a large floating translucent ball. Would you think it reasonable if your friend said it is just there without any sort of reason and a cause? I would think not. But let us suppose that the ball were as big as the United States, would it still need a reason and a cause? I would think so. What about if the ball were as big as the entire universe? I am sure you get the picture. It seems more reasonable than not that those things that are contingent, that is things that could or could not exists need an explanation and a cause. Thus it seems like 1,2, 3 are all reasonable assumptions; 1 would be used for the kalaam, 2 for the Leibnizian, and 3 for the Thomistic.
It should be noted that necessary things have to exist and as a result they do not begin to exist so do not need a cause nor do they need a explanation as to why they exist because they just have to exist.
Here are the differences between contingent and necessary truths:
NP: 1+1=2
CP: There is a cat on the mat
It seems that NP is a necessary truth and needs no explanation or cause, but CP is a contingent truth and needs a cause (if it begins to exist) or an explanation as to why it is.
Why cannot there be an infinite regress of causes or explanations?
I think this point will aid all cosmological arguments in their reasonableness. The reason why one ought to prefer a necessary stopping point in causes and explanations rather than an infinite regress of causes and explanations is because the necessary stopping point is more in accordance with Ockham’s razor, that is to say it is simpler and it does not posit entities beyond necessity.
So if we are looking at these two propositions in an argument it should be obvious which one is more reasonable than not:
P1: There is a necessary being that gives a cause and an explanation to everything
P2: There is an infinite regress that gives a cause and an explanation to every members of its set.
P1 ought to be always epistemologically preferred over P2 because it is simpler and admits fewer unnecessary entities into ones metaphysics. Thus, I conclude that the objectors to the cosmological argument who try to use P2 as a defeater are no longer warranted in using this defeater.
Must the cause be personal?
If the being were necessary and impersonal then it would cause the universe out of a necessity of it’s own nature, but the world is contingent and as a result the necessary being would have to choose between creating and not creating and only personal agents can choose between A and non-A.
Why cannot there be many gods involved as in polytheism?
It is in accordance with Ockam’s razor that there is one sufficiently powerful and intelligent being that explains and causes everything rather than many necessary beings that explain everything.
So if one were to choosing between these to propositions one would be more reasonable than not:
S1: There is one being such that he is sufficiently powerful and intelligent enough to cause and explain all contingent facts.
S2: There are many beings such that they are sufficiently powerful and jointly intelligent enough to cause and explain all contingent facts.
It seems clear that S1 is much more in accordance with the simplest explanation that does not admit as many unnecessary entities into ones ontology. Thus, it seems that S1 is more reasonable than S2.
What caused or explains God?
God is Necessary and never beings to exist and as such he requires neither cause nor explanation.
The big bang theory helps:
The big band theory is the reigning theory in cosmology. This teaches us that the universe began a finite time ago at the start at the initial singularity. Thus, this line of scientific evidence supports all three of the cosmological arguments because it shows the universe began to exist and thus is in fact contingent.
Concluding Remarks:
Therefore, because of all of these considerations it seems as if all three cosmological arguments are more reasonable to believe rather than not. This suggests that it is more reasonable to believe in a first cause or a necessary being “et hoc omnes intelligent Deum” (“and all understand this to be God”).
Thomistic Cosmological Argument (Craig’s formulation)
P1: Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence (either in the necessity of its own nature or by a external cause)
P2: If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
P3: The universe exists.
P4: The universe has an explanation of its existence.
C: Hence, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God.
Kalaam Cosmological Argument (Craig’s formulation with slight alterations)
P1: Everything that begins to exists has a cause
P2: The universe began to exist (universe = the set of all things that are material, in or are space, temporal, contingent)
P3: Therefore, the universe had a cause
C: Therefore, This cause was from a being that is immaterial, spaceless, atemporal (from the opposite of the properties of the universe).
Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
P1: Every contingent fact has an explanation
P2: Either a contingent fact is explained by an infinite regress or a necessary being
P3: It is false that every contingent fact is explained by an infinite regress (Ockham’s razor)
P4: A contingent fact exit
C: Hence, there is a contingent fact that is explained by a Necessary Being
This is a general exposition of questions that help demonstrate the soundness and validity of all three of the cosmological arguments that I gave above.
Do things need a cause or an explanation?
The fact that 1) things that begin to exist need a cause, or that everything that exists needs an explanation: either an explanation of 2) reason or 3) a cause is largely justified on the basis of a priori knowledge, that is to say our intuitions. If one rejects 1 then as Jonathan Edwards argued, it is hard explain how anything and everything just does not pop into existence uncaused out of nothing. Moreover, if someone did not believe 1 would they really expect that at any passing moment that a giant elephant could pop out of no where uncaused out of nothing? I think that no one really thinks that these sorts of states of affairs are possibly reasonable to believe but if one rejects 1 then it is certainly possibly reasonable that those states of affairs occur.
2 and 3 also seem more reasonable than not, suppose you were walking through the forest with a friend and you came across a large floating translucent ball. Would you think it reasonable if your friend said it is just there without any sort of reason and a cause? I would think not. But let us suppose that the ball were as big as the United States, would it still need a reason and a cause? I would think so. What about if the ball were as big as the entire universe? I am sure you get the picture. It seems more reasonable than not that those things that are contingent, that is things that could or could not exists need an explanation and a cause. Thus it seems like 1,2, 3 are all reasonable assumptions; 1 would be used for the kalaam, 2 for the Leibnizian, and 3 for the Thomistic.
It should be noted that necessary things have to exist and as a result they do not begin to exist so do not need a cause nor do they need a explanation as to why they exist because they just have to exist.
Here are the differences between contingent and necessary truths:
NP: 1+1=2
CP: There is a cat on the mat
It seems that NP is a necessary truth and needs no explanation or cause, but CP is a contingent truth and needs a cause (if it begins to exist) or an explanation as to why it is.
Why cannot there be an infinite regress of causes or explanations?
I think this point will aid all cosmological arguments in their reasonableness. The reason why one ought to prefer a necessary stopping point in causes and explanations rather than an infinite regress of causes and explanations is because the necessary stopping point is more in accordance with Ockham’s razor, that is to say it is simpler and it does not posit entities beyond necessity.
So if we are looking at these two propositions in an argument it should be obvious which one is more reasonable than not:
P1: There is a necessary being that gives a cause and an explanation to everything
P2: There is an infinite regress that gives a cause and an explanation to every members of its set.
P1 ought to be always epistemologically preferred over P2 because it is simpler and admits fewer unnecessary entities into ones metaphysics. Thus, I conclude that the objectors to the cosmological argument who try to use P2 as a defeater are no longer warranted in using this defeater.
Must the cause be personal?
If the being were necessary and impersonal then it would cause the universe out of a necessity of it’s own nature, but the world is contingent and as a result the necessary being would have to choose between creating and not creating and only personal agents can choose between A and non-A.
Why cannot there be many gods involved as in polytheism?
It is in accordance with Ockam’s razor that there is one sufficiently powerful and intelligent being that explains and causes everything rather than many necessary beings that explain everything.
So if one were to choosing between these to propositions one would be more reasonable than not:
S1: There is one being such that he is sufficiently powerful and intelligent enough to cause and explain all contingent facts.
S2: There are many beings such that they are sufficiently powerful and jointly intelligent enough to cause and explain all contingent facts.
It seems clear that S1 is much more in accordance with the simplest explanation that does not admit as many unnecessary entities into ones ontology. Thus, it seems that S1 is more reasonable than S2.
What caused or explains God?
God is Necessary and never beings to exist and as such he requires neither cause nor explanation.
The big bang theory helps:
The big band theory is the reigning theory in cosmology. This teaches us that the universe began a finite time ago at the start at the initial singularity. Thus, this line of scientific evidence supports all three of the cosmological arguments because it shows the universe began to exist and thus is in fact contingent.
Concluding Remarks:
Therefore, because of all of these considerations it seems as if all three cosmological arguments are more reasonable to believe rather than not. This suggests that it is more reasonable to believe in a first cause or a necessary being “et hoc omnes intelligent Deum” (“and all understand this to be God”).
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Transcendental Arguments For God's Existence Part 3
Argument from the laws of logic:
This argument was made popular by Greg Bahnsen in his debate with Gordon Stein. Although Bahnsen's formulations have been often unclear and subject to criticisms we will look at a more precise and clean version of this argument.
P1: If God does not exist then the laws of logic do not exist (Logical Realism)
P2: The laws of logic do exist
C: Therefore God exists
The way this argument is defended is very similar to or analogous to the moral argument. One would argue that the laws of logic are necessary and so they would have to be grounded in some sort of immaterial entity and the only reasonable candidate for that would be God, who would be the foundation of perfect logic and reason (since he is a perfect, personal being).
