Who Designed the Designer?
Today I want to kill one of atheism’s sacred cows. I want to kill one of atheism’s most popular and resilient retorts.
One of atheism’s sacred cows is the “Who designed the designer?” response. Here’s how it works:
THEIST: “There is so much complexity in the world, it must have been designed by an Intelligent Designer. The best explanation for our world is an Intelligent Designer.”
ATHEIST: “But then who designed the Designer?”
THEIST: “Nobody.” (Or perhaps: “I don’t know.”)
ATHEIST: “Well then you have explained nothing.”
This is a highly popular objection. For example, here’s Christopher Hitchens:
…the postulate of a designer or creator only raises the unanswerable question of who designed the designer or created the creator. Religion and theology… have consistently failed to overcome this objection.1
Or, philosopher Rebecca Goldstein:
Who caused God? [Theists offer] a prime example of the Fallacy of Passing the Buck: invoking God to solve some problem, but then leaving unanswered that very same problem when applied to God himself.
So this is fatal to theism, right?
No. Wrong. The atheist has not offered a strong objection.
Let me be clear. I agree that “God did it” is generally a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad “explanation” for complexity or, well, pretty much anything. “God did it” does generally fail as an explanation.2
But it does not fail merely because the theist has no explanation for his explanation (God). That is not the problem with offering “God did it” as an explanation.
The problem with offering “God did it” as an explanation is that such an explanation has low plausibility, is not testable, has poor consistency with background knowledge, comes from a tradition (supernaturalism) with extreme explanatory failure, lacks simplicity, offers no predictive novelty, and has poor explanatory scope. It fails to provide almost everything philosophers and scientists look for in a successful explanation. That is why “God did it” is generally a horrible explanation, not because it leaves the explanation itself (God) unexplained.
Let us ask ourselves what would happen if we required that a successful explanation must itself be explained.
This would lead immediately to an infinite regress of explanations. We would need to have an explanation of the explanation, and an explanation of the explanation of the explanation, and an explanation of the explanation of the explanation of the explanation… on into infinity. And thus, we would never be able to explain anything.3
Moreover, this is not how science works. Examples from physics are the most obvious. In order to explain certain quantum phenomena, scientists have posited the existence of dozens of invisible particles with very particular properties that yield predictable results. These have been some of the most successful explanations in all of scientific history, yielding the most accurate experimental results we have ever achieved. And yet we have no explanations whatsoever for the particles that we have offered as explanations for the quantum phenomena.
The reason that the details of the Standard Model of Particle Physics are accepted as good explanations for quantum phenomena is because these explanations are plausible, they are extremely testable, they have strong consistency with background knowledge, they come from a tradition (natural science) with great explanatory success, they are relatively simple, they offer much predictive novelty, and they have strong explanatory scope. It doesn’t matter that we have no explanation whatsoever for the explanations themselves.
One more example. Ludwig Boltzmann explained heat by positing tiny, unobserved particles (which we now call atoms). Boltzmann’s theory was superior to earlier phenomenological theories of heat, even though his explanation (a mess of tiny particles) was itself totally unexplained.
So the problem with the atheist sacred cow of “Who designed the designer?” is that it misses the point. “God did it” is a horrible explanation, but not because theists can’t tell us what the explanation for the designer is. There are other reasons why “God did it” is generally a horrible explanation, and that is what atheists should be trying to communicate.
Despite repeated attempts to explain all this to my atheist readers, many still insist that successful explanations must themselves be explained. At this point, I don’t know what else to do except to quote some scholars in an attempt to bludgeon my fellow atheists into accepting this basic principle in philosophy of science. :)
Here’s atheist philosopher of science Peter Lipton:
The why-regress is a feature of the logic of explanation that many of us discovered as children, to our parents’ cost. I vividly recall the moment it dawned on me that, whatever my mother’s answer to my latest why-question, I could simply retort by asking ‘Why?’ of the answer itself, until my mother ran out of answers or patience…
[But] explanations need not themselves be understood. A drought may explain a poor crop, even if we don’t understand why there was a drought; I understand why you didn’t come to the party if you explain you had a bad headache, even if I have no idea why you had a headache; the big bang explains the background radiation, even if the big bang is itself inexplicable, and so on…
…the [why-regress] argument brings out the important facts that explanations can be chained, and that what explains need not itself be understood…4
Or consider atheist philosopher of science Michael Friedman. Notice that he assumes our explanations may not themselves be explained, but that explanations succeed in increasing our understanding of the world:
[Consider] the old argument that science is incapable of explaining anything because the basic phenomena to which others are reduced are themselves neither explained nor understood. According to this argument, science merely transfers our puzzlement from one phenomenon to another… The answer, as I see it, is that.. we don’t simply replace one phenomenon with another. We replace one phenomenon with amore comprehensive phenomenon, and thereby… genuinely increase our understanding of the world.5
And here’s atheist philosopher of religion Gregory Dawes:
Richard Dawkins, for instance, writes that to explain the machinery of life “by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing.” Why? Because it “leaves unexplained the origin of the designer.”
…[Dawkins' idea is] that religious explanations are unacceptable because they leave unexplained the existence of their explanans (God). Dawkins apparently assumes that every successful explanation should also explain its own explanans. But this is an unreasonable demand. Many of our most successful explanations raise new puzzles and present us with new questions to be answered.6
Finally, atheist philosopher of metaphysics John Post:
…there cannot be an infinite regress of explanations… Again the reasons are not practical, such as the finiteness of our faculties, but logic or conceptual, entailed by the very notions of explanations involved. Even for an infinite intellect, regresses of such explanations must end.7
Conclusion
Why do I want to kill this sacred cow of atheism?
First, because I am not loyal to atheism per se, but to truth and reason.
Second, because I want atheists to stop giving arguments and objections that are so easily rebutted.
Third, because I want atheists to focus on objections that really matter. When a believer offers “God did it” as the best explanation for something, our question should not be “Well then who designed the designer?” but instead “Why is God the best explanation for that? Will you explain, please?”
The theist has a good answer to the first question. He won’t have a good answer for the second one. Not if you’re prepared:
This great book shows why God is a poor explanation for anything.
- God is not Great, page 71. [↩]
- I am not saying I have an ‘in principle’ objection to theistic explanations. The merits of theistic explanation must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. But I do think it’s quite unlikely that theistic explanations will succeed in our universe. [↩]
- Actually, there is a healthy debate over whether an infinite regress of explanations is a vicious regress or a benign regress. A good survey article with a great bibliography on the subject is Scott Aikin, “Who is afraid of epistemology’s regress problem?” (2005). But this does not change the fact that we regularly offer excellent explanations that are not themselves explained, especially in physics, where our most successful explanations are given. [↩]
- Inference to the Best Explanation, page 24. [↩]
- “Explanation and Scientific Understanding,” pages 18-19. [↩]
- Theism and Explanation, pages 15-16. [↩]
- “Infinite Regresses of Justification and Explanation,” page 32. [↩]
222 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
I think we should take into account the nature of the explanation. It is true that we do not need to explain the causes of a drought in order to explain its effects, but the drought itself belongs to the same realm as the failed crop, and it remains explainable in principle.
This is not the case when God is invoked as an explanation: there is no plausible hope of explaining God, and so it is a sterile explanation.
A theory of heat that posits the existence of tiny particles leads to a search for those particles; a theory of heat based on God’s emanations leads nowhere. Piero
But you are missing the prime motivation for the “God did it” explanation: The explanation itself, which you admit fails in all other respects, lacks evidentiality, etc. is based solely on the proposition that complexity needs a designer. The atheist is not raising some general requirement for good explanations, he is pointing out the self-defeat in this theistic explanation. Reginald Selkirk
I’ve had the exact same thought, but not in such detail. I guess I’ thinking a bit like Peter Lipton?
One day I thought, “Well, if we accept the explanation of why things fall down as ‘gravity’, what explains gravity? Ok, it has to do with the movements of the planets and our galaxy, and the universe… well what explains THAT? The big bang, I suppose. Well what explains the big bang? We don’t know.
So it comes down to the fact that everything science has explained, those explanations still need explanations, every one of them. You can trace every scientific explanation back to the point where we don’t know.
Same thing with the God explanation, just in fewer steps.
But just as you said, Luke – for all the other reasons there can’t be a God, that’s why I don’t believe. Dan
I agree with this for the most part, but I think that criticism of atheists is only well-earned if the theist’s argument is an inference to best explanation. The problem is that most theists I encounter don’t think of the Goddidit explanation in terms of an inference to best explanation. They usually look at it as a deduction from certain premises.
The following is a formal version of an argument I have often had and I think it illustrates how the infinite regress objection can be a good way to get a more serious conversation about explanations started.
P1. Something requires an explanation, nothing does not.
P2. The Universe is something.
C1. The Universe requires an explanation.
This is probably uncontroversial. P1 is a principle I think is implied in the usual question “Why is there something rather than nothing?”. It can, of course, be challenged by arguing that we have no idea of what nothing is or that nothing is unstable etc.
The next part of the argument is messier, but usually runs along the following lines:
C1/P3. The Universe requires an explanation
P4. God can create something out of nothing (creation ex nihilo premise).
C2. God can explain the universe.
This is where the infinite regress objection is relevant.
The theist has started out with a principle stating that something requires an explanation and nothing does not. They have ended up with the conclusion that God explains something (in particular the universe). But unless they are willing to claim that God is literally nothing (or non-existent) they have an infinite regress on their hands: God, being something, will in turn require an explanation.
Once this is pointed out, I find I can move on to consider an inference to best explanation argument. I can then outline why I think Goddidit is, as you say, a terrible explanation for anything. But until you have exposed the fallacy of the “why is there something rather than nothing?” deductive argument, you can’t have that conversation. John D
My understanding of the argument goes like this.
THEIST: Everything has a cause. The universe too must have had a cause. That cause is God.
ATHEIST: Well what caused God then?
THEIST: God is uncaused. The existence of the universe requires a cause. God does not.
ATHEIST: But if you’re going to make an exception to the rule that everything has a cause, why not make the universe the exception? Why do you posit the existence of a further entity–God–for which we have no proof? Why can’t the universe itself be uncaused?
THEIST: Er … because? Charles
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1995/PSCF3-95Cramer.html
No, the argument is that everything either has a cause for its existence, or exists by the necessity of its own nature. God exists by the necessity of his own nature. The universe, being only one of an infinity of possible universes, need never have existed at all and is thus contingent and does not exist by the necessity of its own nature. It therefore requires a cause. That cause is God. See Mortimer Adler’s version of this Leibnizian Cosmological argument:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1995/PSCF3-95Cramer.html ayer
Could this tendency to ask “Who created god?” be explained by how bad the explanation (god) is? It doesn’t really have much content, so the atheist feels perhaps he or she has only been bested by the theist by him being able to “move a step up” – to name *something* as an explanation. Demanding an explanation for god illustrates how simply moving up a level in itself isn’t all that great. The theist, like the nontheist, must at some level admit ignorance. This is how the argument often goes, I think. Anders
No, the argument from complexity is that PHYSICAL complexity needs a designer. Even if Dawkins is right that evolutionary theory has refuted that argument (particularly in the area of biological complexity), it is irrelevant in the context of arguing the existence of God. God is an immaterial, necessarily existing being by definition. ayer
I accept, Luke, that the “who designed the designer” retort is sophistical, but theists are also guilty of a similar fallacy:
You could call this the “who designed the laws that explain the appearance of design” argument. Derrida
This may be a response given by certain creation-science advocates, but a theist who accepts evolution would not make such a response. He would simply say, “yes, natural selection explains the diversity and adaptation of living organisms. Explaining the fine-tuning of the universe to be life-permitting in the first place is an entirely different issue.” ayer
I think a better objection to the argument that the universe required a cause is that this argument commits the fallacy of composition.
