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Religion dressed up as science?
| May 20, 2009 | Posted by idnet.com.au under Intelligent Design |
A review of a book titled “The Universe: Order without design” appears in New Scientist. The summary of current ideas has a mythic sound to ordinary readers “a tiny piece of inflating “false vacuum” decays into a fireball, and stars and galaxies congeal out of the cooling debris”. Read it and see what you think.
I have two questions.
First, does description equal causation?
Second, is the invoking of billions of theoretical and eternally undetectable other universes simply to give an atheistic explaination of our one tuned universe, more scientific or rational than believing in an Intelligent Fine Tuner?
67 Responses to Religion dressed up as science?
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Why would description equal causation?
Science follows methodological naturalism, so to invoke a supernatural designer falls out of the scope of the philosophy of science.
Also, the ‘multi-verse’ theory can be replaced with a more evidenced, naturalistic based reason for the fine-tuning of the universe. So, to invoke a supernatural explanation is a little too hasty.
Are we predestined to follow the same arguments that follow the original review?
Mrs O’Leary,
What does “does description equal causation” mean? How would you apply the same question to the Book of Genesis?
A multiverse is not necessary to explain our universe if our universe is not fine tuned. Accepting the evidence for lack of fine tuning is another step along the path of the assumption of mediocracy.
Nakashima,
I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that she’s asking if theoretical explanations of how something could have happened are equal to how something did happen.
For example (theoretically)I could come up with a complex and incredibly intricate explanation, including mathematical diagrams and program simulations to show how you could possibly get a Jeep Wrangler from millions of years of natural forces acting upon earth metals. But this does not indicate the true origin for said vehicle as far as everything we have observed in empirical reality.
But why intentionally take steps to assume mediocrity at the cost of ignoring all of the evidence that says otherwise?
Following my last statement, I believe whatever perceived flaws we see in the design of the universe speak louder than the perceived fine-tuning because the universe is indeed, fine tuned. A simple physiological assessment of taking what you have for granted.
eintown:
Sure. I agree 100%. But so does multiverse theory. It is purely metaphysical, as it cannot be objectively studied. It ONLY exists to make atheism reasonable.
And that is…?
So how long should we wait for “science” to try to prove materialism before following the evidence where it actually leads (as Anthony Flew did), which is:
Biological design (brilliance is a better word), cosmological fine-tuning, and the fact that anything exists at all point to a deity.
Correction @5,
Mr PaulN,
But why intentionally take steps to assume mediocrity at the cost of ignoring all of the evidence that says otherwise?
And that evidence is? We’ve talked about this recently on other threads here at UD, mostly Mr Jerry, Mr Cordova, and Nakashima. My position has been that we are now in a position to simulate (or calculate) the effects of other sets of physical laws and initial conditions to such a degree of specificity that we can bgein (begin!) to make this argument grounded in results, not hand waving.
The initial results are not particularly favorable to fine tuning.
eintown: where is this naturalistic explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe?
so to invoke a supernatural designer falls out of the scope of the philosophy of science.
If a multi-verse follows a different set of physical (natural) laws how is that not invoking the supernatural?
And at what point does an insistence on a fundamentalist definition of methodological naturalism become a science stopper?
Nakashima,
Well for starters we bear witness to an outboard motor that is 40 nm in length, rotates at up to 117,000 rpm, and maintains an energy conversion efficiency level of nearly 100%. There are a countless amount of other micro-biological marvels that also reveal stunning levels of fine-tuning, specified complexity, and complex interdependent mechanical parts. It just so happens that the universe is fine-tuned in a more broad sense, where as all of the more incredible features are condensed to this planet. As far as the universe is concerned, I’d recommend following the research of Guillermo Gonzalez, as there are plenty of observations he makes for a finely-tuned universe, and more specifically this finely-tuned planet.