Here are some of the reason's why atheistic realism cannot account for the laws of logic:
1) It seems that we also have a moral obligation to be reasonable and logical and this seems only possible with persons.
2) there is no guarantee that agents would develop a correct conception of logic because the immaterial abstract objects that would ground logic do not have causal power over the world to guide our faculties.
3) it is hard to conceive of immaterial objects having content apart from a mind with thoughts that possess content.
4) it is difficult to imagine how the metaphysical foundation of logic would itself be non logical (what I mean by this is reasoning correctly), since only persons have logical properties of this sort. Thus, logic would not be logical, which would seem absurd.
5) And finally, it is difficult to see how these logical forms or propositions could relate or connect to the world in any sort of fashion.
Conclusion:
Hence, it seems from these considerations that the theistic worldview can account for the laws of logic whereas atheistic realism fails to account for criteria 1-5.
This argument was made popular by Greg Bahnsen in his debate with Gordon Stein. Although Bahnsen's formulations have been often unclear and subject to criticisms we will look at a more precise and clean version of this argument.
P1: If God does not exist then the laws of logic do not exist (Logical Realism)
P2: The laws of logic do exist
C: Therefore God exists
The way this argument is defended is very similar to or analogous to the moral argument. One would argue that the laws of logic are necessary and so they would have to be grounded in some sort of immaterial entity and the only reasonable candidate for that would be God, who would be the foundation of perfect logic and reason (since he is a perfect, personal being).
Here are some of the reason's why atheistic realism cannot account for the laws of logic:
1) It seems that we also have a moral obligation to be reasonable and logical and this seems only possible with persons.
2) there is no guarantee that agents would develop a correct conception of logic because the immaterial abstract objects that would ground logic do not have causal power over the world to guide our faculties.
3) it is hard to conceive of immaterial objects having content apart from a mind with thoughts that possess content.
4) it is difficult to imagine how the metaphysical foundation of logic would itself be non logical (what I mean by this is reasoning correctly), since only persons have logical properties of this sort. Thus, logic would not be logical, which would seem absurd.
5) And finally, it is difficult to see how these logical forms or propositions could relate or connect to the world in any sort of fashion.
Conclusion:
Hence, it seems from these considerations that the theistic worldview can account for the laws of logic whereas atheistic realism fails to account for criteria 1-5.
Transcendental Arguments For God's Existence Part 2
This is one of my favorite Transcendental arguments that I put a year of my life into studying and analyzing. This argument has been endorsed by Greg Bahnsen and Alvin Plantinga. It argues from our beliefs about the uniformity of nature to God's existence. Let’s take look at the argument from the uniformity of nature, or the "argument from induction".
P1: If God does not exist then we have no basis for inductive reasoning
P2: We have a basis for inductive reasoning
C: Therefore, God exists
What is inductive reasoning?
Induction is a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances. This includes past to future instances as well. I know that, in all probability, when I drop the pen I am holding it will fall to the ground, because it has done so in every case in he past.
Why does inductive reasoning require God’s existence?
The problem with inductive reasoning is that on naturalism or atheism there is reason to doubt this basic belief that the future will probably be like the past. The reason why one should doubt this is because there is no supernatural being that controls and sustains reality in a consistent fashion. The atheist might respond that in the past chairs have never turned into flying sharks, but this assumes that the past will be like the future. And the question you have to ask is how you know that the past will be like the future? They might say that they don’t know for certain, but that it has been that way in the past and so probably it will be like that in the future. The problem with this response is that, once again, it assumes that the past is going to be like the future: The very thing you are asking the naturalist or atheist to justify. So on the atheistic worldview, at any given moment, it is equally likely that things could be similar to what they were in the past or that there could be millions of random chaotic possibilities. Both are equally likely. So if this is true on atheism, then 5 minutes from now it is equally likely that the ground you are standing on could retain its similar properties or it could turn into jello (both are equally likely if inductive reasoning is thrown out the window).
How does a belief in God support inductive reasoning?
However, on theism we believe in the God of the universe that is guiding, causing, and controlling reality consistently. So when we are asked how we know that the past will be like the future we can say that nature will be uniformed because we believe in a divine being that controls it consistently. It is a part of God’s nature to make reality consistent and orderly. On naturalism and atheism all you have is the universe by itself which is not guided by anything whatsoever so as not to ensure that the future will be like the past.
What about miracles?
Miracles are not a violation of God’s consistency, for they are merely a unique event that takes place when God is revealing himself. Since these events are rare to the time of the Old and New Testament they do not affect our probabilistic reasoning.
Conclusion:
Thus, from this Transcendental argument we can see that if one wants to be reasonable in holding to their basic belief about the inductive process (uniformity of nature) then they ought to infer God's existence from this basic belief rather than a belief in naturalism.
P1: If God does not exist then we have no basis for inductive reasoning
P2: We have a basis for inductive reasoning
C: Therefore, God exists
What is inductive reasoning?
Induction is a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances. This includes past to future instances as well. I know that, in all probability, when I drop the pen I am holding it will fall to the ground, because it has done so in every case in he past.
Why does inductive reasoning require God’s existence?
The problem with inductive reasoning is that on naturalism or atheism there is reason to doubt this basic belief that the future will probably be like the past. The reason why one should doubt this is because there is no supernatural being that controls and sustains reality in a consistent fashion. The atheist might respond that in the past chairs have never turned into flying sharks, but this assumes that the past will be like the future. And the question you have to ask is how you know that the past will be like the future? They might say that they don’t know for certain, but that it has been that way in the past and so probably it will be like that in the future. The problem with this response is that, once again, it assumes that the past is going to be like the future: The very thing you are asking the naturalist or atheist to justify. So on the atheistic worldview, at any given moment, it is equally likely that things could be similar to what they were in the past or that there could be millions of random chaotic possibilities. Both are equally likely. So if this is true on atheism, then 5 minutes from now it is equally likely that the ground you are standing on could retain its similar properties or it could turn into jello (both are equally likely if inductive reasoning is thrown out the window).
How does a belief in God support inductive reasoning?
However, on theism we believe in the God of the universe that is guiding, causing, and controlling reality consistently. So when we are asked how we know that the past will be like the future we can say that nature will be uniformed because we believe in a divine being that controls it consistently. It is a part of God’s nature to make reality consistent and orderly. On naturalism and atheism all you have is the universe by itself which is not guided by anything whatsoever so as not to ensure that the future will be like the past.
What about miracles?
Miracles are not a violation of God’s consistency, for they are merely a unique event that takes place when God is revealing himself. Since these events are rare to the time of the Old and New Testament they do not affect our probabilistic reasoning.
Conclusion:
Thus, from this Transcendental argument we can see that if one wants to be reasonable in holding to their basic belief about the inductive process (uniformity of nature) then they ought to infer God's existence from this basic belief rather than a belief in naturalism.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Transcendental Arguments For God's Existence Part 1
The first Transcendental argument I am going to give is the moral one. William Lane Craig and Greg Bahnsen use this form of argumentation and I have been greatly influenced by both of these men on issues pertaining to arguments for God's existence. So here goes my formulation of the Transcendental argument for God's existence from what I will call "moral facts". Here it goes:
P1: If God does not exist moral facts do not exist
P2: Moral facts exist
C: Hence, God exist
Moral Facts:
What I mean by moral facts is that there are good and bad things independent of our recognition of it. This is sort of like the fact that sea world exists, even if no one recognized the existence of such a place as sea world the place would still exist. Likewise, with moral facts they exist independent of our recognition of it. Suppose there were a possible world P* where everyone thought that the holocaust was morally praiseworthy and that everyone thought putting your first born child into a microwave was morally obligatory, in P* everyone would be moral wrong in doing these things even if not a single human being recognized it.
God and Moral Facts:
If God does not exist then these sort of moral facts do not exist. God is a necessarily good being that always commands what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. It is necessary that God command the good in the Christian theistic tradition. This sort of God would be the necessary meta-ethical foundation for all moral facts.
No Moral Facts without God:
If God does not exist how could moral facts exist? They simply cannot. Some might argue for atheistic moral realism, the view that immaterial forms or propositions are our meta-ethical foundation for moral facts. But this view is implausible for a number of reasons: 1) It is hard to conceive of a immaterial objects having content apart from a mind with thoughts that possess content, 2) We are only obligated to persons and morality requires moral obligation and there can be no moral obligation on atheistic moral realism since they reject the person hood of God, 3) we would have no way to know what is in fact good because these immaterial forms or propositions do not cause or relate to the world, 4) The meta-ethical foundation of the good (forms or propositions) would be themselves not good because only persons can possess moral properties of goodness and badness. The good would not be good in this case which would be a contradiction.