Just because everything WITHIN the universe requires a cause does not mean that the universe ITSELF requires a cause. The property of “requires a cause” does not necessarily translate from the contents of the universe to the universe in total. Similarly, just because atoms are invisible does not mean that objects composed of atoms are also invisible.
Any thoughts? dguller
True, but the theist who starts off by saying that the pure complexity of the world, rather than the alleged fine tuning, is evidence for God already marks themselves out as a creation science advocate, since they would have anticipated the atheist’s answer that evolution explains complexity in the biological world. Derrida
Ayer,
I think the whole argument may be confused. Things don’t actually begin to exist. They are simply collections of atoms that existed before in different configurations. Charles
Even if an infinite regress of explanations is impossible, who can decide at what depth the lowest explanation lies? Theists demand that the complexity of human eyeballs be explained, but assert that the complexity of a thinking, foreskin-obsessed deity needs no explanation. Who are they to decide where the causal chain begins? If it is fallacious to ask who designed god, then it must also be fallacious to ask who designed the human eyeball.
When you explain “the way science works,” you seem to imply that certain particles are by definition unexplainable, and that no scientist is interested in explaining the existence of these particles. This is of course, nonsense. Science will always seek explanations, even of fundamental particles, and the possibility of an infinite regress of explanations in no way whatsoever “kills science” as Craig blabbers. Science simply works within the segment of the chain of explanations that is currently detectable.
I am in no way convinced that you have killed this sacred cow – perhaps buzzed enough to make its ear twitch. Penneyworth
This trades on an ambiguity in the term “begins”. It could refer to the onset of something in the form of a new configuration of pre-existing components, but it could also refer to the creation of an entity from absolute nothingness. I think that we have lots of experience with the former, and can make all kinds of useful comments about it, but we have NO experience of the latter, and should just be silent and agnostic about it. dguller
So you seem to be endorsing a general principle here: for any case of complexity, “God did it” is a terrible explanation.
Well, I think there are counterexamples. Consider this case of complexity: Tomorrow, we wake up and discover that the stars of the Milky Way have been rearranged and increased in brightness so that we can plainly read the text of John 3:16 in the sky, even during the day. What a weird phenomenon! Unsurprisingly, the Christians say “God did it!” Even many religious skeptics are convinced that God did it.
You respond: “Nope, sorry, ‘God did it’ is a terrible explanation of any case of complexity, and let me tell you why…”
Why, in this case, is it not plausible to say God did it? Seems pretty plausible to me. Are you just reporting that it’s implausible to *you*, an atheist? Well why should that worry the rest of us? Why think that a good explanation must be plausible to those who disbelieve in the entities postulated by the explanation? That’s an unreasonably high standard for explanations!
Why does it have to be testable to be a good explanation? I’m more convinced that, in this case, “God did it” would be a good explanation than I am that good explanations must be testable. And in a very broad sense of possibility, this explanation is testABLE: we could ask God if he did it, and he could say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. That’s a test for the truth of the explanation. So, in that sense of “testable,” this explanation is testable. Why do you think “God did it” isn’t testable? And why do you think that’s important?
This seems pretty question-begging. I think “God did it” coheres quite well with *my* background knowledge, and the background knowledge of billions of other theists around the world and throughout history. Do you just mean to report why *atheists* won’t like “God did it” as an explanation? Again, why think that a good explanation has to cohere with the background knowledge of people who disbelieve in the entities postulated by the explanation? That’s an unreasonably high standard for explanations.
I have three worries about this: first, why think that this explanation has to “come from” any tradition at all? And what does it mean for an explanation to “come from” a tradition? When I see the hairdryer out and say “My wife did it,” did that explanation “come from” some tradition? Which one? If the wifediddit explanations don’t come from a tradition, why think Godiddit explanations must come from a tradition?
Second, it looks like we’ll have a generality problem here. How does one determine which tradition an explanation comes from? If we say that “God did it” comes from supernaturalism (a very general, broad tradition), then perhaps we’ll run into many problems (we can grant that there have been a lot of failed supernatural explanations in the past). But if we say “God did it” comes from Lutheran Protestantism Christianity (a more specific, narrow tradition), we’ll run into fewer problems (though the Lutherans may have offered some failed explanations in the past, surely they’ve offered fewer than all the supernaturalists in the past). And if we say “God did it” comes from the tradition of scientifically informed theists (a super specific tradition), we’ll run into very few problems, if any. So even if we grant that explanations must “come from” a tradition, why should the theist accept that his explanation “comes from” the problematic general tradition, rather than the unproblematic specific tradition?
Third, the history of naturalism itself is littered with explanatory failure. Read Lucretius’ De Rerum Naturae: completely naturalistic, and completely wrong. Read Aristotle’s naturalistic explanations of the natural world: he was really wrong very often. Ptolemy was wrong. Newton was wrong. Either special relativity or quantum mechanics is wrong, since they contradict. The entire history of science is a history of overturning wrong explanations. That overwhelming history of failure has even moved some people to be very skeptical of our current favored explanations! In any event, naturalists have been wrong at least as often as they’ve been right, throughout history. So if theistic explanations are in trouble because of their track record, so are naturalistic explanations! And even more so, from the perspective of a theist. I think theistic explanations have been right way more often than you do, and I think naturalistic explanations have been wrong way more often than you do. So the question of which has a better track record is really controversial, and it seems pretty question-begging to assert that theistic explanations have a worse track record. I’d think you’d actually need to prove that.
Why think that “God did it” lacks simplicity? How could any explanation be *more* simple, especially in the star-spelling-John-3:16 situation as I described it?
I’m not super-sure what this means, but I doubt it’s necessary for a good explanation. I guess it means something like “issues new predictions.” I see the hairdryer out again. I posit this explanation: “My wife did it.” Seems like a really good explanation to me. But does it “offer predictive novelty”? If not, then offering predictive novelty isn’t necessary for a good explanation. If so, what are the novel predictions, and why couldn’t “God did it” offer the same sort of novel predictions in the star-spelling-John-3:16 case?
I don’t really get this one either. Do you mean that “God did it” doesn’t explain very much? Well, big deal. There are lots of good explanations that don’t explain very much. “My wife did it” explains why there’s a hairdryer out, and not much else. Still, it’s a darn good explanation. If we see John 3:16 written in stars, “God did it” seems like a darn good explanation, even if it doesn’t explain much else.
So, I don’t think you’ve given us much reason to think that “God did it” is a terrible explanation. You haven’t even given much reason to think that it’s not a good explanation! Is this what Dawes was up to, or did he have more to say? cartesian
Ayer writes:
Your comment here is an example of my suspicions about most theistic arguments. They all must eventually invoke some version of the ontological argument insofar as the theist tries to sneak in claims about the God proven by the arguments being a necessary being. The cosmological and design arguments, if sound, do not establish the existence of a necessary being. But the theist usually tries to assert that such a being is what he means by God in these arguments.
I agree with Luke’s reasons about why it is wrong to ask “Who designed the Designer?”, but it is still possible that any Designer or Cause of life, or of the universe, might itself have a cause. So, you can’t just assert at the end of a cosmological or Design argument that God is by definition a necessary being. That claim must be proven separately.
Atheists have some house-cleaning to do with this “Who designed the Designer?” question, but theists need to stop smuggling in extra claims about their God when it comes to arguments like this one. Torgo
Soooo… since you exist, and since things don’t begin to exist, I guess you’ve always existed then? You, Charles, are infinitely old? That’s a pretty weird view. Do you really believe that? cartesian
I think you are continuing to throw out the baby with the bathwater here.
When the theist offer the “explanation” for the origins of the Universe, that response entails first cause and the Argument from Complexity. Both of these arguments can then be turned on the “explanation” of God, who, to be fair, must go “poof” by the argument that introduced him as the explanation.
It seems to me that all theistic arguments that try to circumvent this problem (Divine Simplicity, a “Necessary” God, etc.) are obviously ad hoc and/or special pleading.
I think you should allow that “Who designed the designer” is not, as you understand it, an assertion that all explanations must themselves be explained; it is a criticism that the arguments for God as an explanation for the Universe’s origins are self-defeating, and the attempts by the theist to rectify this amount to special pleading or incoherence.
I’m sorry to say that I still consider it a perfectly suitable retort, even though I agree that explanations themselves do not demand explanation. (I have enjoyed the series quite a bit so far, btw.) Tony Hoffman
Cartiesian:
>> If we see John 3:16 written in stars, “God did it” seems like a darn good explanation, even if it doesn’t explain much else.
I suppose if we see Jesus in a buritto, then Jesus is Lord? I mean, what are the odds of all the billions of molecules within the buritto coming together to form an image of Jesus Christ?
I think that you can see that this argument is fallacious. dguller
Infinite regress or a prime mover seem to be options we’ve come up with so far.
“In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?” [Carl Sagan, Cosmos, page 257]
Ontological economy. Or, turtles all the way down.
Side question for navel gazers: “Could God know there is no Meta-God”? Rich
I think I’ve recently come to understand the nature of the “who created god?” question.
It’s just an argument(question?) ad absurdum for the idea that all intricate functional things require a designer.
If carried to its logical conclusion, IE, god requires no designer, then the whole premise has to be reconsidered.
That, I think, is Dawkins’ point in asking the question.
I do believe that it ultimately fails though since when god is usually evoked as an explanation for functional complexity, he is not evoked for an ULTIMATE explanation of functional complexity.
It has to be kept in mind that the design inference only refers to contingent complexity, not necessary complexity.
God falls under the category of the latter. majinrevan666
You’re actually going to bite the bullet on the stars spelling out John 3:16? Haukur
Also it is worth noting that positing ‘god of the gaps’ as a solution to unknowns is the antithesis of knowledge and inquiry. “We don’t know (yet)” is both honest and fine. Rich
Well, what’s most concerning is that you misspelled “burrito.” That’s embarrassing. And you’ve insulted millions of hard-working Hispanics. :-/
Also, I don’t know why you think I’m committed to saying anything about the alleged appearances of Jesus’ image in burritos. I’m not really sure why you’re bringing this up.
All I really asserted is that, in the star-spelling-John-3:16 case, “God did it” would be a good explanation. Do you really disagree with that?
That “God did it” is a good explanation in the star-spelling-John-3:16 case does NOT entail that “God did it” is a good explanation in the burrito case. It’s pretty clearly NOT a good explanation in the burrito cases, or at least not in the burrito cases I’ve seen. In the ones I’ve seen, the vague patterns of burning/browning are, though sort of reminiscent of an image of a person, not at all improbable. Given the number of tortillas that are browned every day, it’s inevitable that one will feature an interesting pattern. So no, I’m not committed to saying that “God did it” is a good explanation of the burrito case. cartesian
While I do agree that the “who designed the designer” is a very weak point, it is a good jumping off point for a better argument.
The whole designer issue often surrounds the idea that the universe must have a “first cause” – i.e. a singular event from which all of time and space flows. Many religious individuals take the illogical position that god must have started it all, which leads to the obvious question of where did god come from.
Rather than ask the “who made god” question, I prefer something along the lines of:
“If you believe that god has existed forever, and therefore has no creator, than why can the universe itself not be the same?”
It puts a sharper point on the challenge to the creationist – rather than simply pulling out the “god did it”, they instead have to come up with reasons why god could exist forever (or self-create, etc) while a non-sentient universe could not… Bryan
For the sake of argument, yes. That doesn’t mean that I think there is a hope in hell of this scenario ever happening. :) dguller
cartesian, in your example you talk of probabilities. But isn’t it honest to say we have no sense of teh probabilities involved in universe creation? We don’t know how many there has been, how many there are, etc… Rich
Exactly. I think Luke is sort of missing the point—who designed the designer arguments are useless because they literally get you absolutely nowhere. The thing to be explained (say the complexity of the universe, or even the mere existence of the universe) is explained by positing something that needs to be explained the EXACT SAME WAY.