I think writing off such interpretations of the data as “hand waving” is hand waving in itself. The interpretations of the data according to methodological naturalism completely fail to address any sort of intelligently guided design because it is intentionally ruled out of its scope a priori. How would one go about finding the intelligent origin for say, a laptop using methodological naturalism? C’mon humor me =P
Ultimately, my point is that you simply won’t accept evidence for design(Even if there’s a strong evidential inference) because you’ve made the assumption that there is none, and I believe this is essentially presumed from the assumption that there is no designer. If you feel that purely materialistic processes are the only forces at work in the universe, then you’re going to develop predictions, explanations, and conclusions limited to that end. However if you include intelligent causation on top of this realm of scientific inquiry then predictions, explanations, and conclusions, then you potentially have a more sufficient method that touches on things that the former methodology cannot.
I have to say that both NASA physicist Carlos Calle’s book, The Universe – Order Without Design (which can be ordered at http://www.prometheusbooks.com.....ts_id=1915 ), and Marcus Chown’s review strike me as philosophically naive. Judging from the reviews that I have read online, it seems that the book fails to address several cogent arguments that were put forward against the multiverse as an Ultimate Explanation, by Dr. Robin Collins, in his online essay, Design and the Many-Worlds Hypothesis . Dr. Collins wrote that article back in 2000. It is disgraceful that nearly a decade later, his telling criticisms have attracted only a few comments over in the “skeptico-sphere.” I’ll have more to say on Dr. Robin Collins’ criticisms below.
After reading Marcus Chown’s review of NASA physicist Carlos Calle’s The Universe – Order Without Design, I came away with the strong impression that scientists should stick to what they’re good at, which is science. Neither Dr. Calle nor his reviewer shows any sign of understanding the traditional arguments for the existence of God.
The naive assumption underlying Chown’s review is that once we have a model which explains the puzzle of why the universe has just the right amount of “dark energy” and which doesn’t require a beginning, we have rendered belief in God intellectually redundant. To which I can only retort: rubbish!
Back in the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas formulated no less than five arguments for the existence of God in his Summa Theologica . In all of these arguments, he was happy to grant for argument’s sake that the universe could be eternal, as this is precisely what 13th-century atheists held, and he never once mentioned either dark energy or fine tuning. And yet his arguments have impressed many people. Interested readers who wish to understand the thinking behind these arguments (which, I might add, are far more profound than most of their critics assume) might like to have a look at this web page: On the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas .
I have already blogged at http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-316495 on why I think the multiverse cannot serve as an Ultimate Explanation of Reality. What I object to about the multiverse concept is not the sheer number of alternative universes, or for that matter their unobservability. I’m wary of making arguments like that, because some skeptics have argued that a multiverse governed by a few simple laws is actually a far less extravagant assumption than an immaterial, omniscient, all-loving, personal Deity – and of course, God isn’t directly observable either. They are wrong, of course, because they mistakenly assume that a Personal Agent has to be something complex. In recent years, the traditional doctrine of Divine simplicity has been attacked by some philosophers as incoherent. However, Dr. Jeffrey Brower mounts what I believe to be a successful defense of this doctrine in his forthcoming article, Making Sense of Divine Simplicity .
So why do I think that the multiverse is utterly inadequate as an Ultimate Explanation of Reality?
Well, first, it reeks of Platonism. The following quote from Chown’s review illustrates the problem:
In other words, according to the “new” atheists, we don’t need information to generate the universe we live in; all we need are a few simple physics equations, combined with the opportunity for all posible values of the relevant parameters to be realized somewhere.
But when you come to think of it, this is absurd. Saying that a set of physics equations can magically give rise to life, the universe and everything is no less absurd than saying that the number 42 can. Equations cannot create reality; they can only describe it.
Second, the equations themselves beg the question: where did they come from? Why is the multiverse governed by string theory – if indeed it is? Why not some other theory? What’s so sacred about strings – or branes for that matter? Why not a beetle-verse?
In other words, even the most beautiful set of equations can never be self-explanatory, as they have an irreducible “this-ness” about them. The only thing that can explain them is a Personal Creator, who is not tied to any particular modus operandi. Knowing and loving are two actions that we can fittingly attribute to this Creator, as these acts – unlike walking, seeing or manipulating 0′s and 1′s – do not require any kind of modus operandi whatsoever. God just knows; there is no “how.”