Conclusion:
The God of Christianity or tradition theism fulfills criteria 1-4 and thus if one wants to be a) reasonable and b) believe in moral facts then they ought to believe in the existence of God.
P1: If God does not exist moral facts do not exist
P2: Moral facts exist
C: Hence, God exist
Moral Facts:
What I mean by moral facts is that there are good and bad things independent of our recognition of it. This is sort of like the fact that sea world exists, even if no one recognized the existence of such a place as sea world the place would still exist. Likewise, with moral facts they exist independent of our recognition of it. Suppose there were a possible world P* where everyone thought that the holocaust was morally praiseworthy and that everyone thought putting your first born child into a microwave was morally obligatory, in P* everyone would be moral wrong in doing these things even if not a single human being recognized it.
God and Moral Facts:
If God does not exist then these sort of moral facts do not exist. God is a necessarily good being that always commands what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. It is necessary that God command the good in the Christian theistic tradition. This sort of God would be the necessary meta-ethical foundation for all moral facts.
No Moral Facts without God:
If God does not exist how could moral facts exist? They simply cannot. Some might argue for atheistic moral realism, the view that immaterial forms or propositions are our meta-ethical foundation for moral facts. But this view is implausible for a number of reasons: 1) It is hard to conceive of a immaterial objects having content apart from a mind with thoughts that possess content, 2) We are only obligated to persons and morality requires moral obligation and there can be no moral obligation on atheistic moral realism since they reject the person hood of God, 3) we would have no way to know what is in fact good because these immaterial forms or propositions do not cause or relate to the world, 4) The meta-ethical foundation of the good (forms or propositions) would be themselves not good because only persons can possess moral properties of goodness and badness. The good would not be good in this case which would be a contradiction.
Conclusion:
The God of Christianity or tradition theism fulfills criteria 1-4 and thus if one wants to be a) reasonable and b) believe in moral facts then they ought to believe in the existence of God.
The Ontological Argument For God's Existence
I have previously written on the classical ontological argument on this blog, but this post I want to give a ontological argument that is a bit more contemporary and that I believe firmly to be valid and sound. Here it goes:
P1: I can think of the greatest possible being (G*)
P2: It is better to be necessary rather than not if one were G*
P3: G* entails that he will have every property that is better to have rather than not
P4: G* is necessary
C: G* exists and exists necessarily and we call this being God.
We know that P2 is true on the basis of intuition. We know a lot of things through intuition like mathematical, modal, and moral truths. But some intuitions we have to flush out and argue for. For me personally it is pretty obvious that it is better to be necessary rather than not, but for those of us that are not so convinced perhaps this argument might persuade you:
P5: It is better to be the precondition of moral facts rather than not
That is to say that morals exist because God exists. This would be through some sort of divine nature or divine command theory, whichever you think is more reasonable. Moral truths are necessary truths. It could never be okay for us to murder or rape. But in order for God to be the precondition of moral facts or truths God would have to be necessary. Necessity has to be true in order for P5 to be true then it seems that necessity is a precondition of P5. If something is great to have then it seems like all of the preconditions that make it to be are great to have. P5 is great to have and a precondition of it is Necessity therefore Necessity is great to have.
Conclusion:
It seems then from this line of argumentation that it is more reasonable to believe in God rather than not. I will make further posts using this similar type of reasoning as to what this God is like in terms of features.
P1: I can think of the greatest possible being (G*)
P2: It is better to be necessary rather than not if one were G*
P3: G* entails that he will have every property that is better to have rather than not
P4: G* is necessary
C: G* exists and exists necessarily and we call this being God.
We know that P2 is true on the basis of intuition. We know a lot of things through intuition like mathematical, modal, and moral truths. But some intuitions we have to flush out and argue for. For me personally it is pretty obvious that it is better to be necessary rather than not, but for those of us that are not so convinced perhaps this argument might persuade you:
P5: It is better to be the precondition of moral facts rather than not
That is to say that morals exist because God exists. This would be through some sort of divine nature or divine command theory, whichever you think is more reasonable. Moral truths are necessary truths. It could never be okay for us to murder or rape. But in order for God to be the precondition of moral facts or truths God would have to be necessary. Necessity has to be true in order for P5 to be true then it seems that necessity is a precondition of P5. If something is great to have then it seems like all of the preconditions that make it to be are great to have. P5 is great to have and a precondition of it is Necessity therefore Necessity is great to have.
Conclusion:
It seems then from this line of argumentation that it is more reasonable to believe in God rather than not. I will make further posts using this similar type of reasoning as to what this God is like in terms of features.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Biblical Arguments For Divine Causal Determinism
In This blog post we will take a look at some biblical arguments for the reformed doctrine of Divine Foreordination or Divine Causal Determinism.
Argument 1:
This verse does not say that somethings works out according to the counsel of his will but rather all things, this would undoubtedly include every action of man and even the disasters that occur in the natural world.
Argument 2:
This verse is teaching us that people are not what they are because of what they determine but rather they what they are because God determines them as such.
Conclusion:
From these two verses alone it seems like the doctrine of foreordination or divine causal determinism is reasonable from scripture (more to come in future posts).
Argument 1:
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will
-Ephesians 1:11
This verse does not say that somethings works out according to the counsel of his will but rather all things, this would undoubtedly include every action of man and even the disasters that occur in the natural world.
Argument 2:
I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
-Jeremiah 10:23
This verse is teaching us that people are not what they are because of what they determine but rather they what they are because God determines them as such.
Conclusion:
From these two verses alone it seems like the doctrine of foreordination or divine causal determinism is reasonable from scripture (more to come in future posts).
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Biblical Arguments For Irresistible Grace
In this post I will give the four strongest biblical arguments for the Reformed/Calvinistic Doctrine of sufficient grace (or more popularly “irresistible grace”). This is the “I” in the Calvinistic acronym TULIP. To be clear, what I mean by sufficient grace is that when God acts on any agent for the purpose of bringing about faith, all that is needed is God’s causal activity and nothing else. In Short, God’s grace in scripture is more than necessary, it is sufficient for bringing about faith unto salvation.
Argument 1:
Argument 2:
Argument 3:
In light of these exegetical considerations the argument for this passage leading to causal determinism in salvation would go something like this:
P1: Either agents are causally determined or they are libertarianly free with respect to salvation
P2: If faith and grace are not of you but of God then agents are not libertarianly free with respect to salvation
P3: Grace and Faith are jointly sufficient conditions for salvation
P4: Grace and Faith are not of you
CP5: Therefore, agents are not libertarianly free with respect to salvation (P2, P4)
C: Therefore, agents are causally determined with respect to salvation (P1, CP5).
Argument 4:
In conclusion, we have seen from these texts that the Calvinistic doctrine of Irresistible Grace is more reasonable to believe rather than not.
Argument 1:
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.This passage is teaching that anyone who is drawn is raised up on the last day. Raised up refers to being raised up in glory rather than damnation because Jesus consistently uses the phrase “on the last day” in this way throughout the entire discourse (John 6:39-40). Moreover, the Greek word “helkuo” (or "draws") suggests sufficient causality because John uses it with regards to Peter dragging fish that he has caught (John 21:11) and John seems to use it this way consistently throughout his Gospel. All this to say: the causal deterministic interpretation of this verse seems more reasonable than not.
-John 6:44
Argument 2:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for youThese verses are fairly self-explanatory. Peter is saying here that our imperishable salvation was caused by God. Some may argue that only our being born again is what is caused in this passage, and that once we are born again we can still synergistically reject salvation. However, it is clear that Peter is saying that we were caused to be born again "to" an imperishable inheritance. This simple connecting word is important. Peter is directly connecting God's causation with everlasting life in heaven through our regeneration, or being born again. The two (regeneration and salvation) cannot be separated. Moreover, there is a lack of mention of libertarian human cooperation here. We should be wise as Paul was and we ought to go beyond the things that are written (1 Cor. 4:6).
-1 Peter 1: 3,4
Argument 3:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.Believe it or not this is one of the strongest forms of positive argumentation for causal determination in salvation from scripture, but it involves a little understanding of Greek to flush this out. The Greek word for “this” which in Greek is “touto” is neuter, so it refers to the entire statement: “For by grace you have been saved through faith”. In Ephesians 2:8 when it says “this (or “touto”) is not your own doing", it is referring to the entire statement which includes both the grace and the faith. This is because the words "grace" and "faith" in the Greek are in the feminine gender. The only way that one could ever argue that "this" is referring to one or the other (either grace or faith, rather than both) is if "this" was also in the feminine. But as the statement stands neither grace nor faith agree in gender with "this", so it must be referring to the statement as a whole.