Contrast this with the example of a drought. You observe that your crops died and you posit a drought caused it. Even without taking into account the fact that a drought is a operational definition, you have successfully explained something because explaining the drought is totally different from explaining the crop loss. Josh
Usually, you temporarily grant your opponent’s position “for the sake of argument.” You don’t adopt a really implausible *denial* of your opponent’s position “for the sake of argument.” This actually shuts down the argument, and commits you to something really implausible.
—
ATHEIST: There’s a lot of evil in the world. That’s improbable, if God exists. So God probably doesn’t exist.
THEIST: For the sake of argument, I deny that there is any evil in the world. Everything is peachy-keen, you know, for the sake of argument.
ATHEIST: You’re lame.
—
CARTESIAN: If the stars suddenly clearly spelled out John 3:16, then “God did it” would be a good explanation. So “God did it” can be a good explanation of complexity.
DGULLER: For the sake of argument, I deny that “God did it” would be a good explanation of the stars’ clearly spelling out John 3:16. I don’t really believe this, but I adopt it for, you know, the sake of argument.
CARTESIAN: You’re lame. cartesian
Cartesian:
First, I’m sure my Mexican wife would be very displeased with my misspelling of burrito. :P
Second, I would say that “God did it” is a possible explanation, but not a good one. If that were a good explanation, then I suppose Orion is responsible for the collection of stars that resemble his image.
The point is that just because humans see a pattern of X in nature does not mean that the pattern of X is really indicative of a regular, underlying process. This is because we are cognitively equipped to see patterns EVERYWHERE, which is part of what has helped us survive in our history, but it also leads to various cases of false positives, which we must be careful of.
I brought up the BURRITO (!) scenario, because this is yet another example of a religious pattern that can be conceived as highly unlikely to occur, if you focus on the random chance of atoms forming a shape of Jesus, but that most reasonable people would reject as a justification of Jesus Christ’s divinity. And the reason why it is easily rejected, even by you, is that there is a plausible natural explanation for the shape’s appearance in the burrito PLUS our knowledge of human psychology and our tendency to see patterns all over the place, including in our food.
I like “intuition pumps” as much as the next guy, but let’s be clear about their limitations. They are just imaginary scenarios that are designed to challenge our intuitions. They are NOT justifications for changing our intuitions, unless there is good evidence that the imaginary scenario actually occurs in the real world. Without that evidence, it is just speculative fantasy, and can be dismissed as such.
So, if you are going to put some serious weight on this thought experiment, then the onus is upon you to show how it could happen in the real world. How would the billions of planets and other massive astronomical entities suddenly shift their positions, in violation of every scientific law that we know about, and form John 3:16? Otherwise, why should I engage in your fictitious scenario?
I mean, what if the stars suddenly formed “there is no God”. What then? dguller
I just read through it again, and I don’t think that I talk of probabilities. cartesian
“, not at all improbable”
” Given the number of tortillas that are browned every day, it’s inevitable that one will feature an interesting pattern” Rich
Are you touting this as the standard philosophical definition of God? I am aware that Plantinga, et al claim God is necessarily existing, but I understand this to be an argument rather than a widely-accepted definition.
Special pleading. Reginald Selkirk
Cartesian:
>> Usually, you temporarily grant your opponent’s position “for the sake of argument.” You don’t adopt a really implausible *denial* of your opponent’s position “for the sake of argument.” This actually shuts down the argument, and commits you to something really implausible.
I accepted “for the sake of argument” that the stars COULD align themselves suddenly to form John 3:16, even though the reality is that this is wildly implausible. I was not referring to if “God did it” would be a good explanation of that event. That is a separate issue.
Hope this helps! dguller
Ah, but your argument contains a sneaky proposition, the assertion that “I exist.”
If by “exist” you mean that I am a collection of protons and electrons that are constantly changing both in makeup and configuration, that existed before I was “born” and will continue to exist after I “die”, then I don’t see the contradiction. (That is unless we are talking about a few seconds following the Big Bang, but now we’re asking a rather different sort of question, aren’t we? The question is no longer, Where did “Charles” come from, but rather, Where did everything come from?)
However, if by “exist” you mean some idea of “Charles-ness”, then I dispute the claim. There is no such thing as “Charles-ness” aside from brain states that exist in our heads. Charles
Actually, the Leibnizian cosmological argument (as opposed to the kalam cosmological argument) does not depend on the universe beginning to exist. Instead it posits that since the universe exists contingently (because it is only one of an infinite number of possible universes and thus need never have existed at all), it must have a cause for its existence in a necessary being. The universe could be held in existence eternally by that cause. ayer
“Instead it posits that since the universe exists contingently (because it is only one of an infinite number of possible universes and thus need never have existed at all), it must have a cause for its existence in a necessary being.”
what a complete non-sequitur! Rich
So that I may better understand what is the reasoning that the universe exists contingently and God does not?
I will not accept the ontological argument as a valid response to this. Paul
I think it is your turn not to repeat the argument, but to show how the argument is not a case of special pleading or ad hoc. Tony Hoffman
cartesian,
I was generalizing. I don’t actually support any ‘in principle’ objection to theistic explanations. Rather, we must assess the explanatory merits of theism in each individual case. As for the details of theism and explanation, I will have more to write about all that later. lukeprog
Oh, sorry, I thought you meant the star-spelling example. But you were talking about the burrito example. You’re right: I do think that, given the number of tortillas we brown/burn everyday, it’s highly probable that we’d see an interesting brown/burn pattern eventually.
So now you think it’s relevant to ask whether we really have any idea about the probabilities involved in universe creation. After all, you say, we don’t know how many universes there are, how many there have been, etc.
Well, I don’t really see how this is relevant. Would you mind telling me why you think this is relevant? cartesian
When Haukur asked you “You’re actually going to bite the bullet on the stars spelling out John 3:16?” I take it the bullet was the claim that, if the stars did spell out John 3:16, “God did it” would NOT be a good explanation. That claim seems pretty darn implausible. To endorse that claim would be to bite a bullet.
Since you replied: “For the sake of argument, yes,” I took it that you meant to endorse that really implausible claim.
Instead, you seem to suggest that by biting the bullet here, you were granting for the sake of argument that the stars could align to spell out John 3:16. But that’s not a bullet. Nobody denies that this is possible, in the broad logical possibility required for my argument. It’s clearly contrary to the laws of nature, but nobody is claiming otherwise.
Anyway, I’m glad we have it all cleared up now. You are willing to grant that the stars could align to spell out the text of John 3:16.
Now let me ask you this: If that were to happen, would “God did it” be a terrible explanation?
If so, why? If not, then you agree with me that Luke is wrong, since Luke said “God did it” is never a good explanation of complexity. cartesian
Haha, I’ve never thought “I exist” was very sneaky. I always thought it was one of the clearest and most obviously true propositions in all of philosophy (though that’s not saying much!).
Why don’t you go ahead and just tell me which of these you deny:
(1) I exist.
(2) Nothing begins to exist.
(3) So, I didn’t begin to exist. (from 1&2)
(4) So, I’ve always existed. (from 3)
(5) So, I’m infinitely old. (from 4)
I’m pretty sure the inferences are valid, so I don’t think you can deny 3, 4, or 5, given 1 and 2.
You very clearly endorsed 2, so I don’t know if you want to give that up.
So, is it really 1 that’s going to go? Or are you going to accept 1, 2, and therefore 5?
You’re in quite a pickle here, given your endorsement of 2. As far as I’m concerned, 2 is pretty obviously false. That’s how I’d get out of this pickle, if I were you. cartesian
“So now you think it’s relevant to ask whether we really have any idea about the probabilities involved in universe creation. After all, you say, we don’t know how many universes there are, how many there have been, etc.
Well, I don’t really see how this is relevant. Would you mind telling me why you think this is relevant? ”
Of course. – arguing from ‘big numbers!’ or ‘improbability’ is actually ‘arguing from personal incredulity’ if you can’t provide any math. Empiricism will elevate the discourse. Rich
Can you see how this part of your post was a bit misleading?
That sounds like a pretty general claim. I agree that you were generalizing. I was just accusing you of OVERgeneralizing, i.e. endorsing a generalization that has counterexamples.
Here’s another way to see the problem: I completely agree with what you wrote in your last comment. I don’t support any in principle objection to theistic explanations, and we should take theistic explanations on a case-by-case basis.
But I do NOT agree with what you originally wrote in your post, namely that “God did it” is a terrible explanation for complexity or pretty much anything else, and that “God did it” fails as an explanation.
So I think your comment says something different from your post, since I agree with the comment but not the post. cartesian
Just let me make sure I understand. I said that “God did it” is not a good explanation of Jesus-images in the burns on tortillas because, given the large number of tortillas that we burn each day, it’s not improbable that some vaguely Jesus-looking image will show up someday.
You seem to be balking here because I don’t actually know EXACTLY how many tortillas we burn everyday, or EXACTLY how likely it is for any given tortilla-burning that a vaguely Jesus-looking image will be produced.
Is that what’s going on? If so, I agree that it sure would be nice if I had those numbers for you, and that would surely “elevate the discussion,” as you say. But I don’t think these numbers are necessary for the argument to be compelling.
Given what you know about the world’s tortilla-eating habits, can’t you agree that there are very many burned/browned tortillas produced everyday? And given what you know about the burning/browning of tortillas, and given how vaguely these alleged Jesus-images actually resemble Jesus, doesn’t it seem not improbable that such a vague image would show up in the burns/browns of tortillas eventually? Are you really agnostic on some of these questions?
I wonder if you carry this skepticism out generally. Suppose someone reasoned this way: “I know people say you shouldn’t play soccer on the freeway. But until I know EXACTLY how many cars there are out there and EXACTLY how likely it is that I’ll be hit by one and EXACTLY how likely it is that I’ll die if hit, I’m just going to refrain from believing that playing soccer on the freeway is dangerous.” cartesian
No, the point concerns universes. The burrito case you can make some reasoned estimates or a formal study if you want. But universes, not so much. Rich
cartesian,
Sure, no problem. I’ve now clarified my post. lukeprog
Little bit surprised you didn’t talk about Kant here Luke. Surely Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason offers the classic formulation of the “who made God” argument where he wonders why we should make an exception for a creator. Alex
Alternate form of Luke’s made up conversation -
THEIST: “There is so much complexity in the world, it must have been designed by an Intelligent Designer. The best explanation for our world is an Intelligent Designer.”
ATHEIST: “Ok, fair enough. For now I will accept this as the best explanation.”
ATHEIST: “So Theist, your Intelligent Designer is very complex. Does he have a designer?”
THEIST: “No”
ATHEIST: “Why not?”
THEIST: “Because he exists necessarily.”
ATHEIST: “Hmmm. Interesting. Why can’t this reasoning be applied to the original question?”
THEIST: “Because this universe is contingent.”
ATHEIST: “How do you know that this universe is contingent.”
THEIST: “Because there are many possible worlds and this is but one of them.”
ATHEIST: “Ok, so there are many possible worlds. But at least one of those worlds must exist necessarily.”
THEIST: Paul
Cartesian:
I explained why your thought experiment is not persuasive above. I’ll tell you what, IF your hypothetical scenario ever happens, then I’ll consider “God did it” to be a reasonable explanation.
I’ll add that if I suddenly wake up with two heads tomorrow morning, then I’ll conclude that the laws of biology, chemistry and physics are bullshit. Do you really take that as an argument against biology, chemistry and physics? Of course not, because it is based upon a highly implausible hypothetical scenario. Same with your thought experiment.