Finally, the multiverse fails to explain the underlying beauty of the laws of nature. As Dr. Robin Collins writes in his article, Design and the Many-Worlds Hypothesis , which I cited above (highlights below are mine – V.J.T.):
It has been nine years since Dr. Collins wrote these words, and their argumentative force remains compelling.
Skeptics will no doubt try to “explain away” the beauty of the laws of the cosmos, but if they read Dr. Robin Collins’ article , they will find that he has anticipated the alternative explanations which could be put forward for the apparent beauty of the laws of nature: the beauty of these laws is a merely subjective evaluation on our part; natural selection has programmed into us the category of beauty; we have learned to like the way the cosmos works, during the 400 years that we have been studying its laws; the basic structure of the world is more likely to be simple and beautiful than complex and ugly; and the beauty of the cosmos is just a brute fact. Collins convincingly rebuts each rival explanation. I invite readers to peruse Collins’ arguments and judge their merits for themselves.
The interesting thing about Collins is that he does not oppose the notion of a multiverse as such. What he does say is that no matter how big and beautiful it is, it still requires a God to explain its beauty in a non-question-begging way. For as Collins puts it, given that God is by nature “a being with a perfect aesthetic sensibility, it is not surprising that such a God would create a world of great subtlety and beauty at the fundamental level.”
For all we know, some kind of multiverse might exist, beyond this universe. I have listed the conditions under which the idea of the multiverse could possibly contribute to scientific progress at http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-317249 . However, this would not be the multiverse as we currently understand the term; rather it would be a cosmos which abounds in information attesting to the reality of its Divine Creator. Insofar as scientific organizations, which are predominantly of an atheistic bent, refuse to even bother searching for this information in the cosmos, they are holding up scientific progress.
One day a puddle looked around, examining the hole it inhabited. The puddle concluded the hole fitted so perfectly it must have been constructed just for him….
Nakashima:
Uhm… Mrs. O’Leary?? What the…
Is idnet.com.au now = to Mrs. O’Leary?
Hi vjtorley,
I just wanted to thank you again for the quality of your comments.
Mr Borne,
My apologies for suggesting any cross dressing on the part of idnet.com.au! I somehow thought this thread was begun closer to the Arctic Circle than across the equator!
Nakashima,
“The initial results are not particularly favorable to fine tuning.”
This is nonsense and you know it. As I said elsewhere, the paper you presented was irrelevant.
Mr PaulN,
However if you include intelligent causation on top of this realm of scientific inquiry then predictions, explanations, and conclusions, then you potentially have a more sufficient method that touches on things that the former methodology cannot.
The trouble is, I could strike out intelligent causation from your sentence and replace it with “astrology”, and because of the weasel word ‘potentially’ still have an equally strong, equally true statement.
I was a religious person for most of my adulthood. Please believe me, that I would prefer to hold that there is a Creator of this universe. It has been a long and painful road to the point of admitting that right now there is no evidence for that belief.
The bacterial flagella is evidence of cosmological finetuning? That is embarrassing to read.
Mr Jerry,
The paper is a first approximation, we agree. That does not make it irrelevant. The Dembski and Marks paper discussed recently is similarly distant from its ultimate goal, and just sketches in the issues of “accounting for active information”, but it is still quite relevant to its area of study.
The key point is that beginning with this paper, the fine tuning question shifts from a philosophic discussion to a scientific discussion.
There is a rather simple reason that the multiple-universes interpretation of quantum mechanics is bogus.
The only ontology of substance that does not lead to an infinite regress is one that calls for an ex-nihilo universe. How can everything come from nothing you ask? Just as zero is the sum of all positive and negative numbers, nothing is the sum of everything positive and negative. This means that all properties/entities must come in complementary/opposite pairs so as to sum up to nothing. The conservation of nothing is the mother of all conservation principles. We live in a yin-yang universe.
So why is there only one physical universe? Simply because there is only one nothing. The universe is ONE, as its name implies.
As Wolfgang Pauli would say, the multiverse hypothesis is not even wrong.
idnet.com.au asks:
It is a common (and self-serving) assumption among IDers that the multiverse is a concept invented by atheists simply to avoid the theistic implications of the fine-tuning argument.