-Ephesians 2: 8,9
In light of these exegetical considerations the argument for this passage leading to causal determinism in salvation would go something like this:
P1: Either agents are causally determined or they are libertarianly free with respect to salvation
P2: If faith and grace are not of you but of God then agents are not libertarianly free with respect to salvation
P3: Grace and Faith are jointly sufficient conditions for salvation
P4: Grace and Faith are not of you
CP5: Therefore, agents are not libertarianly free with respect to salvation (P2, P4)
C: Therefore, agents are causally determined with respect to salvation (P1, CP5).
Argument 4:
For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.This verse is drawing an analogy between light shining in darkness as God giving us personal saving knowledge of his Son Jesus Christ. Light shining in darkness is a causally sufficient event in nature and thus God giving us saving knowledge is causally sufficient upon us. The darkness cannot reject the light. Moreover, when Paul says that God said "let light shine out of darkness" this is clearly a reference to creation ex nihilo, which was a totally unilateral act of God. In the same way that God acted unilaterally and monergistically when He commanded light to be, so too He acts in the heart of the believer, according to Paul. Finally, the verse goes on to drive home this point by emphasizing that this treasure that we have shows God’s power and not ours, but if libertarian cooperation were to be true then it would be God’s power plus ours. However, this verse seems to negate this alternative possibility. Thus, the text seems to teach causal determination in salvation.
-2 Corinthains 4: 6,7
In conclusion, we have seen from these texts that the Calvinistic doctrine of Irresistible Grace is more reasonable to believe rather than not.
Friday, January 30, 2009
A Philosophical Argument for the Filioque Clause
In Western Christianity we believe in the Trinitarian doctrine of the filioque. Eastern Christianity rejects this notion. They believe that the procession of the Holy Spirit only occurs from the Father. The agreement over the East and the West is that the Father begets the Son and that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. The thesis of this post is to demonstrate that under Western philosophical presuppositions the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is more reasonable than not.
The Western view is more reasonable because it has a lot more theological and philosophical explanatory power, whereas the Eastern view lacks this explanatory power. Since the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son is begotten by the Father how do we distinguish them? One might say that they have different contingent relational properties such as the Spirit is the one who sanctifies the church or that the Son is the one who purchases our redemption, etc. The problem is that these relational properties are contingent and as a result they just happen to be the case but they don’t have to be the case. They do not tell us anything essential about the Son or the Spirit, they are only accidental relation properties. So for example, in a possible world W* where there is no creation what do we really know about the differentiation between the persons of the Trinity, specifically the Son and the Spirit? Nothing! And that seems like a very strange and odd thing to say about the persons of the Trinity in whom we are supposed to know and love. The East recognizes that there is a difference between "procession" and "being begotten", but how can they explain this? They would say that at least they are both coming from the Father in the sense that their personhood is being sustained from all eternity past. But the question that has to be asked is: Where is the difference between these persons? They could say that it is just mysterious and the causation must be different but we just don’t know how to reasonably distinguish them. This view seems completely ineffable.
The West, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be in hot water on this score. For we can say that the difference between "being begotten" and "proceeding from" is that being begotten is from one necessary causal relation whereas proceeding is two necessary causal relations (since of course the Spirit presumably comes from the Father and the Son).
Thus if one wants to have more explanatory power in their Trinitarian theology and philosophy, they ought to adopt the western view of the Trinity (namely, the filioque).
The Western view is more reasonable because it has a lot more theological and philosophical explanatory power, whereas the Eastern view lacks this explanatory power. Since the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son is begotten by the Father how do we distinguish them? One might say that they have different contingent relational properties such as the Spirit is the one who sanctifies the church or that the Son is the one who purchases our redemption, etc. The problem is that these relational properties are contingent and as a result they just happen to be the case but they don’t have to be the case. They do not tell us anything essential about the Son or the Spirit, they are only accidental relation properties. So for example, in a possible world W* where there is no creation what do we really know about the differentiation between the persons of the Trinity, specifically the Son and the Spirit? Nothing! And that seems like a very strange and odd thing to say about the persons of the Trinity in whom we are supposed to know and love. The East recognizes that there is a difference between "procession" and "being begotten", but how can they explain this? They would say that at least they are both coming from the Father in the sense that their personhood is being sustained from all eternity past. But the question that has to be asked is: Where is the difference between these persons? They could say that it is just mysterious and the causation must be different but we just don’t know how to reasonably distinguish them. This view seems completely ineffable.
The West, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be in hot water on this score. For we can say that the difference between "being begotten" and "proceeding from" is that being begotten is from one necessary causal relation whereas proceeding is two necessary causal relations (since of course the Spirit presumably comes from the Father and the Son).
P1: All Three members of the trinity are necessarily and essentially (N+E) distinguishable in every possible world.
P2: There is a possible world W* were God did not create.
P3: In W* the persons of the trinity can be distinguished by having different necessary and essential casual relations between each other.
P4: The traditional Trinitarian causal relations plus the insertion of the Filioque explains the N+E distinctions between the members in a possible world W*
C: Hence, the Flilique is more reasonable than not.
Thus if one wants to have more explanatory power in their Trinitarian theology and philosophy, they ought to adopt the western view of the Trinity (namely, the filioque).
Thursday, January 29, 2009
A Reformed Response to Mark Krause on the Person/Nature Distinction
The following is my response to an argument made against my recent post, Problems with the Eastern Orthodox Distinction of Person/Nature?, on the Eastern Orthodox blog "The Well Of Questions" by Mark Krause. Mark's full response can be found here.
Response: My definition was perfectly clear. I think you are redefining terms at this juncture because you want to avoid the obvious charge that you are a nominalist only with regards to persons. I am a nominalist only with regards to justification, thus I am not a nominalist either way given your definiton. But I am a nomialist and so are you with regards to one thing, I just happen to be clear about it. I do not reject universals as a whole and neither do you, but that was not the claim of my post at all. Also, just to be clear to our readers, the word "hypostasis" means "person."
Response: I do not really see how, if a person instantiates a nature and gives it particular existence, that therefore we are warranted in allowing nominal predication to that one entity. You are saying that persons give particularity to everything and because of that it does not need to instantiate a universal. I do not see how giving the persons of the trinity this unique role that therefore we are able to be nominalists with regards to persons. Another problem remains: mere human beings also have persons but they do not give concrete existence to everything, yet your view of personhood would still require you to have fictional predications of human persons. This seems inconsistent because you are saying the persons of the trinity cannot be instantiated because they give things particular existence, but mere human persons do not do that so there is no reason to have merely names or fictional predicates for them. Why couldn’t the nature of God establish particularity after he has chosen freely to create? Why could not a person be an instantiation of a universal and also give particularity to everything else? You don't argue for the negation of the alternative possibilities. In addition, why could not the members of the trinity be distinct and yet at the same self-instantiate personhood in all three instances of the divine persons? These all seem like plausible ways out and your questions that do not bring to the table any sort of metaphysical dilemma.
Response: Well I obviously I think that scripture does teach an extrinsic, nominalistic view of justification, but I do not see any reason for thinking that Reformed folks have to hold that there is no universal for justice whatsoever. I simply hold to nominalism with regards to justification and not for justice. In this case the imputation is still just because Jesus Christ made a covenant and earned righteousness that he did not need so that he can give it to us legally. The act is allowed under the exception of an agreement between it’s just members (the trinity). It seems to me that since the Father and Son made such an agreement that this exception makes a lot more sense than saying a person gives particularity and this somehow excludes it from real predication.
Response: I actually think there is a universal for particulars, I agree with Scotus on this point. I see no reason for doubting this. I think that justice is a universal but with regards to covenants and believers' justification one can predicate nominalistically about a believers' status in some sense, but the righteousness is a real righteousness (namely it is Christ’s righteousness that is merited for us). I will make a future post arguing for this view from scripture alone.
I conclude that your argument about persons allowing for particularity does not entail that you have to predicate them nominalistically, and that I can make theological exceptions for nominalistic predication (at least partially) about believers in a covenantal relation made by God.
First of all, I don’t quite know what to make of his definition of nominalism. Here’s a better one: Nominalism is the thesis that there are no universals. Given this definition, it is very difficult to see how Orthodoxy is nominalist. We surely think that universals exist, we just do not think that hypostasis is a universal.
Response: My definition was perfectly clear. I think you are redefining terms at this juncture because you want to avoid the obvious charge that you are a nominalist only with regards to persons. I am a nominalist only with regards to justification, thus I am not a nominalist either way given your definiton. But I am a nomialist and so are you with regards to one thing, I just happen to be clear about it. I do not reject universals as a whole and neither do you, but that was not the claim of my post at all. Also, just to be clear to our readers, the word "hypostasis" means "person."