It really doesn’t show anything, except that if everything we know is false, then ANY explanation becomes possible. However, that isn’t really saying very much. dguller
Luke,
Kudos to you for calling this one out. It actually makes a skeptic look either obstinate or ignorant. I was listening to William Lane Craig’s debate with Lewis Wolpert today and it was annoying that Wolpert kept putting this one forward after it had been answered repeatedly by Craig. It made Wolpert look like he wasn’t paying attention or really didn’t care to engage with the argument – just continue to tow the party line. Of course, the rest of his arguments (if one could call them that) were not much better. PR
Right, god exists because we say that he must exist. That is convincing… Sly
You have missed the point IMO. Matter does not begin to exist, it just exists. Patterns of matter can begin to exist, so my personal pattern of atoms had a start point, however the matter/energy itself did not. Sly
Actually I disagree. The Failure to establish how a proposed god came into existence equates to not being able to use that god as an explanation. If you can’t get passed the first, and necessary step of being able to at least provide a plausible, albeit improbable way to justify the origins of god, you cannot progress to step 2, 3 etc.
And saying god is “the alpha and the omega” is a mere cop-out. Reasonist
Nice post. You wrote:
Though I would obviously object to parts of that, I agree with your overall objections against the “who designed the designer” trope. If you’re an atheist and you use “who designed the designer,” you’d better recognize how silly you look to a theistic philosopher with half a brain.
I’m also with you when you say you’re not loyal to atheism, but truth and reason. We agree there, too. It nauseates me to see anyone more loyal to party lines than truth and reason. cl
Keeping it simple, and dropping my 2 page screed of comments, I’d like to see if any theists — Christians or not — want to take a stab at filling in the blanks. Well, by not presupposing a previous answer in their response, of course. Hermes
Paul,
God is eternal. I know certain atheists view this as a cop-out, but it’s really not. That which is eternal requires no cause, by definition. Overly simplistic, I admit, but sometimes it’s better to keep these things simple. cl
But the other Paul’s argument is not about cause, but about design. Why is whether God is eternal relevant to this? Paul Wright
Well, I’ve gotten into this late, but I still want to imput my thoughts.
First, I think that what Dawkins is getting at with “Who designed the designer” isn’t the philosophical infinite regress of causes, but rather that God is the sort of thing that we think needs to have a particular sort of cause. God is supposed to be (in all but the most Karen Armstrong-y styles of theism) something like a giant, very strong person. Giant, very strong people need giant, very strong frontal lobes to think and giant, very strong tongues to speak and giant, very strong buttocks for Moses to see (Exodus 33:23). If we think that frontal lobes, tongues and butts need an explanation when we see them in humans, why shouldn’t we need such an explanation for God?
Compare to the Darwinian explanation for complexity: time, imperfect reproduction, and sorting conditions. All of these (perhaps save the “reproduction” part) are the sort of things that don’t require explanation. Or, at least, require the explanation of simple things. (What is a “simple” thing? Let’s go with “things without a buttock”.)
As for the bible verse written in the stars, I’m sorry, but Goddidit still wouldn’t be a good explanation. All we could say is that it points some force vastly more powerful and/or subtle than our current understanding. Yes, the Christians’ God is one possible culprit, but so are: aliens (who perhaps put a holographic shell around the earth); a mad scientist (who perhaps infected the whole world with nanites that artificially stimulate the optic nerves to produces a virtual reality simulation across the sky); Loki, Hermes or Ganesha, trickster-Gods (playing their own tricks on their own times); some sort of epic-level illusion magic from D&D (Bigby’s Deceptive Divinity). I’m sure we could come up with other explanations. Why would the aliens or mad scientists or whatever be less likely than the Christian God? (And, of course, not the Judeo-Christian God, since that God didn’t send his son). I think the pre-existing evidence against the Christian God (the fact he came to earth to be recorded by incompetent men, in a series book that reads like historical fiction and contain escalating claims to miracles, to found a church that killed people for disagreeing with it, in a universe that was different than the one he described) counts heavily against the Goddidit explanation of the star-event. Just because we’ve seen a miracle doesn’t mean we should forget everything else we know! That’s how you get Pentecostals and schizophrenics.
Duke York Duke York
I think you’re right. Two additional points. First of all, GR just predicts that everything was once contained in a singularity. That’s it. Now, there are also singularities at the heart of black holes. To claim the big bang as an example of “something from nothing”, as a start of some sort, is to claim that black holes are a “nothing from something”, an end of sorts. I don’t quite know where to go here, but there could be something there (my logic is fairly bad, but doesn’t this establish a tautology between nothing and something? That seems bad. Although, it seems we live in a flat universe, sum zero energy, so that’s not too crazy).
On a second point, it seems to me that causality requires a change of time. Any cause must precede an effect. Even WLC has admitted that time began at the Big Bang. How can we ask for a t =0 with t=0 at the Big Bang. To demand a cause is to demand for something to exist prior, but there’s no such thing as prior to the Big Bang, if that’s when time began. kittykay4
Sorry if this posts twice: got the “server timed out” message.
Paul Wright,
Because the question was why God doesn’t have a designer (i.e. causal agent). We can consider whether or not God requires a cause and whether or not God requires a designer as separate questions, if you wish; I was just kinda lumping them together.
God doesn’t require a cause because being caused is not a necessary attribute of eternality (if that’s even a word). As far as why God doesn’t require a designer, well…
To grossly paraphrase, theists who use the argument from design essentially posit that the complexity in nature is beyond that which can be accounted for by chance. You know, the classic Paley teleological argument: “when you come across a complex object like a watch, you wouldn’t assume it made itself.” Okay, fair enough, which is probably why the atheist in Paul’s hypothetical exchange replies,
When the atheist asks “who designed God,” he or she makes an assumption that is not based on empirical observation, but an assumed premise that complex phenomena require equally or more-complex causes. In pondering whether Nature is better explained by agent or non-agent causality, we have Nature to observe. The theist bases his or her argument from design on the observed complexity in Nature.
To contrast, we don’t have the luxury of observing God, so we don’t have any observed complexity to base an argument on. The assumption of a designer requires the observation of design. In the case of God, there is no “observation of design” to explain, because we’re not observing God. To ask “who designed God” is to simply assume that God requires a designer, but that is unjustified because we lack observed complexity such that the question “who designed God” might have warrant, and presumptuous because complex phenomena do not necessarily require equally or more-complex causes.
It’s an unsound premise contradicted by TENS and the Grand Canyon, among other things. cl
Reasonist,
Does that mean that physicists are unjustified in positing quarks to explain quantum phenomena, because they cannot offer an explanation for the quarks themselves? lukeprog
If I understand CL correctly – here is a different version of it.
THEIST: “There is so much complexity in the world, it must have been designed by an Intelligent Designer. The best explanation for our world is an Intelligent Designer.”
ATHEIST: “Ok, fair enough. For now I will accept this as the best explanation.”
ATHEIST: “So Theist, your Intelligent Designer is very complex. Does he have a designer?”
THEIST: “No”
ATHEIST: “Why not?”
THEIST: “Because he is eternal.”
ATHEIST: “So God’s complexity doesn’t need explaining because he is eternal. Hmmm. Interesting. I agree that if something were eternal that its origin needs no explanation.”
a few moments later..
ATHEIST: Hey Theist so we know that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. We know that approx 15 billion years ago this universe came to be from a point singularity. Do you have any reason to think that the matter contained withing this incredibly dense and hot point singularity has not existed eternally? We know matter exists, so I don’t quite understand how God is eternal vs the material is eternal is a better explanation”
THEIST: Paul
Just as a side note – in Luke’s original hypothetical conversation and in my subsequent variations thereof instead of THEIST perhaps DEIST may be more appropriate place holder?
Possibly not an important to the point of the discussion… Paul
John Cramer addresses this in the article I cited above, where he describes Mortimer Adler’s gloss on the Leibnizian cosmological argument:
JOHN CRAMER: “…whatever might be otherwise might not exist at all. Anything that necessarily exists must be exactly what it is; it cannot be other than what it is. The converse is also true then—whatever can be otherwise does not exist necessarily and must be able to not exist. However, for the cosmos to cease to exist, it must be annihilated and not merely transformed…Another way of arriving at the same conclusion is to rely on the principle of sufficient reason. Anything that exists does so because there is sufficient reason for it to do so. The cause that is the sufficient reason may reside either in the thing or in something else but the cause must exist. For a merely possible entity, the sufficient reason cannot reside in the entity but must reside in another. If the universe is merely possible, then the sufficient reason for its existence resides not in the universe but elsewhere. But the universe is all of the physical reality so the merely possible existence of the universe points “outside” the universe to the existence of a nonphysical reality…Adler concludes then that, by the previous premises, there exists a necessary supreme being so that the universe stays in existence. God must be there to sustain the universe even if the universe is eternal.” ayer
I think Dawkins is a scientist first and an atheist second. To me, this means he expects that everything has a scientific explanation.
As a scientist, if you ask, “Where does lightning come from?” and the answer is “the sky”, then it just means you haven’t asked the right question. It may be true, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t give you a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. So the logical next step is to reframe the question so that you get a meaningful answer.
Therefore, when I ask “Where did the universe come from?”, if the answer is “God”, then the logical next step is to ask “Well then, where did God come from?”.
Maybe this doesn’t meet the rigorous test of formal logic, but it’s the way people actually think – which I guess is why there’s so much strong opinion on this subject! cbranch
I’d be happy to. Do me a favor first. Please define the terms “I” and “exist”. Charles
Charles; good call. Given my previous exchanges with cartesian, I think it’s highly likely that you two are using different definitions for those two terms. lukeprog
When a theist argues that everything has to have a cause outside of itself, therefore the universe has to have a cause outside the universe, therefore god created the uniform, its perfectly acceptable to point out that this presumes that god is an uncaused cause, which is impossible under their own argument. And if they want to claim that god is allowed to be an uncaused cause, then they should explain why other things can’t exist just because they do.
What you are doing in this post is rewriting the theist’s argument for him to make it stronger, and then refuting the stronger version.
That has its place. One should attempt to address the strongest possible arguments of one’s opponents, if one’s goal is to reach the strongest possible conclusion of the debate.
But one should also address the argument’s one’s opponents actually make, particularly when your goal is not only to reach truth, but also to convince.
Not only is it not your obligation to help your opponent make better but still invalid arguments, its also a bit demeaning to simply declare that your opponent is too stupid to hold up his side of the debate, so you’ll do both while he sits silent. Patrick
To quote Eliezer: eyeballing suggests that using the phrase by definition, anywhere outside of math, is among the most alarming signals of flawed argument I’ve ever found. It’s right up there with “Hitler”, “God”, “absolutely certain” and “can’t prove that”. Eneasz
This is my very first post on this blog. I have spent valuable time reading and and weighing Luke’s approach to the issues and I have to say that I find him to be frank and above all fair especially to the opposite side of the debate. His blog is indeed a testimony that online discussions of this sort can be very civil and educational.
Keep up the good work.
To the issue..
The problem I have with atheistic opposition to the simple theistic inference that the cause of the universe is not and could not be physical is that using Dawkins’ own criteria,at best what we can reasonably deduce is a naturalistic explanation to some aspect or substructure of the universe. There cannot be any naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe, which when defined properly is the entirety of the physical, natural realm. Any explanation that seeks to validate that claim (the claim that one can adduce a proper and meaningful naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe) will invariably turn out to be mind-shatteringly complex, highly implausible and I might even add non-testable. The ongoing research into multiverses readily comes to mind.
If Dawkins wants to make the argument that all explanations must be simple ( I suppose the term “simple” invites a bit of subjectivity) or we should regard them as explanations, then he should be getting slapped down by theoretical physicists. This is not biological evolution and I wonder why he appeals too strongly to an evolutionary model. Just think, the field of quantum physics is already driving the most intelligent insane how much more when we begin to talk about 11 dimensional hysperspace and all the academic jargon of brane cosmology.