This is ridiculous, as I explained to StephenB in the “Belief in God” thread:
Nakashima,
The paper is irrelevant. It picks a few of the hundreds of variables and does not deal with life. It is irrelevant.
There is a whole literature out there on this subject and you come here and say fine tuning is out because of one simulation of irrelevant conditions. If the ID people did something so ridiculous they would be laughed at all round the globe.
As Vjtorley said, “philosophically naive” sums up the book and review both. First off, grant eternality and the multiverse both if you like – you’re still faced with powerful arguments for a personal Creator. Aquinas was more than willing to grant eternality for the sake of argument – and while everyone loves to talk about christianity here (I’m catholic myself), other religions see God differently. Hinduism, mormonism, some of the more theistic-seeming (if typically inscrutable) buddhist outlooks, neoplatonism, etc all have no problem with the thought of an eternal creation being part of the eternal Creator.
Second, it gets even worse. If we assume eternality / multiverse, the ‘principle of mediocrity’ likely ends up either destroyed or unintelligible. You don’t merely grant “blind, unguided nature” infinite/eternal chances to ‘come up with’ our world or intelligent beings under these schemes – *you grant intelligent beings the same opportunity*. Paul Davies, Martin Rees, James Gardner and others have speculated/pointed out that, if you grant so many ‘opportunities’, you’re making it guaranteed that there exist simulated universes, or (closer to Gardner’s view) created universes. And since simulations and creations can be nested (simulation within a simulation, within a simulation, within.. etc), then it becomes far more likely humans don’t exist in the ‘actual’ universe, but a created one.
Sorry guys. Diving for eternality or multiverse (or both) not only does not ‘solve’ the God answer, but it practically guarantees that Intelligent Design is real at least in the softer sense (‘a designer, but not the classical concept of God’) and quite possibly in the harder sense.
“If the ID people did something so ridiculous they would be laughed at all round the globe.”
Um . . .
David,
—-“If the ID people did something so ridiculous they would be laughed at all round the globe.”
Um . . .”
Um, just ask Antony Flew.
Why is the older, theist Anthony Flew more credible than the younger, atheist Anthony Flew?
Off topic—please forgive me—but V J Torley brings up “the traditional doctrine of Divine simplicity” (which seems to me a kind of theological reductionism – but what do I know) which reminds me of something that (in my aged forgetfulness) I seem to recall that Alan Turing supposedly proved: That there is no computation/cognition apart from moving parts (which if so what does this say of God?). If anyone here knows whether Turing or anyone else “proved” this, could you please let me know who and where. I’d really appreciate it.
Not only is the universe fine tuned; had not a collision created the moon, we wouldn’t be here either…
Cabal,
Some days, you just get lucky.
Mr Jerry,
I thought you had read the paper, ne? At the level of detail it attempts, it uses three variables. To go to the next level of detail, it would need many more parameters. I have confirmed this with the author of the paper. He agrees.
I don’t understand why you think proving whether stars will burn for billions of years is unimportant to a discussion of life. Certainly, the sun is important to life here on this planet. The paper is about establishing some of the pre-requisites for life as we know it.
The next step may bring a great narrowing of the field, and bring us back much closer to the traditional view of fine tuning. That is to look at these star-like objects in detail and see if they do two things:
– do they create carbon, oxygen and higher elements in stellar nucleosynthesis?
– do they explode, releasing these elements and creating still further elements?
The first of these is the point identified by Hoyle. I freely admit there is great opportunity here to swing the pendulum of the evidence back towards fine tuning. All it takes is some sharp pencils and a lot of computer time.
However, we are not going back to fly/wall/gun/bullet/Marksman analogizing. That era is now closed.
Mr Cabal,
Yes, I agree with Peter Ward in Rare Earth. Life might be common in the universe, but intelligent life like ourselves is probably rare.
Nakashima,
I did read most of the paper. The study is irrelevant. There is no swinging the pendulum back to fine tuning. It is at fine tuning and stuck there.
This is getting to be a joke.
“However, we are not going back to fly/wall/gun/bullet/Marksman analogizing. That era is now closed.”