Instead, hypostasis is what gives reality to universals. Hypostasis is the entity that instantiates a nature and thereby gives it a concrete existence, but obviously, an hypostasis is not merely the instantiation of a nature. Hypostasis is not the kind of entity that could be a universal because it is inherently what gives a concrete PARTICULAR existence to a nature. This particularity is key. What is natural is what is held in common between the members of a natural class, but what is hypostatic is what is particular to the individual members of the natural class. It is a category confusion to seek the universal hypostasis that every individual hypostasis instantiates. The whole point of the category is to have a place for particularity. If one denies this categorical distinction between hypostasis and nature then how does one establish the particularity of the members of a natural class? More to the point, how does one establish the particularity of the members of the Trinity?
Response: I do not really see how, if a person instantiates a nature and gives it particular existence, that therefore we are warranted in allowing nominal predication to that one entity. You are saying that persons give particularity to everything and because of that it does not need to instantiate a universal. I do not see how giving the persons of the trinity this unique role that therefore we are able to be nominalists with regards to persons. Another problem remains: mere human beings also have persons but they do not give concrete existence to everything, yet your view of personhood would still require you to have fictional predications of human persons. This seems inconsistent because you are saying the persons of the trinity cannot be instantiated because they give things particular existence, but mere human persons do not do that so there is no reason to have merely names or fictional predicates for them. Why couldn’t the nature of God establish particularity after he has chosen freely to create? Why could not a person be an instantiation of a universal and also give particularity to everything else? You don't argue for the negation of the alternative possibilities. In addition, why could not the members of the trinity be distinct and yet at the same self-instantiate personhood in all three instances of the divine persons? These all seem like plausible ways out and your questions that do not bring to the table any sort of metaphysical dilemma.
Justification for the categorical distinction between hypostasis and nature aside, even if everything Nate says is correct and compelling about the “nominalism of Orthodoxy” regarding hypostasis, this still provides no reason why the Orthodox cannot condemn the Reformed for having a nominalist view of justice. We don’t have a nominalist view of justice because we the think that Scripture teaches to the contrary. Does Scripture also teach that hypostasis is a universal? I don’t think so.
Response: Well I obviously I think that scripture does teach an extrinsic, nominalistic view of justification, but I do not see any reason for thinking that Reformed folks have to hold that there is no universal for justice whatsoever. I simply hold to nominalism with regards to justification and not for justice. In this case the imputation is still just because Jesus Christ made a covenant and earned righteousness that he did not need so that he can give it to us legally. The act is allowed under the exception of an agreement between it’s just members (the trinity). It seems to me that since the Father and Son made such an agreement that this exception makes a lot more sense than saying a person gives particularity and this somehow excludes it from real predication.
Thus, Nate’s argument doesn’t succeed. The point is Scripture teaches that justice is real and a universal, but the Reformed do not. Scripture does not teach that there is a universal for hypostasis. One reason for this, is surely that such a teaching would be committing a grave category mistake. I mean, seriously, does Nate think that all realists must believe in a Universal called “particularity” that all particulars must participate in? Such a notion would be silly because of the obvious category confustion between universals and particulars.
Response: I actually think there is a universal for particulars, I agree with Scotus on this point. I see no reason for doubting this. I think that justice is a universal but with regards to covenants and believers' justification one can predicate nominalistically about a believers' status in some sense, but the righteousness is a real righteousness (namely it is Christ’s righteousness that is merited for us). I will make a future post arguing for this view from scripture alone.
I conclude that your argument about persons allowing for particularity does not entail that you have to predicate them nominalistically, and that I can make theological exceptions for nominalistic predication (at least partially) about believers in a covenantal relation made by God.
Problems with the Eastern Orthodox Distinction of Person/Nature?
In Eastern Orthodox theology there is a distinction between a person and a nature. A nature in this view would be a thing that has instantiated properties. A person is not a nature nor is it an instantiation of a nature. The reason this is so is to avoid Christological heresies such as Nestorianism. For if a person is an instantiation of a nature or is a nature itself then you have two persons in the incarnation which would be Nestorianism. I do not think one has to buy this distinction to avoid Christological Heresies, but nonetheless their motivation is a good one. The problem with this position is that it leads to pure nominalism:
P1: Nominalism is the view that general predications of individual things are merely names and not instances of universals.
P2: The Person is not a instantiation of a universal
C: All predications of a person are nominalistic
If a person does not instantiate any universals then what is predicated of the person is merely a fictional title or a title based on names alone. This is significant because the Eastern Orthodox often accuse Protestants of being nominalists because of their view of legal justification by faith alone (as if nominalism in all respects were irrational or theoretically deficient). But here it seems that the Eastern Orthodox reasoning on this point is inconsistent and arbitrary since with regards to persons they have no problem with being nominalistic. Thus, this shows two things 1) the eastern view of person is nominalistic, 2) Eastern Orthodox no longer has a philosophical critique about the Protestant view of Justification on the basis that it is nominalistic.
***Note: This is inconsistent with my last post on Divine Simplicity but I was merely giving that post for those who thought perhaps the person/nature distinction is reasonable.
P1: Nominalism is the view that general predications of individual things are merely names and not instances of universals.
P2: The Person is not a instantiation of a universal
C: All predications of a person are nominalistic
If a person does not instantiate any universals then what is predicated of the person is merely a fictional title or a title based on names alone. This is significant because the Eastern Orthodox often accuse Protestants of being nominalists because of their view of legal justification by faith alone (as if nominalism in all respects were irrational or theoretically deficient). But here it seems that the Eastern Orthodox reasoning on this point is inconsistent and arbitrary since with regards to persons they have no problem with being nominalistic. Thus, this shows two things 1) the eastern view of person is nominalistic, 2) Eastern Orthodox no longer has a philosophical critique about the Protestant view of Justification on the basis that it is nominalistic.
***Note: This is inconsistent with my last post on Divine Simplicity but I was merely giving that post for those who thought perhaps the person/nature distinction is reasonable.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Using Eastern Orthodoxy to Defend Divine Simplicity
In Eastern Orthodox Christianity the doctrine of Divine simplicity is largely rejected. However, the east does provide western theologians with some helpful distinctions that may help defend the doctrine of divine simplicity with a few areas of alleged incoherence. In this blog we will use the essence/energies distinction and the person/nature distinction to defend the doctrine of divine simplicity.
*Person/Nature and Divine Simplicity*
These propositions are found incoherent by a number of objectors to the doctrine of divine simplicity:
P1: In God’s essence there are no distinctions (Divine Simplicity)
P2: In God’s essence there are three distinct persons (Trinity)
C: The conjunction of P1 & P2 is necessarily false
In eastern christian thought (Eastern Orthodoxy) the persons are distinct from the nature; this is called the person nature distinction. The person is not an instantiation of a nature nor is it a nature. On the other hand, a nature has properties such that each property is an instantiation of a universal. Now that we have this distinction in mind let us apply it to the doctrine of divine simplicity. If we say that the persons are distinct but not separate from the essence/nature of God then it seems like the contradiction goes away. This is because the doctrine of divine simplicity is *only* about the essence of God ad intra and not about things distinct from it (like persons and actions).
In addition, this is also helpful to defend other objections against divine simplicity like this: “if one says that there is no distinction in God then God’s libertarian free will (being able to create or not create) is the same as his justice, mercy, and reason. If this is then true then perhaps God could voluntaristically will to be just or unjust. And this is clearly absurd.” (Michael Garten from Well of Questions gave me a response like this once). However, if one holds to this person/nature distinction as I have suggested then one could say that the wills are located in the persons. In which case you could say that God does not have the option to libertarianly will to be immoral or something that is logically contradictory since this will is not in his essence but in the persons.
*Essence/Energies and Divine Simplicity*
These propositions are found incoherent by a number of objectors to the doctrine of a contingent creation and divine simplicity:
S1: In God’s essence there is no distinction (Divine Simplicity)
S2: God creates from his essence by which there is no distinction
S3: God’s essence is necessary
S4: If S1, S2, and S3 are true then Creation is necessary
S5: It is false that creation is necessary
C: Divine Simplicity is false (S1)
The essence/energies distinction teaches that there is a distinction between God’s essence ad intra and his actions (the actions are called energies). Therefore, with this distinction in hand one can easily reject S2 and still hold that God’s essence ad intra is fundamentally simple or without any sort of distinction. This is even more helpful when one thinks that the will is located in the persons then one might argue that the person is the one that makes the decision to create or not create rather than putting this sort of deliberation in the essence that might lead to some sort of emanationism.