In the end, even if we never settle the issue of whether a god created the universe out of nothing at the cosmological singularity, one needs to realize that this is an issue that will never be satisfactorily resolved or explained with our current understanding of physics. The best we can do is deal with physical reality AFTER a universe has mysteriously appeared. If this realization proves to be intellectual dissatisfying for the atheist, he simply has to hope that sometime in the future, some theory of cosmological beginnings can be shown to be infinite in the past. It is a position he has to hang his faith on if he doesn’t want to face the seeming unreasonableness of his atheistic commitments. Anaedo
Correction: I could not edit the post above. Barring any other minor spelling mistake, the second to the last paragraph, for clarity’s sake, should read:
“If Dawkins wants to make the argument that all explanations must be simple ( I suppose the term “simple” invites a bit of subjectivity) or else we should disregard them as “explanations”, then he should be getting slapped down by theoretical physicists.”
My bad… Anaedo
Creationist:
Assertion a: Some things are of sufficient complexity to necessitate a designer.
A-b: The universe is of such complexity.
A-a & A-b, therefore:
Conclusion 1: The universe necessitates a designer.
——-
Atheist:
A-c: Any designer is necessarily at least as complex as that which it has designed.
C-1 & A-c, therefore:
C-2: The designer of the universe is necessarily at least as complex as the universe, which is of sufficient complexity to necessitate a designer.
Further:
C-2 & A-a, therefore:
C-3: The designer of the universe necessitates a designer.
——-
In my experience with Christianity, the above is generally accepted until C-3, and so only C-3 must be explicitly stated as a rebuttal. The counter-argument from infinite regress comes not from the application of scientific standards, but rather from a demonstration of the creationist’s own fallacy. hedrick
At first I read this and thought, “Wow, I am wrong again.” Then I read John D’s argument which agreed with part of Luke’s point but qualified it in a subtle way that allowed both the standard objection to be right but only if done right. So, does Luke agree with John D (4th comment) ?
PS – Luke, your site takes forever to load on my browser nowadays, any ideas why? Sabio Lantz
He’s been asked before to define ‘exist’ and, if I understood him correctly, he regards the concept as fundamental and not in need of definition. He also regards the existence of people as fundamental in some way – at least that’s the only way I can make sense of his brain-splitting argument in his debate with Luke. Haukur
I prefer the scientific explanation. Space-time is flat, to within the ability of our instruments to measure. Ergo, our universe has zero net energy (i.e. “positive” energy [mass, photons, etc] and “negative” energy [cosmological expansion] are evenly matched).
The above means that our universe can be the product of nothing – literally – since the net energy of our universe is zero.
Ergo our universe – big bang and all – could be nothing more than a quantum vacuum fluctuation. No need for any external universes, creators, beginnings or ends.
And since I’m about as clear as mud, let a real physicist explain it (its an hour video, but well worth the watch):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo Bryan
Sabio,
Which browser? lukeprog
John D and Sabio,
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a theist dumb enough to assert that everything requires an explanation. They are more likely to say something like “Everything contingent requires an explanation” or “Everything physical requires an explanation.” Which gets God off the hook. lukeprog
Well, that’s all I ever wanted from you. I took Luke to be saying that “God did it” is always a terrible explanation. So I cooked up a case in which it wouldn’t be. Now you seem to agree that, in this (admittedly far out) case, “God did it” would be a good explanation. So we agree, and progress has been made. :-) cartesian
1) Naturally, that could apply to any other putative eternal entity, such as a universe.
2) What exactly does “eternal” even mean to an entity which, we are often told is “outside time and space”? Reginald Selkirk
Well, I think Charles said that nothing begins to exist, and I took him at his word. In any event, I’m not a pattern (and neither are you). Patterns are abstract objects, and can be multiply instantiated. People aren’t and can’t. In other words, if I were a pattern (namely, this here very handsome pattern of atoms), then we could duplicate this pattern, say with a cool Star Trek duplication machine. We could make a literally identical twin of me. This person would instantiate the exact same pattern of atoms that I instantiate, and yet he would not be me. He would be me-ish, me-like, but he wouldn’t be me.
Also, the pattern of my atoms is constantly changing, and yet I persist. So, I am no this pattern of my atoms. cartesian
Charles,
I’ve done that already in the comments five posts ago (“rescuing Dawkins’ argument), in the exact same way.
This argument can be successfully attacked in a way we have identified:
The theist rejects your original assertion unless it reads “sufficient *physical* complexity”. This lets god escape that cycle, as it is not necessarily physically complex. Note that this requires the theist to accept mind/matter duality, but that usually isn’t a problem for them. Polymeron
Well, there’s this:
Which I think is pretty much the same thing. Tony Hoffman
Ayer – I was going along with the quote you provided until it go to this.
“If the universe is merely possible”. Why is the universe merely possible? I am willing to grant you that it may have had different characteristics/properties or whatever. Or it may have remained as a point singularity eternally.
But even if the premises are valid the specifics of the conclusion are still invalid.
“by the previous premises, there exists a necessary supreme being”. Nothing, given the premises, requires a supreme being. I am assuming that by supreme being this implies some kind of disembodied mind.
The conclusion at best can be that something non-physical created the universe. Iit could have done it entirely by accident (for lack of a better word). Paul
My last comment was meant for hedrick, not Charles. My bad. Polymeron
I think you’re confused about the nature of possible worlds. On the most popular type of account of possible worlds, possible worlds are abstract objects: maximal states of affairs, propositions, or properties. These entities ALL exist necessarily. So, on such an account, your claim that at least one possible world exists necessarily is trivially true.
On a less popular account of possible worlds, they are actually existing concrete objects. To say “Possibly, there’s a golden mountain” is to say that there really is a golden mountain out there, though not spatio-temporally related to us. It’s a weird view, and you can thank David Lewis for it. I don’t know if any sense can be given to asking whether a possible world exists necessarily on this account of possible worlds. I may be wrong about this, but I think Lewis would only talk about individuals and sets existing possibly or necessarily, and he analyzes this talk in terms of those concrete worlds that really exist. So I don’t know what to make of your claim on this account of possible worlds. cartesian
I think when Luke said “requires an explanation” he meant “requires a cause” (since the existence of something can be explained in one of two ways: by a cause or by the necessity of its own nature). But he can correct me if I’m misinterpreting him. ayer
Luke,
Great to ponder your article, it’s a fantastic blog btw.
I’m not convinced by your argument in this case though.
I am pretty sure I understand Peter Lipton’s argument, which I feel is central to this post. The problem of infinite regress (the childlike, “Why? Why? Why?) is one I acknowledge. I understand and agree that not every explanation (Who ate the last slice of blueberry cheesecake? – Simon did) requires any further explanation, and that those that do need some further explanation (Where does rain come from? – The Sky – But why?) don’t need to be done so until we get to the beginnings of the universe or time itself.
However, I think it is important to acknowledge that this asking of Why? or How? or What makes you say that? is fundamental to the scientific (and indeed the socratic/philosophical) process, and whilst philosophically tricky when taken to extremes serves an essential purpose.
Finally, I haven’t used this argument much myself (it’s far from my favourite), but I do believe it is a legitimate argument against creationist/intelligent design positions. If a creationists insists that the human eye/lizards/the Tasmanian wilderness, the platypus, bonobos, etc are so irreducibly complex as to require a designer, why isn’t it OK to explain to them that by their own logic their designer must be so complex as to require a designer?
Is my logic wrong? I don’t feel as though the above is another Liptonesque Why? but rather a method of pointing out the absurdity and circular logic of a creationist argument. Dave
Sigh. Really? You’re going to be like that? You really don’t have a sufficient grasp on “I” or “exist” to be able to evaluate “I exist” as true or false?
“I” is the first-person indexical. Its linguistic meaning is a function from possible contexts of utterance to possible contents. In the sentence “I am handsome,” uttered here in this context, “I” has the content of me, cartesian. If you were to utter that sentence in your context, “I” would refer to you.
To exist is to be the value of a bound variable. To say that “Socrates exists” is to say that “There is some x, such that x=Socrates.” Existence is the pertinent difference between me and Sherlock Holmes. Existence is the most valuable thing we lose when we die, and the most valuable thing we gain when we’re conceived. Imagine the perfect woman: existence is the most valuable thing she lacks.
I don’t know if any of this helps. I really don’t think I’m in a position to explain these extremely simple concepts to someone who genuinely doesn’t understand them. Like jazz, “…if you hafta ask, you ain’t never gonna know!” But I suspect you really DO understand them, and you’re just being difficult.
So, do you think you’re in a position now to evaluate the sentence “I exist”? Is that true or false? cartesian
You’re about the 19th person to bring this up. I think that Luke’s position is that when critics of the creationist (complexity) argument asserts that the creationist argument fails it is because those critics must be basing their criticism on the false premise that all explanations need to be explained. But there’s a problem in interpretation (in Luke’s stated position on this criticism), because it’s seldom clear if the critic who asks “But who designed the designer” is grounding this criticism on the (false) premise that all explanations must be explained.
I do think that Luke needs to address the fact that many people raise the criticism of the creationist complexity argument (summed up pithily in “Who designed the designer?”) in ways that remain valid (that the creationist complexity argument, in order to be defended, must resort to circularity, ad hoc, special pleading, etc.), and that it fails to be an explanation for those reasons.
So I think that Luke still needs to rescue these posts from a tautology — that when critics of the creationist complexity argument employ a fallacy to criticize that argument they are committing a fallacy. It appears to me, and about 19 others, I believe, that the creationist complexity argument can be criticized with the retort “But who designed the designer?” that is based on valid criticism and not a straw man premise.
The above is probably stated more harshly than I mean it to come across, and all due respect to Luke and the discussion here, but that’s how it appears to me at any rate. I also haven’t read “Theism and Explanation” and I’m sure that would help. (But man, have you guys seen the price on that thing? Stupid academic book pricing.) Tony Hoffman
It may be that I am confused about the nature of possible worlds. The following makes sense: “On the most popular type of account of possible worlds, possible worlds are abstract objects”. Not sure about, the implied necessity, of maximal states of affairs.
Then you say these all exist necessarily. I don’t know what you mean by this. Here is what Ayer said (which you may not agree with)
It would be helpful to for me if either of you would provide clarity. As it seems to me there is a contradiction in the application of possible worlds.
Anyway, you further elaborate -
You are going to have to school me in philosophese because I don’t understand this at all.
When you say the following “On a less popular account of possible worlds, they are actually existing concrete objects. To say “Possibly, there’s a golden mountain” is to say that there really is a golden mountain out there, though not spatio-temporally related to us.”
I don’t see how this less popular account differs in any meaningful way from the more popular account. They both, effectively, state that possible worlds are also necessary. Paul
Physics gives a description not an explanation.
If you assume that the particular description and reality coincide, then you can use the description as explanation.
Explanations are best left to philosophers and theologians, while the cool guys do the real work. Francesco Orsenigo
Actually, you can’t. The no cloning theorem of quantum mechanics says you can’t make an exact copy of something without destroying the original. Charles
Tony Hoffman,
Sounds like Cramer is citing the PSR, there, not asserting that everything must be caused. lukeprog
ayer,
For clarification, when I say explanation I’m referring to causal explanation. Which, as I understand it, is different from a PSR. lukeprog
Dave,
You are welcome to make an argument about how God must be so complex that he needs an explanation, or whatever, but that’s a different subject than this post addresses. lukeprog
cartesian,
I think Charles had a legit question. For example, I know that you and I have different meanings for “I” and for “exist,” which caused a lot of confusion for me during our debate. lukeprog
That is really cool. I love consequences of the uncertainty principle. Josh
Francesco Orsenigo,
If I’m reading you correctly, I agree. lukeprog
I think this is a misrepresentation of the “Who created the creator?” counter. The point of the counter is NOT to demand that an explanation have an explanation of itself. The point of the counter is to show the theist that demanding that all explanations have explanations is wrong, and leads to infinite regress.