You are starting to get in a habit of saying ridiculous things. It is a really bad habit.
There are a lot of issues that have to be resolved by the anti ID proponents on which they just beg the questions.
1. Why does anything exist?
2. Why does it exist with such exquisite precision?
3. Why is Earth so fine tuned for life?
4. How did life originate?
5. How did macro evolution occur?
6. How did consciousness arise?
No answers to any of these but all must be solved for their intellectual position to have any merit.
And science has not helped in any of these areas since it has been practiced. In fact it has opened more problems than it has solved. But I am assured that it will eventually get around to them.
jerry,
Great questions. What are your answers?
Mr Jerry,
I’ve tried several times to make clear the reasons for my position. Can you do the same? Merely repeating “irrelevant” is insufficient to maintain a discussion.
Are stars relevant to life?
Has science begun to address fine tuning, and where does that leave philosophy?
Nakashima,
If Stenger cracking out a supposed simulation of star formation is an example of “beginning to address” fine tuning, the bar you’ve set is hilariously low. If we’re playing that game, then science is “beginning to address” (via Dembski, Marks, etc) the idea of unguided evolution, and the initial results are not particularly favorably to the unguided position.
On the other hand, I don’t think fine-tuning is a knock-down argument against atheism. At most it’s a problem, but so what? Atheists are entirely capable of imagining their God-equivalent ‘somehow, in some way’ accounting for problems. Increase the number of chances (multiverse, eternality of the universe, etc), or just dig in one’s heels and say “we got lucky” or “some things are mysterious, but it doesn’t have to be design”.
If the evidence for a YEC depiction of the universe were in abundance – proof of a 6000+ year old earth + cosmos, evidence that all major species popped into existence de novo, the atheist could make the same argument. “Mysterious but non-God / non-mind force is responsible” combined with “we got lucky” or “the chance pool may be huge and it’s therefore inevitable”.
“Great questions. What are your answers?”
The only honest answer is that it is a mystery. All six of them. The biggest mystery is #1.
“Are stars relevant to life?” Yes, but so are protons or quarks but I would not tout a universe with quarks as an example of one that eliminates the fine tuning conclusion just because they are necessary for life.
Let us know when you are finished playing your irrelevant games.
Adel, maybe the point is that you can’t use physical science to address a lot of those questions, and attempts to do so — whether God is involved or not — is a religious one.
And, with regard to the questions that science can addres– How did life originate and How did macro evolution occur? — answers haven’t been found.
Which gets us to one big problem namely that certain authorities dogmatically claim that science has found answers and is merely waiting for a few minor details to be sketched in.
David,
—-”Why is the older, theist Anthony Flew more credible than the younger, atheist Anthony Flew?”
That’s a fair question. I would say that the answer is because he learned more than he knew before.
Not to mention that the undeniable evidence for biological design increased substantially during Flew’s lifetime.
jerry:
What are some examples of anti-ID proponents begging question #1, and why must they solve it in order for their intellectual position to have any merit?
Rude (#28)
You might like to have a look at this paper by philosopher Pete Mandik. Section 2 is especially interesting.
I have not been able to uncover any proof that cognition – as opposed to computation – requires moving parts.
jerry [34], setting aside the fact that “beg the question” is misused, I don’t think anybody has a good answer to #1, which is not a scientific question in any event.
vjtorley,
Cognition seems to require a working brain. I’d sa a working brain has moving parts.
Mr Jerry,
I wouldn’t tout universe with only quarks either. Are you arguing that stars and quarks are equally probable? The point is that long lived stars form 25% of the time. That is a large prerequisite to life as we know it.
So given that we agree that stars are relevant to life, how is a paper about star formation irrelevant?
Jerry:
Adel DiBagno:
Jerry:
Jerry, your honesty is commendable. But does it follow that your intellectual position has no merit?
Mr Nullasalus,
While Stenger’s arguments are similar, Jerry and I have been discussing a paper by Fred Adams, published last year in a peer reviewed journal.
I agree the bar is low! Now is the time to jump in and knock these arguments back on their heels with a more powerful, more detailed study.