Concluding Remarks:
We have seen from this post that if one puts certain Eastern Orthodox distinctions at work in the doctrine of divine simplicity then one might be able to defend it with a lot more ease and confidence.
***Side Note****
If one wants to find information on the Eastern Orthodox teaching of person/nature and the essence/energies distinction then consult either Well of Questions Or Energetic Processions (Both links to these blogs are found on our " blog list" to the right).
*Person/Nature and Divine Simplicity*
These propositions are found incoherent by a number of objectors to the doctrine of divine simplicity:
P1: In God’s essence there are no distinctions (Divine Simplicity)
P2: In God’s essence there are three distinct persons (Trinity)
C: The conjunction of P1 & P2 is necessarily false
In eastern christian thought (Eastern Orthodoxy) the persons are distinct from the nature; this is called the person nature distinction. The person is not an instantiation of a nature nor is it a nature. On the other hand, a nature has properties such that each property is an instantiation of a universal. Now that we have this distinction in mind let us apply it to the doctrine of divine simplicity. If we say that the persons are distinct but not separate from the essence/nature of God then it seems like the contradiction goes away. This is because the doctrine of divine simplicity is *only* about the essence of God ad intra and not about things distinct from it (like persons and actions).
In addition, this is also helpful to defend other objections against divine simplicity like this: “if one says that there is no distinction in God then God’s libertarian free will (being able to create or not create) is the same as his justice, mercy, and reason. If this is then true then perhaps God could voluntaristically will to be just or unjust. And this is clearly absurd.” (Michael Garten from Well of Questions gave me a response like this once). However, if one holds to this person/nature distinction as I have suggested then one could say that the wills are located in the persons. In which case you could say that God does not have the option to libertarianly will to be immoral or something that is logically contradictory since this will is not in his essence but in the persons.
*Essence/Energies and Divine Simplicity*
These propositions are found incoherent by a number of objectors to the doctrine of a contingent creation and divine simplicity:
S1: In God’s essence there is no distinction (Divine Simplicity)
S2: God creates from his essence by which there is no distinction
S3: God’s essence is necessary
S4: If S1, S2, and S3 are true then Creation is necessary
S5: It is false that creation is necessary
C: Divine Simplicity is false (S1)
The essence/energies distinction teaches that there is a distinction between God’s essence ad intra and his actions (the actions are called energies). Therefore, with this distinction in hand one can easily reject S2 and still hold that God’s essence ad intra is fundamentally simple or without any sort of distinction. This is even more helpful when one thinks that the will is located in the persons then one might argue that the person is the one that makes the decision to create or not create rather than putting this sort of deliberation in the essence that might lead to some sort of emanationism.
Concluding Remarks:
We have seen from this post that if one puts certain Eastern Orthodox distinctions at work in the doctrine of divine simplicity then one might be able to defend it with a lot more ease and confidence.
***Side Note****
If one wants to find information on the Eastern Orthodox teaching of person/nature and the essence/energies distinction then consult either Well of Questions Or Energetic Processions (Both links to these blogs are found on our " blog list" to the right).
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
How Then Should We Do Apologetics?
Introduction
(1) You can believe in God without any evidence. (2) Without God, you can’t know anything at all. These are perhaps the most controversial Christian claims of the 20th century. Both were made by Christian apologists. The first is the claim of Reformed Epistemology and its most prominent advocate, Alvin Plantinga of Notre Dame. The second is the claim of Presuppositionalism, pioneered by Cornelius Van Til of Westminster Theological Seminary. These two approaches to apologetics have many similarities, both in theory and practice. In this paper, my aim is three-fold. First, I will compare and contrast these two apologetic schools and offer suggestions as to how they might work together to strengthen one another. Second, I will offer a critique of Presuppositionalism from the perspective of Reformed Epistemology, which I have playfully dubbed the “Transcendental Argument against Presuppositionalism.” The final section of the paper will be devoted to a brief interaction between a synthesized Presuppositional-Reformed Epistemology method and the remaining heavy hitters in the Apologetic world; Classical Apologetics and Evidentialism. My hope is to show that there is actually a great deal of consensus between the modern representatives of these other two schools and my proposed “middle way”, and that once the epistemological insights of both Presuppositionalism and Reformed Epistemology are used as our apologetic grounding, we will find ourselves free to adapt our apologetic method to particular situations. We move, then, to the first task of compare and contrast.Presuppostional Apologetics
First, I should make clear an assumption of this paper. For the primary exposition of what the Presuppositional method is, I will be relying almost exclusively on one of Van Til’s most prominent disciples, Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen. My un-argued-for assumption will be that Bahnsen represents the best and most persuasive version of Presuppositionalism that remains the most true to Van Til. So then, what is Presuppositionalism?The two pillars of Presuppostional thought are “the myth of neutrality” and the necessity of presupposing God as the precondition for intelligibility. Says Bahnsen:
The unbeliever will challenge you to build your case for God on neutral ground,Everyone has presuppositions, and everyone reasons from them to conclusions. So there can really be no such thing as a neutral, unbiased perspective, the “view from nowhere.” Bahnsen’s warning is meant to show that when an unbeliever says that we all ought to be “neutral” and without any presuppositions in our reasoning, what he is actually doing is being biased towards his own hidden presuppositions and against the presuppositions of the believer, namely, the existence of God. In other words, one way of understanding the Presuppostional method is that it starts by asking the preliminary question, “Why should we favor the presupposition that there is no God over the presupposition that there is?” Of course, that’s only the beginning. Presuppositionalism makes the much stronger claim that, in fact, no other presupposition but the Christian one allows for the possibility of reason, period. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we had better ask the question, “What is a presupposition?”
without building on your foundation in God. Be warned! If you don’t
start with God as your basic assumption, you can’t prove anything. The
assumption of God’s existence is essential to all reasoning.1
Bahnsen, interpreting Van Til on this very question, says:
A Presupposition is, therefore, an “elementary” (i.e., basic, foundational,
starting point) assumption about reality as a whole. An elementary
presupposition serves as an essential condition necessary to one’s outlook on
the world and life. It is a necessary precondition for human thought and
experience, without which logical reasoning would be impossible and human
experience unintelligible.2
Presuppositions are not just implicit beliefs that you hold. They actually govern the way you think, “all the way down to how you select and employ specific facts from the countless number of facts ceaselessly flowing through your senses and into your mind each and every moment of the day.”3 You cannot even think about the most basic facts of your daily life without presuppositions, let alone argue about concepts such as the existence of God or universal moral laws. But this is only the first part of understanding presuppositions. Presuppositions do not operate in isolation from one another, but rather work together within a worldview. Bahnsen defines a worldview as follows:
A worldview is a network of presuppositions (which are not verified by the
procedures of natural science) regarding reality (metaphysics), knowing
(epistemology), and conduct (ethics) in terms of which every element of human
experience is related and interpreted.4
Everyone must have a framework by
which they understand the world and their own relation to it. Without such
a framework there could be no coherence to our thought life. Thus, it
makes no sense to speak of neutral epistemic ground, if by that we mean a ground
without any presuppositions. The presuppositions are the ground!5
What is the practical significance of all this for the Presuppositional apologetic method? First, you cannot be neutral. You cannot assume the unbeliever’s worldview (which purports to be neutral) when attempting to prove it false, for despite the claim to neutrality, we have seen that no worldview can function without presuppositions. And the unbeliever’s presuppositions are antithetical to those of the Christian (which is seen most clearly in the unbeliever’s presupposition that there is no God). To accept the unbeliever’s worldview, then, would be to accept those presuppositions, which the Christian necessarily cannot do. Bahnsen goes one step further by claiming that it is not merely unreasonable to attempt neutrality, but sinful. When Christians attempt to reason in an “unbiased” way in the hope of establishing neutral ground, “they are not only contradicting reality (since no one can be neutral), but are denying the creator of all reality (by not bowing before His absolute Lordship). Such an attempt is both vain and immoral, both illogical and unfaithful.”6
The second practical application to apologetics comes from the much stronger Presuppositional claim that God is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of reality. Put simply, unless a person S presupposes the existence of the Christian God, S has no rational justification for any of his beliefs. This is because all of S’s beliefs are either reasonable or unreasonable. If they are unreasonable, then obviously they are not justified. But if they are reasonable, it must be because they meet all the necessary criteria that make something reasonable. All of this seems perfectly mundane and obvious. But, says the Presuppositionalist, one of those criteria must be that reason itself is intelligible. And this requires presupposing the Christian God. Bahnsen elaborates:
The point of emphasizing “consistently” in the above quotation is to highlight the fact that non-Christians do in fact use reason and do have true beliefs. This is possible because they do in fact presuppose God, which is inconsistent with their professed worldview. This also involves the touchy matter of self-deception, which we will address later.…the non-Christian must establish his theory of knowledge on the same foundation
upon which he established reality: nebulous, chaotic, irrational chance.