Let’s remember why the Creator was even hypothesized. It’s because the theist demands that every explanation have an explanation of itself and thus created his own infinite regress. “Where did you come from? Oh, well, where did your parents come from? Ah, well, where did life come from? Erm, well where did matter come from?” Trapped in his own argument, he then special-pleads for a thing that is exempt from the infinite regress he advocated in the first place (and conveniently also happens to be his/her preferred deity).
Saying “who created the creator?” is a short-hand way of pointing out that requiring an explanation to explain itself was the error that created this problem in the first place, and there’s no particular reason to stop right here. You could just as well keep going back, or have stopped earlier. (Or, unstated, not gotten into the trap in the first place) Eneasz
Eneasz,
I know MANY atheists who have used it in the way I’ve represented it. They say things like “Well, but saying ‘God did it’ doesn’t get you anywhere because it just begs the question of ‘Where did God come from?’” lukeprog
It’s probably just my ignorance, but I fail to see how the two should be meaningfully distinguished.
Wikpedia states this about the PSR — “For every entity x, if x exists, then there is a sufficient explanation why x exists.”
That seems very similar to me to saying that “everything requires an explanation.” Tony Hoffman
Tony,
Yeah. When I use ‘explanation’ I’m using it in the sense that philosophy of science uses it: causal explanation. The PSR uses the term ‘explanation’ in a more general way. It’s confusing. lukeprog
I’d recommend this book, for a nice contemporary overview:
http://books.google.com/books?id=H-Aeui5Kr38C
And this book, for some seminal articles:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ie6J_XoVJYEC cartesian
Well, according to that very link you provided, what the theorem really says is that the laws of nature forbid “the creation of identical copies of an arbitrary unknown quantum state.” Since nothing I said implies that the laws of nature permit the creation of identical copies of arbitrary unknown quantum states, what you say here seems pretty much irrelevant.
Suppose someone’s view is that I am a very highly specified pattern of matter, and this pattern is specified all the way down to the quantum level. This view has at least three problems: one, this pattern is constantly changing, and so I do not persist through time. Since I clearly do persist through time, I’m not this sort of pattern of matter. Two, patterns are abstract objects, and I’m not an abstract object. So this view is wrong. Three, it’s broadly logically possible that my pattern be duplicated in other matter (if the link you provided even speaks to this issue, AT MOST what it says is that such cloning is NOMOLOGICALLY impossible, not broadly logically impossible). Call that new patterned mass Twin-Cartesian. On the view of people as patterns, the pattern is multiply located, and so I am multiply located. I am both cartesian and Twin-Cartesian. But clearly I wouldn’t be multiply located, and I can’t be both cartesian and Twin-Cartesian (since cartesian =/= Twin-Cartesian, I can’t be identical with both). Therefore, for yet another reason, this view is false.
Was that your view?
Have you figured out whether you exist yet? I’m still waiting on that. cartesian
You eat a lot of acid, [Cramer], back in the hippie days? ildi
Good book recommendations, cartesian. Thanks. lukeprog
Do these books explain what appears to me to be a contradiction between you and Ayer.
You hold that all possible world exists necessarily.
Ayer holds that if a world is one of many possible worlds then it is contingent.
If I have misrepresented someone, apologies.
I don’t know how to rectify these two. It seems to me that your point seems to negate Ayer’s argument. Which is fine. I have no objection (at the moment) to your stance on possible worlds.
Maybe you or someone else can enlighten me. Paul
Just for fun sake. You could create two copies and there would be three of you and yet there be only one of you. Thus we have the trinity. Paul
Right, and until the transport scans you, you may as well be an arbitrary unknown quantum state. In any case, Wikipedia wasn’t my source. It’s this.
I’ll get back to you on that other thing real soon. Charles
Cartesian appears to be referring to the distinction between logically possible worlds and the world that is actualized. The logically possible worlds may exist as abstract objects, but our universe is the one that has been actualized and exists concretely. Thus, its concrete existence is contingent. Any of the infinite number of other possible universes could have been actualized, but were not. This, to me, appears consistent with Adler’s Leibnizian argument. Of course, cartesian can correct me if I have misinterpreted him. ayer
No issue with the distinction between a logically possible worlds versus an actualization of one of those worlds. However, if in my earlier comment I am addressing your actualized world based argument and then Cartesian counters me by saying I am may be confused and that [logically] possible worlds necessarily exist. Seems to me I am at a disadvantage here. Paul
Does anyone see what’s wrong here? The argument from contingency which Ayer is referring to takes the contingency of the universe as a premise, and then concludes that because there must be sufficient reason for it, something must necessitate it. But aren’t we now denying the plausible assumption that the universe is contingent by embracing the conclusion? Aren’t we making it necessary by citing a necessary cause?
One might as well argue that, since the universe is contingent, either the principle of sufficient reason is false, or God is not the creator of the universe. TaiChi
Ayer, you seem to like the ontological argument a lot. But I think that it is flawed for the following reason:
If the argument works, it should also be applicable to other things than god. Specifically, if it works for the maximum good being (god) it should also work for the maximum evil being (lets call him satan) in the following way.
p1. satan is the maximal evil being;
p2. satan can do more evil if he exists than if he doesn’t exist;
c. therefore, satan must exist, otherwise he wouldn’t be maximal evil.
Now, this is still not a problem for most christians who believe in satan. But consider this:
p3. if god is maximal good he must be more powerful than satan.
p4. if satan is maximal evil than he must be more powerful than god.
Which leads to a contradiction.
My conclusion is that the ontological argument cannot work. If the argument is sound, it must also hold for satan which leads to a contradiction. If it only works for god, you don’t have an argument at all, it’s just special pleading. Bram van Dijk
Probably just a different way to say some of the things that have been touched on in these comments, but when a theist asks an atheist, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” then clearly they are assuming that nothing is the default. The idea being that nothing needs no explanation, but something does.
So, an atheist can reply, “Why is there God rather than nothing? Nothing is the default, right?”
The point being that theists and atheists are both in the same boat in terms of the “Why something?” question. After all, how can “God by his nature has to exist” defeat the almighty NOTHING which, assumed by the theist, is the natural order of things?
So, I think theists should stop pretending that it’s a kick ass question for which they have the superior answer.
Am I wrong here? Are theists and atheists not in the same boat in this regard? I also understand that, specific to Luke’s post, this is technically off topic. Brandon
So, when the theorem states that you can’t copy arbitrary quantum states, it means for any given copying mechanism, there exist states that can’t be copied. However, it doesn’t say that NO states can be copied. But that’s not even really the issue. In the same sense that the original quantum state must be “destroyed” when it’s copied, a quantum state is destroyed even when its simply measured. But if you can measure a state, you can copy the results of the measurement. If you measure the particles in a macroscopic object, you aren’t destroying the object, you’re just altering its quantum state. So, all the no-cloning theorem says about macroscopic objects is that you can’t copy them without disturbing their state. Well, duh… you can’t even observe an object without disturbing its state. I guess you can hold on to the fact that the EXACT quantum state of an object may not be able to be copied, but talking about the quantum state of a macroscopic object is pretty meaningless. Do you cease to be you every time you interact with your environment?
Blarg… sorry, that was kind of a tangent that really isn’t relevant to the actual point of the thread. This kind of stuff just bugs me. Don’t even get me started on peoples misconceptions about quantum teleportation and quantum computers. thecos
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 1/15/2010, at The Unreligious Right UNRR
Cartesian:
>> if I were a pattern (namely, this here very handsome pattern of atoms), then we could duplicate this pattern, say with a cool Star Trek duplication machine. We could make a literally identical twin of me. This person would instantiate the exact same pattern of atoms that I instantiate, and yet he would not be me.
Actually, it WOULD be you, except for two differences. One, the clone occupies a different part of space than you do, and since personal identity requires space-time continuity, it would be different. Two, even if it WAS identical to you at the moment of instantiation, it would be different thereafter, because it would have different experiences than you do, and thus the pattern of atoms would begin to diverge from yours.
However, the underlying point is still the same. Your personal identity is due to a specific pattern of atoms within a specific region of space-time.
>> Suppose someone’s view is that I am a very highly specified pattern of matter, and this pattern is specified all the way down to the quantum level. This view has at least three problems: one, this pattern is constantly changing, and so I do not persist through time. Since I clearly do persist through time, I’m not this sort of pattern of matter.
You are a funny guy. Are you saying that YOU do not constantly change? Are you the EXACT same person as you were even a millisecond ago? Of course not, because you(now) have had different conscious and unconscious experiences than you(then), and thus are not exactly the same, especially since your physically brain is different due to the different experiences.
Also, how do you account for the fact that one’s personality changes over one’s lifetime? I mean, I am not the child I once was (except for certain childish qualities that just won’t go away, dammit!), right?
I think that one’s personal identity IS the specific pattern of atoms that one takes. That does not mean that that pattern must be static and unchanging, but rather that the pattern DOES change over one’s lifetime, and even from day to day. There is obviously some room for variability that still maintains the integrity of the pattern/identity, but when those bounds are exceeded, then we have personality change, such as during psychotic or manic states, or even personality loss altogether in the state of death.
>> Two, patterns are abstract objects, and I’m not an abstract object. So this view is wrong.
That is not the point. You are a PATTERN OF ATOMS. You are NOT a PATTERN, PERIOD. You are concrete, because you consist of ATOMS. Not abstract at all, but very, very real. dguller
I’m sorry, but the above is simply nonsense.
1) We live in a complex universe, so not too surprisingly science describing it is also complex. But complex does not mean wrong, or impossible. Its beyond our computing capacity to model the gravitation interactions of the planets in our solar system; and yet, strangely enough, they somehow get by.
2) Implausible, by whose definition? Once something has been shown to occur it is no longer implausible – its fact. Atoms were once considered to be impossible – good thing we didn’t listen to those nay-sayers.
3) Current origin (cosmological) models make very specific and testable predictions about our own universe, meaning that they are to some extent testable. I posted a link to a video earlier in this thread that deals with this very issue. The classic example is the curvature of space-time – most cosmological models demand certain curvatures. We have measured the curvature of space, and thus have already been able to invalidate some models, and support other. Likewise, various cosmological models make other testable predictions – in regards to nature of vacuum energy, the interaction between gravity and the other fundamental forces, quantum entanglement, and so forth. As we become able to test those aspects of our universe we can further develop our cosmological models.
4) Not testable now does not equal not testable in the future. Until about two decade ago we had never directly imaged atoms; now, that tech is available in most unis. Until nine years ago it wasn’t possible to image below the diffraction limit of light – today myself and dozens of other scientists do it daily. Today, there are thousands of untestable questions. Tomorrow there will be a few less… Bryan
Actually, we are discussing the Leibnizian cosmological argument, not the ontological argument. ayer
No, because the crux of the argument is that God could exist without the universe (because his existence is by the necessity of his own nature) but the universe could not exist without God (because its existent is contingent and dependent upon a cause). But the universe need not have existed at all. ayer
Because obviously if there is a being that must exist necessarily, then it must defeat nothing. That is why there is something rather than nothing–because there is a necessary being (who is the cause of the contingently existing universe). If there was not such a necessary being, then the contingent universe, which requires a necessary being as a cause, would not exist, and nothing (which is not a “thing”, just “the absence of anything”) would inevitably prevail. ayer
IE won’t even show the comments on this post.
Firefox takes a long time to open the blog over the last month. It flickers now while I type. If you ask me, you need code surgery.
Don’t let this fantastic site crash ! Sabio
William Sahakian would state that we naturalists make the fallacy of of multiple questions in asking what made or what designed God, but no, because it it the theist who begs the question and special pleads to make Him the anomaly. Then the theist begs the question ins assuming that He has those attributes. One cannot postulate, as Lord Russell notes, anything into existence, and it begs the question of His existence. ” Logic is the bane of theists.
As Petet A. Angeles notes, time,event and cause presuppose previous times,events and causes- the infinite regress argument- in ” God: a Short Introduction.” H e also notes that as the Cosmos is all, there cannot exist a transcendent being!