David Kellogg (#46)
Your argument is true for only one intelligent life form at most: human beings. I wouldn’t bet all my money on the proposition that all alien life forms have brains – they may have something different.
Even for human beings, your argument is mistaken, for you overlook the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic dependence.
You might like to have a look at this article:
Concepts, Dualism and the Human Intellect by Professor David Oderberg, p. 213.
DK “Why is the older, theist Anthony Flew more credible than the younger, atheist Anthony Flew?”
Mainly, because they are the same person – placed in time. If all other things are equal, and if there is any credence to be given at all, then it is to one over the other – because they are placed in time.
But you can answer your question yourself. What is it specifically that gives a younger David Kellog more intellectual resolving power than and older David Kellog?
David Kellogg wrote:
vjtorley responded:
vjtorley,
That assumes that all nonhuman animals are incapable of cognition. There is abundant evidence to the contrary.
I think David’s point was that they are no known cases of cognition happening in the absence of a material substrate such as the brain.
No. David said that “cognition seems to require a working brain.” That is true for human beings. Disrupt certain parts of the brain and you disrupt cognition. It doesn’t matter whether the dependence is “extrinsic” or “intrinsic”.
“But does it follow that your intellectual position has no merit?”
I have no idea what you mean.
I thought all my intellectual positions have merit even the frivolous ones.
Beelzebub
Thank you for your post. My last one was rather hurried, as I was in a rush, so I’m sorry if I did not refine my position properly.
My original comment in #44 was:
Here I was speaking of cognition per se. The fact that some kinds of life forms require moving parts in order to perform cognitive acts does not establish the truth of general proposition that cognition requires moving parts.
Non-human animals are indeed capable of cognition, as you rightly point out, and they certainly require moving parts. In their case, I’d be inclined to say the dependence is intrinsic.
My comment to David Kellogg in #50 –
…contained an important qualifier: intelligent. I would not call other animals genuinely intelligent, although I understand perfectly well that there is a diversity of scientific and philosophical opinion on this point.
Actually, I should have written, “You argument is known to be true for only one intelligent life form at most,” rather than “You argument is true for only one intelligent life form at most.” That was sloppy of me.
Regarding your point that it does not matter whether the dependence is intrinsic or extrinsic: on the contrary, I think it matters a great deal. For if there is one kind of living being for whom the dependence is not intrinsic, but merely extrinsic, that at least renders more plausible the idea that there may exist a totally immaterial intelligence.
Finally, I’d like to reiterate that the materialist claim, that cognition requires a brain, is essentially an inductive argument, not an a priori one. It could well turn out to be utterly mistaken, so it is unwise to assume it as a premise when arguing with theists. That’s question-begging.
Upright BiPed [51],
I don’t know this person who spells his last name with one g. As for me, I prefer my current self, though I can imagine a situation (senility, for example) where I would prefer my younger self to resolve such questions. In any event, I have developed in the opposite direction from Flew: away from religion, at least to some degree.
vjtorley [54], it’s true that the claim in my comment is inductive, but that’s how science works. Every instance of cognition we observe occurs in things with working brains.
vjtorley wrote:
vjtorley,
You’ve taken my remark out of context.
In response to David Kellogg, you had written:
I replied:
Whether the dependence in extrinsic or intrinsic, it is true that human cognition seems to require a working brain, so David’s statement stands.
In any case, how would you go about demonstrating that the dependence was only extrinsic?
More generally, how would one go about justifying any proposition about the sort of cognition that is not embodied?
Seems like a non-starter to me, once one wishes to move past speculation. Moreover, the solutions it offers to problems such as consciousness and intentionality are strictly illusory, as we have even less idea what it means for unembodied cognition to display these properties than we do embodied cognition. Declaring these properties to be intrinsic to unembodied consciousness runs afoul of the same problem of tautology that has bedeviled similar assertions here.
Meanwhile the cognition in which we are most interested is our own, which is clearly instantiated in something like brains embedded in social and verbal networks. Animal cognition is interesting as well, both intrinsically and because it displays elements with bearing on the evolution of human cognition.