If followed out consistently the non-Christian theory of knowledge would utterly
destroy the very possibility of knowledge, causing it to drown in the turbulent
ocean of irrationalism. There is no way to account for reason in the
non-Christian system.7
The Presuppositional method, then, has several distinct features from traditional or evidential methods. Christianity is not presented as the best possible worldview, but as the only rational worldview to hold. Presuppositionalism attempts to prove this by showing “the impossibility of the contrary.” This is a very important phrase that makes up the core of the Presuppositional method. The unbeliever is required to consider which worldview, as a whole, makes all of human experience intelligible. As such, “It is not a direct argument dealing with individual facts, but an indirect one dealing with the nature of facts.”8 Presuppositionalism seeks to establish the truth of Christianity by demonstrating that no other worldview can make intelligible any aspect of human experience, and are therefore ultimately self-contradictory and impossible. To quote Van Til’s most famous (or perhaps infamous) line in describing this method of doing apologetics: “The only ‘proof’ of the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of ‘proving’ anything at all.”9
The corollary of the impossibility of the contrary is that of total epistemic certainty. In this regard Presuppositionalism stands alone. Both Classical and Evidential apologetics deal with probability. Based on the available evidence and the use of best reason, we can come to the conclusion that Christianity is the most plausible worldview, but we must always admit that there is some finite chance that we are wrong. Our certainty may reach 99.9 percent, but it can never reach 100. Presuppositionalism, on the other hand, claims to give us absolute certainty in the truth of Christianity, because all contrary options are impossible.
Reformed Epistemology
Put simply, Reformed Epistemology tells us that it is possible to believe in the existence of God without any evidence. This is because belief in God can be classified within that group of beliefs known as properly basic. A basic belief would include things like sensory beliefs (beliefs about the external world) and memory beliefs. Examples of these might be:
I see a tree,
I had breakfast this morning.
There is no evidence for these beliefs other than the fact of the sensory or memory experience itself, and yet we would normally want to say that such beliefs are perfectly rational. And yet it would also be wrong to say that such beliefs are groundless. In these cases, though the beliefs are not based upon other beliefs, they are indeed grounded.
Upon having an experience of a certain sort, I believe that I am perceiving a tree. In the typical case I do not hold this belief on the basis of other beliefs; it is nonetheless not groundless. My having that characteristic sort of experience—to use Professor’s Chisholm’s language, my being appeared treely to—plays a crucial role in the formation and justification of that belief. We might say this experience, together, perhaps, with other circumstances, is what justifies me in holding it; this is the ground of my justification, and, by extension, the ground of the belief itself.11
Belief in God can be like this. Plantinga cites John Calvin’s concept of the Sensus Divinitatus. This “sense of the divine” was given to us by God in order to predispose us to forming beliefs such as:
God is speaking to me,
God has created [the world],
God disapproves of what I have done,
God forgives me,
God is to be thanked and praised.12
Beliefs such as (1), (3), and (4) might arise when one reads the Bible, spontaneously and in the same way that a belief such as “I see a tree” arises when one has the experience of seeing a tree. Beliefs (2) and (5) might arise when someone observes the beauty and order of the natural world, or when life is “sweet and satisfying.” At this point, Plantinga notes that none of these beliefs is the belief “God exists.” But each of the beliefs above self-evidently entails the existence of such a person as God. So, strictly speaking, belief in God qua belief in God is not properly basic, but rather beliefs such as (1) – (5), beliefs about his attributes and activities, are properly basic.
Another important feature of Reformed Epistemology is the concept of warrant. Warrant, according to Plantinga, is that feature that tips the scales and turns a true belief into knowledge. It would be impossible to treat this concept adequately in a paper of this size. For our purposes we need only give the briefest sketch. A belief has warrant if (1) it is produced by properly functioning cognitive faculties, (2) in an appropriate epistemic environment, (3) according to a design plan aimed at truth. Plantinga argues at length in his book Warranted Christian Belief that belief in God without evidence does indeed meet these criteria.
The apologetic application of Reformed Epistemology is two-fold. First, it provides justification (or warrant) for belief in God, even in the face of objections. Without attempting to defend him here, Plantinga argues that a strongly held basic belief can be an intrinsic defeater-defeater, meaning that it may possess a certain inherent ability to defeat objections (defeaters) raised against belief in God, such as the problem of evil. Reformed Epistemology maintains that it is not irrational to continue believing in God even if a Christian has no other response to an objection (like the Problem of evil) than the basic belief itself. Second, the concept of proper function and all that it entails allows for several versions of a transcendental argument for theism. These transcendental arguments are similar to the transcendental arguments of Presuppositionalism, only far more limited in their scope (they do not purport to show that all other worldviews are false or irrational, only naturalism. And they do not argue in favor of Christianity specifically, only theism in general).
Combining Strengths
At first it may be difficult to see where these two schools meet and where they diverge. This is in part because Reformed Epistemology (hereafter, RE) is hard to nail down. On the one hand it fits very nicely into the Classical/Evidential schools, providing justification for belief in God without considering presuppositions. And yet the primary fruit of Plantinga’s labors has been a transcendental argument which, like Presuppositionalism, aims to show that the naturalistic worldview does not meet the preconditions for the intelligibility of human experience. For now I will restrict my comments to one area where I believe these two schools can greatly benefit one another: The problem of the self-deceiving unbeliever.One objection raised against Presuppositionalism has been that it is forced to the absurd conclusion that unbelievers can’t know anything. Some have taken this conclusion to follow naturally from the fact that Presuppositionalists require belief in God to justify any belief. If the unbeliever does not believe in God, it would seem to follow that he has no justification for any of his beliefs, and therefore has no knowledge. But isn’t it absurd to say that an unbeliever doesn’t really know that 2 + 2 = 4 because he doesn’t believe in God? Bahnsen has a response to this objection, taking his cue from Romans 1:18 – 21. There, Paul says:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For
what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have
been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that
have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did
not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their
thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
According to Paul, all men do know God. Not just any vague sense of a deity, but God; His attributes, power, and even His very nature. But according to Paul the unbeliever suppresses this truth “by their unrighteousness.” This is obviously a form of self-deception, but how exactly does it work? If we call belief in God “G”, are we forced to conclude that the unbeliever believes G and not G at the same time? Bahnsen’s solution is simple, yet brilliant. Let “S” stand for any non-Christian person:
S believes G
S believes the proposition “S does not believe G”
Here S’s false belief is not about G itself, but about S. The non-Christian has a false belief about himself, about his believing in God, rather than a false belief about God. The non-Christian, then, is no longer forced into believing a blatant contradiction, and can use (2) to suppress (1).
It seems to me that both sides can benefit from each other at this point. By making use of RE’s arguments for belief in God being properly basic, Presuppositionalism gets a neat epistemological system to fit its claims that all men know God.13 It even fits perfectly into Paul’s argument in Romans 1. Those things which are “clearly perceived” are God’s “attributes” and this is prompted by nature. This fits with the argument that beliefs such as “God created me”, “God is worthy of thanks and praise”, “God is good”, etc, are properly basic, and that from these basic beliefs we know necessarily that God exists.
The benefit to RE is, I think, even greater. One objection to the Sensus Divinitatus model is that not everyone believes in God, basically or in any other way. Plantinga’s response has been that due to the noetic effects of sin, not everyone forms the basic belief in God. But this seems inadequate, for two reasons. First, it fails to give full weight to Paul’s teaching in Romans 1. All men do know God, and there seems to be no good reason not to understand Paul as saying something like what RE is saying, namely that all men have basic beliefs about the attributes, creative power, and nature of God. Second, Plantinga wants us to conceive of the Sensus Divinitatus as being like any other cognitive faculty we possess. But if sin does not prevent us from forming properly basic beliefs with our other cognitive faculties, why should it do so with respect to the Sensus Divinitatus? Adopting Bahnsen’s model of self-deception seems a much wiser course. This would strengthen RE’s case for a Sensus Divinitatus by showing how it could be the case that everyone does in fact believe in God in the basic way. So much for mutual strengthening. Now we move to the second section, the critique of Presuppositionalism.
The Transcendental Argument against Presuppositionalism
Central to Presuppositionalism is the claim that belief in God is required to justify any otherwise rational belief, and even to justify rationality itself. No worldview can even get off the ground unless it presupposes the existence of God. This claim is literally what makes Presuppositionalism what it is. I believe it is false.