Craig begs the question of a starting point. As Aquinas and Kyle Williams maintain, it’s day to day for eternity.
Aquinas himself begs the question in assuming necessary being with his notion of contingency and Necessary Being as Malcolm Diamond and Kai Nielsen note each in their introductory books on philosophy. He also begs the question in maintaining that should one take away the First Cause, one takes away all intermediate causes as Howard Jordan Sobel notes in ” Logic and Theism.”
All teleological arguments- from reason, fine -tuning, probability and design. assume that there was divine intent in our coming to be. As Jerry Coyne notes in ” Seeing and Believing” had [ My example] the flowering plants not evolved and the cooling off not occurred, neither we nor a comparable being not evolved, Kenneth Miller and Karl Giberson notwithstanding.
God did it can only mean that He uses natural causes for His purposes. That cannot gainsay the presumption of naturalism that not only are natural auses and explanations necessary and efficient but also primary and sufficient. They are thus the sufficient reason, Leibniz notwithstanding. This neither begs the question nor sandbags theists but is only the demand for evidence as Einstein did when he overcame Newton. The ignostic-Ockham challenge to theism is that as His attributes are incoherent and contradict each other He is as as a married bachelor or square circle, and thus cannot exist. Ockham’s Razor notes that He requires convoluted ad hoc assumptions whereas those natural causes and explanations just fit fine. Thus either He cannnot exist or He is an useless redundancy , Alister McGrath notwithstanding.
Furthermore the atelic [ teleonomic] argument buttresses here the Razor: the with of evidence presents no cosmic teleology-intenten- pre-prgarmmed outocmes, but teleonomy- no such outocmes. Thus teleology would contradict that very teleonomy, and thus it would definitely be that evolution cannot be His means creating!
Thus God did it is fatuous, nebulous, meaningless, otiose and vacuous. Keith Parsons notes that as an explanation, He is afig leaf for ignorance. Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth
Sabio,
I’m planning a redesign whenever I have time, I just… never have time. lukeprog
Suppose that the cosmos is created by God for a sufficient reason, that determines him in producing this cosmos rather than any other. Then this cosmos is what Leibniz would call “hypothetically necessary” – the conditional “God -> The Cosmos” is true in all possible worlds.
But God is necessary. God exists in all possible worlds, too. And if the conditional is true in all possible worlds, then in all possible worlds God creates this cosmos. So this cosmos is a necessary object. But, as everyone agrees, the cosmos is a contingent object. So no argument from contingency is sound.
It matters not that, as you say, God might exist without the universe, or that the universe could not exist without God. For, given that some version of the principle of sufficient reason is true and that God is necessary, these kind of counterfactuals must refer to impossible worlds rather than possible worlds, and only existence in possible worlds matters for necessity.
I quite agree, so I’m happy to deny the soundness of the argument from contingency. Supposing there must’ve been an ultimate reason is the exact opposite of accepting that the cosmos as contingent. TaiChi
The problem with this is that God is by definition a free agent who chooses to create as an act of pure grace. ayer
That’s a problem for you, not for me. By claiming that God could’ve done otherwise, you’re denying the principle that any cosmos created by God was created for sufficient reason. Without the principle, you have no argument from contingency. You’ve proven my point. TaiChi
My position is the God is the sufficient cause for the existence of the universe. You seem to be referring to God’s intent in creating the universe, which is irrelevant to my position. ayer
Irrelevant how? Because you think God had no intent in creating the universe? That creating the universe was a whimsical, or to put it less flatteringly, irrational act?
Let me put it to you this way: either God had sufficient reason to create the universe or he did not. If he did, then he creates our cosmos rather than any other, and does so in all possible worlds – our cosmos is necessary. If he did not, then he is not the God of traditional theism – the God of traditional theism has a divine plan, is supremely rational, and serves as a satisfactory and full explanation of earthly goings on precisely because of this. You might reject the God of traditional theism of course, but then you cede the right to label anything proved by the argument from contingency as “God”. TaiChi
Are you saying that the doctrine that God is free to create or not create is not part of classical theism’s doctrine of God? I think you are quite wrong about that, but would be happy to see your evidence.
But on a larger point: on your argument, the universe exists necessarily, not contingently, because God is a necessary being who must necessarily create it in all possible worlds. Thus if God did not exist, the universe would not exist. But the universe does exist–thus God exists. Is that really the conclusion you want to argue for? ayer
Is that what I said? I’m happy to leave open the question of whether God has free-will. If someone can square the principle of sufficient reason with God’s freedom, well and good. (I am a happy compatibilist after all, I should grant this possibility). If not, then it’s hardly my fault that the classical conception of God is self-contradictory.
Thankfully, denying the antecedent is a fallacy. I can well believe that “God -> The Cosmos” without believing that a denial of God is a denial of the cosmos, just as I can believe that “If I am in Paris, then I am in France” without believing that my not being in Paris entails that my not being in France. Or, to parallel the way you twist your argument back, that because I know I am in France then I must be in Paris. TaiChi
As I suspected, your problem is not with the proposition that a contingent universe requires a necessary cause, but with the doctrine of God itself. There is no contradiction between the cosmological argument and the free God of classical theism–but then you are arguing against an entirely different, determined god (maybe the god of process theology?). Your attack is irrelevant to Adler’s version of the cosmological argument, and it stands. If you wish to refute it, you need to concentrate your criticisms on its premises. ayer
TaiChi, ayer, Luke and everybody else:
Thank you for your comments on this thread. I’m learning heaps!
One question to anyone who cares to answer: is there a possible world in which God does not create anything? Piero
Unfortunately, your refutations seem to be missing the point. Of course, the science describing an existing complex universe is/can be very complex indeed. The point however, if you’ve noticed, is that scientifically describing an existing universe is quite different from scientifically describing the origin of the universe. To contextualize therefore: if Dawkins’ reason for rejecting the God hypothesis for the origin of the universe is erected on the grounds that in doing so, one is positing something very complex, it would appear that he imagines that acceptable explanations must be simple. Nevertheless, as you have noted, simplicity need not be the main/the only/ or the most important criterion for accepting or refusing explanations. Therefore, objecting to God as the reason or cause for the universe, on the basis of complexity or simplicity seems neither here nor there. In any case, the scientific explanations for many things in the universe are quite complex (not simple or intuitively apparent. I am not sure why many atheists seem satisfied with this pretension to simplicity. It is rather the case that as we progress in science, we would settle for explanations that are increasingly more complex than what we currently have. The difference would be that they’d have greater explanatory scope and power.
You are treating the word “implausible” as if it means “impossible”. They have different meanings and so I am not exactly sure what your objection is here. Explanations can be implausible and yet very possible; or plausible and unfortunately impossible. Once again, any attempt to give a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe would run afoul of Dawkins’ rigid devotion to simplicity. In attempting to provide such an explanation for the origin of the universe, one would invariably have to tender explanations that are not only non-observable, but non-testable and highly implausible as well.
This is beside the point. Like I noted earlier, we can have reliable, reasonable and verifiable naturalistic explanations for some aspects of the universe. No one has posited that we can’t make specific and testable predictions about some phenomena in the universe. The problem lies in having a naturalistic explanation for the universe as a whole. Here, I am not saying that we are incapable of offering explanations for anything including the universe, but to assume there’s a naturalistic explanation for nature (the universe as a whole in its grandest scale) is to assume what you are trying to explain; it is assuming the prior existence of something that you are trying to show its origins. To think there is some naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe is not to have understood what the universe properly means. All the talk about quantum entanglement, vacuum energy, gravity, space-time curvature and fundamental forces amply illustrates my point—we are merely investigating aspects of an already existing universe. When you happen on a genuine observable, testable and predictive naturalistic explanation for the very origin of the universe as a whole, I’ll be more than eager to hear it. Just don’t serve up another one of these many discredited theories out there.
It would appear that you have failed to understand my position. I am not in the least bit interested in examples showing that human beings have improved their knowledge with time; Or that things once thought impossible or difficult to answer or understand have been successfully resolved. To me, that is quite obvious as not to merit some sort of argument or debate. Nevertheless, in all of these, we have concerned ourselves with learning more about the intricacies of phenomena in the universe. In the already existing universe, it is very plausible that with time, we’ll discover and experimentally verify (test) many things we have a poor understanding of today. It leaves untouched though the very question of the origin of the whole shebang known as the universe. How can any naturalistic hypothesis to that end be testable? It is one thing to test an explanation of some aspect or phenomena inherent in this or any kind of possible universes, but it is another thing altogether to test an explanation purporting to show the origins of this or any other universes. It is not a surprise therefore that astrophysics and cosmology is an observational science not an experimental one. I can be charitable for example, and grant that the current research in brane cosmology/multiverses may yet yield some interesting fruit and produce some deeper and relevant understanding of our own universe. If it wants to pretend an answer to the origins of the universe, testable or non-testable sub-universal phenomena will not suffice. We will need to test and experimentally verify that any such explanations lead to the actual birth of an entire universe—I suppose, with its own variegated and stunning physical laws and constants. This is a challenge that cannot be realistically met.
Be that as it may, you are free to hang your faith on some highly implausible, non-testable and non-actualizable future state of affairs—if it helps your worldview. Anaedo
I’m happy to grant this for the sake of argument – didn’t I just say that I was open to the possibility that the principle of sufficient reason and God’s freedom might not conflict? But then you still have the problem that the principle of sufficient reason leads to the necessity of the cosmos, since the thesis that God had sufficient reason to create the cosmos is part of traditional theism.
My ‘attack’ is relevant to any argument which (i) assumes God is necessary, (ii) assumes the principle of sufficient reason to be true, and (iii) assumes that the universe is contingent. If you like, (i)-(iii) form an inconsistent set, so any larger set of premises which includes them is likewise inconsistent. All three of the assumptions appear in Cramer’s paper.
For the sake of argument, I’ll deny the premise that the universe is radically contingent. Specifically, I’ll maintain that the universe is contingent, but that nothing needs to sustain it in its existence. Perhaps you can tell me why I shouldn’t deny the premise. TaiChi
Piero, if God exists, I don’t think there is. If there was nothing but God, and God had sufficient reason to create the universe we now inhabit, then in any other possible world where there is nothing God would have the same sufficient reason to create a universe like ours. Since God is essentially rational, that is what he’d do, in all possible worlds. TaiChi
The problem here is that, since you appear to deny libertarian free will, you exclude “God freely chose to create the cosmos” AS a “sufficient reason,” and so your conclusion is fixed a priori at the beginning of the inquiry.
Why assume that God only one option is rational? God would be equally rational in choosing not to create, since under classical theism the triune God is self-sufficient in all ways. His decision to create is a supererogatory act of grace. ayer
I don’t at all. I’m perfectly happy to allow you to cite God’s free will as a sufficient reason, providing that you do treat it as a sufficient reason – that is, a reason for which this universe is created by him rather than any other. I wouldn’t even protest at a blind assertion that there is a sufficient reason, whatever it is. The fact remains that a sufficient reason would be one which made it rational for God to create this universe rather than any other, and that is all I need to rebut you.
Because that is what the principle of sufficient reason indicates – that there is an overriding reason to choose this universe over others. Given there is such a reason, choosing to actualize any other universe but our own is contrary to reason, i.e. it is irrational.
Suppose you like cake; suppose you like icecream. Suppose you are at a shop which sells both, but you only have the money for one of the two. Though you enjoy icecream, you absolutely love cake. Assuming ceteris paribus, you have a sufficient reason in this context to buy cake instead of icecream. Would it be rational, then, for you to buy icecream instead? Well, you do have a reason to buy icecream – you like icecream. But since you like cake more, it is irrational to plump for what you will enjoy less.
If God would be equally rational in not creating the universe, then there is no reason for choosing to create this universe, and consequently no sufficient reason for its existence. So you’ve denied the principle of sufficient reason.