Rude asked:
In response to Rude’s question, vjtorley wrote:
vj,
Cognition involves the transformation of information received from outside the mind. This would seem to be an inherently dynamic process, at least for a finite being, that would therefore require “moving parts” or the immaterial equivalent thereof.
I would therefore expect that an immaterial human mind, if such a thing existed, would necessarily have “moving parts.”
The question of God’s cognition is more complicated. If a timeless God existed, then the very fact of his timelessness would preclude change. Since cognition involves a change in mental state, a timeless God would therefore be incapable of cognition.
If God existed within time, however, then any cognition he did would necessarily involve “moving parts”, as a result of the same argument I applied to humans above. Yet the doctrine of divine simplicity holds that God has no parts, moving or otherwise.
Therefore I conclude that if God exists, he is either incapable of cognition or else the doctrine of divine simplicity is incorrect.
Comments?
Oh, I’ve been waiting for this topic!
There is a great saying from the I Ching that the wise man is he who does spontaneously exactly what he would do after great deliberation.
God in his omniscience knows everything all at once, and thus has no need, and indeed no capability, for thought. Thoughts as we know them trace themselves out linearly and are composed of parts – various interrelated concepts. God always has complete and full wisdom at hand, so to speak, and thus has no need for deliberation and analysis. Like the I Ching’s wise man, he always acts spontaneously.
Another Chinese saying: out of stillness comes action. Some may see this as a contradiction, but I see it as a mystery.
Part of my post on the “I have to keep reminding myself thread” fits better over here. There I wrote,
So God neither thinks nor acts. He just is, as his creation just is. He is both complete and still. All that he will ever do he has already done. In the context of this discussion, he has no moving parts – he is One – and thus concepts from our world, such as motion and time and thought and action, do not apply.
If God does not act, how could He have “done” anything?
You’ve got me – that’s the point. Trying to apply concepts based on our experience (thought, will, action, etc.) is meaningless. If one accepts the existence of an omni-everything deity, then I think one has to accept the mysterious and unfathomable nature of such, rather than thinking that we can analyze such a deity from our limited perspective.
hazel,
That brings to mind A.J. Ayer’s example of an unverifiable metaphysical proposition:
“…the Absolute enters into, but is not capable of, evolution and progress.”
(From Language, Truth and Logic, Chapter 1)
V J Torley 44,
Thanks for the reference. I’ll have a look at the paper.
As for the divine simplicity and transcendance arguments, I’ve always been skeptical. I would even speculate that philosophical materialism was a creation of the theologians. The more abstract God became, the more he resembled Plato’s realm of eternal forms, and the less he was the personal God Scripture.
Let me suggest—here for better or worse—that as Intelligent Design gains ground more and more intellectuals will begin to question the old theology (which likely birthed this materialism in the first place). Rather than a timeless template from which reality emerges, I predict God will been seen more and more as a dynamic Agent, a Creator, a Person.
Although I enjoy good philosophical arguments for the existence of God, I do not think they are as convincing as some would think—this because they typically begin with presuppositions that might themselves be questioned.
I believe that Phillip Johnson was right to recommend that we make biology the centerpiece of our movement.
The fine tuning arguments are great—but even if they wind up convincing a majority of thinkers they still leave God far, far away—probably the other side of the Big Bang. On the other hand, when Darwinism is seen for the farce it is, then the devout will be more inclined to invoke the Hebrew God of history right up to the latest speciation events and in our own origin.
And might not this be why for the secularist too the front line in the culture war is Darwin? They’re less worried about the fine tuning arguments and least worried of all about the philosophical arguments for God.
Darwin is the sacred cow that must be protected by whatever means, for when Darwin goes the whole secular house of cards collapses.
Mr Rude,
Just to be clear, what part of Darwinism is a farce? If Dr Michael Behe and Dr William Dembski accept the reality of deep time, common descent, and “micro” evolution, what is farcial in your opinion?
Mr Nakashima,
Chance and necessity.
Darwinism is not evolution—it is a silly hypothesis that attempt to explain evolution. But chance and natural selection have never been shown to produce anything but the most trivial of useful losses of information.