Now for the qualifications! William Lane Craig makes a very helpful distinction between God being the ontological grounding for all of reality, and being the epistemic grounding for all of reality.14 For a Christian, God obviously must be the former, and if the former then the latter as well. But for the unbeliever, God need not be the latter (the epistemic grounding) for his beliefs to be rational (at least, not that the unbeliever needs to be aware of). Hopefully this point will become clearer after I have presented my argument, so I will turn to that now.
In Presuppositionalism we are required to presuppose the existence of God. But if we presuppose God, specifically the Christian God, then it would seem to follow that He has created human beings with properly functioning, truth-producing cognitive faculties (as RE suggests). But if this is indeed the case, then any beliefs which are produced by said properly functioning, truth-producing faculties will necessarily be justified, and therefore rational. But if that is the case, then it follows that a person need not believe in God as the direct epistemic justification for the beliefs produced by his properly functioning, truth-producing faculties. They are justified on the basis of the faculties themselves, without reference to the designer of those faculties. Therefore, on Presuppositionalism’s most basic presupposition, it is shown to be self-contradicting.15
One possible response to this argument could be to deny that God has created human beings with reliable, truth-producing faculties, but this seems like an unlikely response for a Christian. A second objection could be to say, along with Plantinga, that the noetic effects of sin are of such a quality and severity that our faculties are neither reliable nor truth-producing after the Fall. But this also seems inadequate, for several reasons. First, this would make the Presuppositionalist claim out to be that only fallen man needs to presuppose God in order to make human experience intelligible, but this not, I don’t believe, the claim that Presuppositionalists are making. Second, Presuppositionalism is committed to the claim that fallen man knows God, which would seem to indicate that man’s cognitive faculties are functioning properly. It is only after this that the unbeliever suppresses his belief in God, which is a moral failing and not a cognitive one. In other words, it is not man’s faculties themselves that are corrupted by sin, but how he uses them.
How might this argument play out in example? One prominent example that Bahnsen liked to use against the naturalist was the belief in the uniformity of nature. Given a chance and chaotic universe, how can the naturalist justify his belief that nature is ordered, and that the future will resemble the past? The option seems open to the naturalist to claim that his belief in the uniformity of nature is properly basic (indeed, the Christian can and should say the same). If God has indeed created him, like everyone else, with reliable, truth-producing cognitive faculties that have produced in him, under the proper circumstances, his belief that nature is uniform, then it is justified without direct reference to God, and the naturalist is therefore perfectly rational. But of course, the notion of reliable, truth-producing faculties cannot be accounted for on a naturalistic system (which is what Plantinga’s transcendental argument aims to show). In which case it might be objected that RE merely pushes everything back one step, and in a more indirect way still requires presupposing God, just as Presuppositionalism does. But the whole point is that basic beliefs are justified without reference to any other beliefs. So until the naturalist hears Plantinga’s argument for theism from properly functioning faculties, he is perfectly rational in believing in the uniformity of nature without believing in God.16
A New Method?
It would be too ambitious to claim that I am actually proposing an entirely original way of doing apologetics. What I have done instead is to take the strengths of Presuppositionalism and RE and allowed them to work together, I hope, for the betterment of both. And while I have offered an argument that effectively rejects Presuppositionalism as its own apologetic method, I should note two things here. First, I have not proposed to reject the marvelous insights of Presuppositionalism when it comes to the myth of neutrality. I whole-heartedly agree that there can be no neutral, unbiased, presuppositionless way of reasoning. I also agree that it is impossible to adopt the presuppositions of the unbeliever, since they are contrary to Christianity. But that does not mean that we cannot adopt the unbeliever’s worldview, for the sake of argument, in order to show them that their presuppositions lead to contradiction or absurdity from within.17 Second, it seems that Presuppositionalism is not really an apologetic method of its own, so much as it is a critique of false epistemologies. Craig suggests that, “The central insight of Presuppositionalism is that theological rationalism is a false doctrine. We are not dependent on argument and evidence in order to believe rationally in God, or even to know that he exists.”18 This should sound familiar. Craig’s claim seems to be that the central insight of Presuppositionalism is exactly the central insight of RE. This may not be the whole story, but it is certainly true that they share this feature in common. In addition, the same critique has been lodged at RE, namely that it does not represent a unique method for doing apologetics, but that, like Presuppositionalism, it offers some very good insights regarding epistemology and justification, which ought to inform our apologetics.
I am inclined to agree, and with that we arrive at the final section of the paper where I will offer some very brief comments about the relationship our two schools have to the “old schools.” Both Presuppositionalism and RE make room for (and even encourage) the use of evidences. Both schools would allow for historical arguments, such as the arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, as well as the so-called theistic proofs of Classical Apologetics. In that sense there is significant agreement. Where Presuppositionalism parts ways with the others is in its claim that such arguments cannot be made in their traditional forms, but must be subsumed under the transcendental argument showing the impossibility of the contrary. Here I would disagree again with Presuppositionalism, especially when it comes to the resurrection arguments.19 First, the assumption seems to be that such traditional arguments require one to adopt a “neutral” perspective. But as we have seen, this is not the case. Even Bahnsen admits that we have “common ground” with the unbeliever in that we all see the same facts of reality, and this is all the traditional arguments require.20 Second, Presuppositionalism rejects these traditional arguments because they only give us probability, not certainty. Two points need to be made here. One, Presuppositionalism can’t really give us 100 percent certainty either, because it cannot in the final analysis make good on its claim to prove the impossibility of the contrary. There is always the chance that finite (and fallen) human beings can make errors in our reasoning, and even the transcendental argument is not immune from this. Two, even if we cannot have complete epistemic certainty, we can have perfect existential certainty, which is granted to us by the Holy Spirit (it might be better to drop the language of “certainty” altogether and simply talk of the assurance of faith). Finally, Bahnsen claims that such traditional arguments cannot ultimately be effective because the unbelieving naturalist can simply say, “Ok, Jesus rose from the dead, but all that proves is that weird things can happen.” But the unbelieving naturalist could say essentially the same thing in response to Bahnsen’s transcendental argument from the uniformity of nature. “Ok,” he says, “there is no good naturalistic explanation for the uniformity of nature yet, but there could be one that is currently outside of our present understanding, and regardless, that doesn’t mean I have to accept the Christian explanation.” Now Bahnsen would simply dismiss this as “wishful thinking.” But then why can we not dismiss the naturalist who says “weird things happen” in the same way? Bahnsen is, I think, inconsistent on this point.
On the other side, neither Classical nor Evidential apologists (at any rate, not their modern representatives) would disagree with Bahnsen that presuppositions are a necessary part of our reasoning about the world, nor would they disagree that unbiased neutrality is a myth.21
In the end, then, I believe these distinctive schools are not really all that far apart. And thus I would advocate what might be called “Practical Apologetics”, “Common Sense Apologetics”, or even (if I may be so bold) simply “Christian Apologetics.” The labels may have become unnecessary at this point. This should be especially true for those of the Reformed persuasion. If we really believe that it is the Holy Spirit who changes peoples’ hearts and minds, according to God’s sovereign plan, and that we are not actually responsible for anyone’s conversion to Christianity, then we should be free to use any apologetic strategy or argument, depending on the circumstances.
In summary, I believe that our apologetics must be informed by the epistemological insights of Presuppositionalism, recognizing that no one can be neutral or reason without guiding presuppositions, and of Reformed Epistemology, understanding the nature of basic beliefs, warrant and proper function. But with that epistemic grounding established, I believe we are free to adapt our actual apologetic method to particular situations, employing different tactics and arguments based upon the questions, needs and concerns of our audience.
Bibliography:
Bahnsen, Greg L. Pushing the Antithesis: The Apologetic Method of Greg L. Bahnsen. Powder Springs: American Vision, 2007.
Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Craig, William Lane, ed. Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002.
Cowan, Steven B., ed. Five Views On Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000.
Anderson, J. “If Knowledge Then God: The Epistemological Theistic Arguments of Alvin Plantinga and Cornelius Van Til.” Calvin Theological Journal. 40 (2005): 49-75.
Bahnsen, Greg L. “The Crucial Concept of Self-Deception in Presuppositional Apologetics.” Westminster Theological Journal. 57 no. 1 (1995):1-31.
Swinburne, Richard. “Plantinga on warrant.” Religious Studies. 37 no. 2 (2001):203-214.
Plantinga, Alvin. “Rationality and public evidence: a reply to Richard Swinburne.” Religious Studies. 37 no. 2 (2001):215-222.
Frame, John M. “Van Til on Antithesis.” Westminster Theological Journal. 57 no. 1 (1995):81-102.
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