Now that we’ve got your denial of traditional theism out the way, are you going to tell me why I shouldn’t deny the radical contingency of the universe? TaiChi
God is not constrained by the sort of human limitations you describe, where one state of affairs is carefully calculated in a utilitarian way against another before a decision to create is made. The Christian God is the epitome of self-sufficient goodness, and any decision to create is purely gratuitous, since his condition of maxmimal goodness obtains both with and without creation. If you claim that is inconsistent with traditional Christian theism, I would be interested to see your evidence. ayer
I find it bizarre that you describe rationality as a ‘limitation’ – as though it were a lamentable quality of human beings that they (sometimes) act on reasons. Given that view, I wonder why you’d bother looking at arguments for your beliefs. A dogmatist would be closer to God.
That said, the view does furnish you with an easy response to the problem of evil – “God cares, but of course he’s not rational“. The ‘God must be crazy’ defense, you might call it.
It is certainly true that theists take the creation event to be gratuitous in the sense that God did not create for his own sake, but this is not the same as saying that God did not have sufficient reason for doing so. Likewise, I’ll grant you that God is maximally good with and without the universe, but that does not imply that had God not created the universe then his moral character would’ve remained perfect. To make this last more lucid, we might say that God was maximally good before and after sending Jesus as his prophet, but that, had he not sent Jesus as his prophet, he would’ve been less than morally perfect.
Really, I owe you no such explanation of the consistency of theism. I don’t have to accept, as you are inviting me to, that because theists have some certain beliefs about God, they cannot also subscribe to other beliefs which contradict them. I don’t have to believe that theists are rational.
But I’m curious: why am I being asked for evidence here, when the very paper you cite makes use of the principle of sufficient reason? I quote…
“What can be said in response to Mackie? Adler denies any form of the principle of sufficient reason that would amount to assuming God does not exist. Since the simple statement of the principle (used by Mackie and others) “everything that exists is caused to exist” runs into the problem that “God’s existence, if God exists, is uncaused,” Adler restates the principle: “Everything that exists or happens has a reason for its existing or happening either (a) in itself or (b) in something else.” In distinction from all other entities, the sufficient cause of God’s existence resides in God alone. ”
… and wonder: how can you deny what appears to be a central tenet of Adler’s argument and yet still claim it as sound? TaiChi
I’m not seeing the inconsistency, neither here nor in your other responses to ayer. Could you be a little more explicit? Thomas Reid
Here we see the confusion about the doctrine of God that results in your confused argument. Yes, God would be equally morally perfect, and would have remained morally perfect, had he not created the universe. The triune God is completely self-sufficient and morally perfect with or without creation. This is what is meant by creation being an act of pure grace, not a “moral obligation” on the part of God needed to “enhance” or “maintain”
his moral perfection.
And your phraseology about “sending Jesus as his prophet” betrays a startling ignorance of the doctrine of the incarnation. It is Muslims who hold that Jesus was a prophet of God; Christians hold that Jesus was the incarnated second person of the trinity.
“God chose to create as a pure act of grace (even though he would have remained morally perfect without creating)” IS a sufficient reason. It is only your confused notion of the doctrine of God that deems it not sufficient. God created the universe as a pure act of grace, even though he would have remained necessarily morally perfect without creating–meaning that the universe need never have existed at all. Its existence is thus contingent. ayer
We?
I’ve already granted this. I can only presume that you repeat it because you confuse a reason to perform an action with an obligation to perform that action, which are not the same things.
““About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. ” – Luke 24:19. Not that this has anything to do with the actual argument.
I’ve granted that also. I said that you could just assert that God had a sufficient reason for all I care. The point is that a sufficient reason would be one which made it rational for God to create this universe rather than any other. And so, as long as he is rational, he then creates this universe rather than any other.
I don’t need to know what the reason is. I don’t actually care. My argument follows from consideration of what a sufficient reason would minimally have to be. TaiChi
TaiChi & Paul … it’s a bit late in the conversation, but I have appreciated both of your comments in this blog post and unlike your interlocutors, I ‘get it’. Good stuff. I need no more, but would be glad to see more.
On that note, I hear that plastic surgeons have new techniques for getting brick wall scars and other deformations out of foreheads. Hermes
I think I’ve been clear enough, but here’s a rough sketch, which uses God’s necessity and the PSR to derive the necessity of the universe – that is, showing that (i), (ii) and (iii) are inconsistent:
(1) God had sufficient reason to create the universe as we know it.
(2) A sufficient reason is an all-things-considered reason to perform one action over any other alternative.
(3) So, when God created the universe, he had all-things considered reason to create the universe as we know it.
(4) To have an all-things-considered reason to act and refrain from acting (or to perform some alternative action) is irrational.
(5) God is essentially rational.
(6) Then, God would not choose otherwise than to create the universe as we know it.
(7) So, in every possible world in which God exists, God does choose to create the universe as we know it.
(8) God is necessary – he exists in every possible world.
(9) So the universe is necessary.
At short notice, that’s what I can offer, which should give you the idea.
Thanks Hermes. Hopefully I’ll get this argument down to something more formal that I’m happy with – if/when I do, I’ll post it. TaiChi
That’s helpful, thanks.
Now just so I’m clear, your premises appear to be (1), (2), (4), (5), and (8). Then:
(3) comes from (1) and (2).
(6) comes from (3), (4) and (5).
(7) comes from (6), with a clarifying statement that God may not be a necessary being.
(9) comes from (7) and (8).
As such, what I believe you are actually claiming is the inconsistency of the set comprised of these 5 premises plus your earlier:
(iii) The universe is contingent.
Have I got that right? Thomas Reid
Laying your entire argument out is actually quite helpful. However, in the Leibnizian argument, everything has an explanation for its existence, either in a cause, or in the necessity of its own nature (as God does by definition). Under your argument, the conclusion is not that the universe exists by the necessity of its own nature, but by a cause which DOES exist by the necessity of its own nature (God)–correct? ayer
Ayer, read it again. You’re missing quite a bit. Hermes
Please elaborate. ayer
Ayer, I must be psychic. I knew you were going to write that and not actually address TaiChi’s quite clear post as it was presented.
It is possible that you did make a mistake in interpreting it. Yes, that is true.
Yet, I don’t think that’s the case.
I’ve seen enough of your messages to realize that you aren’t dumb, just stubborn. As such, why would you need me — ‘a mere non-mortal’ ;-} — to elaborate? Surely you could think — and probably have thought of — half a dozen possible weaknesses or faults in your own comments as well as potential ones in TaiChi’s.
Then again, I don’t think you did make a mistake in understanding what TaiChi wrote. I think you decided to reply as you did as a form of debate tactic, to deflect and infect the conversation, not as a part of a conversation that could lead to a better mutual understanding. For example, the last dozen or more words in your reply to TaiChi sound disingenuous. They sound as if you are attempting to shore up or defend a position, not to reach an understanding. Personally, I like being shown conclusively that I was mistaken. It makes it possible for me to instantly correct an error and then to address reality more fully.
Note, though, how TaiChi has replied to you by stating crisply and cleanly what the issues are and offering you an opportunity to clarify your own position formally so as to allow the conversation to come to a satisfying conclusion where all are in mutual agreement — or are more in agreement than they were at the outset.
So, no, I will not insult you by telling you what you probably already know. I will not enter as a contestant in that game. Please consider that in your future reply to TaiChi who has shown great care and patience in his(?) replies to you and Thomas.
Thanks for your consideration. Hermes
I appreciate your confidence in my intellectual facility, but I assure you that my comment was sincere and that “go read TaiChi again” was not helpful. If the argument from contingency is fatally flawed I would certainly like to understand why that is. But if you prefer not to respond, that’s fine. ayer
I’ll wait to see how this continues. Maybe I was wrong? Hermes
Ok, feel free to chip in. Under the argument TaiChi laid out, does the universe exist by the necessity of it own nature, or by a cause? ayer
I don’t do full debates in blogs. Hermes
How convenient. ayer
Feel free to challenge me in a debate in a place that is designed for such a thing. Just click the link. I’ve got a topic just for you. Hermes
I think so.
No. My argument is intended to demonstrate that God’s necessity, the PSR, and the universe’s contingency are inconsistent. If you want to make it into an argument proper, and assign it a conclusion, the inconsistency of the three would be the conclusion. But here’s what I think about your proposed reading…
You make two claims. The first is that the universe is only hypothetically necessary. This does not follow from the premises for, although the set derives the necessity of the universe via God, that does not entail a relation of existential dependency. For example, you can prove, using the necessary truths “1+1=2″ and “2+2=4″, that “1+1+1+1=4″ is necessarily true, but this argument does not allow you to assert that the latter depends on the former two premises. So that’s a fine point. But of course I’m happy to concede the point – that if God does exist, then the universe is merely hypothetically necessary.
I’m not, however, prepared to sign up to your second claim, that God exists by the necessity of his own nature. For that, you’ll have to give me a sound ontological argument, and convince me that the argument form only applies to God. I’m happy to use God’s necessity in an argument against you, because that is what you believe and I want to show you the consequences of that belief, but make no mistake – this is not something I believe, so I’ll need an argument in favour of it if you wish to use it against my position.
If you do, can I get an invite? TaiChi
No problem. I’d be glad to keep an eye out for you if Ayer takes me up on the offer. The moderated debate rooms are here …
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php?&board=52.0
… though you might need to make an account to view them. I go by the same name on WWGHA as I do here. Hermes
TaiChi,
This is an interesting argument. If you don’t mind, I’ll lift it from here and interact with it over at my blog (just click on my name here for a hyperlink), simply because I’m too slow to respond sometimes in comment areas. If you prefer I not post there, just let me know and I’ll remove it.
Thanks,
T Thomas Reid
TaiChi,
It’s entirely possible that we are using the same terms to refer to different things; such is quite common is discussions like this. From your comment, I understand that under your argument God would exist not by the necessity of his own nature–but neither would he exist by a cause. I suppose both God AND the universe would exist as contingent “brute facts”? I find that quite implausible, but then I am continuing to read in the area of philosophical necessity, so maybe this will become clear later. In the meantime, I would look forward to any interaction you have with Thomas Reid at his blog. Thanks. ayer
Ayer, as I read it, your second sentence in your reply to TaiChi is not accurate. Hermes
Thanks, Hermes.
No problem. I’ll hold off commenting until your follow up post.
Ayer, my argument is neutral on the question of whether God exists by the necessity of his own nature or not. The nature of his necessity doesn’t matter for the argument, just that he is necessary.
For what it’s worth, I think your God is a brute fact. I have no idea what it would be for something to ‘exist by necessity of its own nature’, and I suspect, neither do you. Wise theists call God’s existence a mystery, but that is just a grandiose way of saying it is a brute fact.
***Can I suggest to all that we continue this on Thomas Reid’s blog, once he has his second post up? It’d be better to have the discussion in one place. *** TaiChi
Paul,
Sorry for the delay; this thread kinda grew:
If God exists as the Bible describes, God is eternally efficient. If matter exists as science describes, matter is not eternally efficient. I think an eternally efficient agent is a more parsimonious explanation than a dying one, though I’d be interested in hearing other ideas on that.
Reginald Selkirk,
1) Sure, if efficiency isn’t a concern.
2) Pretty much that; “executive of MEST” and “not decreasing in efficiency” seem to describe the Biblical God quite well. cl
A few points;
1. Did you forget the 1st law of thermodynamics (via Wiki)? ;
* Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms.
* In any process in an isolated system, the total energy remains the same.
2. As such, _how_ does “efficiency” become an issue? It seems to be entirely efficient.
3. As such, adding a deity or other force to the system isn’t more parsimonious.
For both 1) and 2), see above. Hermes
cl, also note your comment on “than a dying one” seems misplaced, even strange. Hermes
Hermes,
No. I allude to the fact that MEST is dying and cannot sustain itself. Even if we can say MEST is eternal, we can’t say MEST is eternally efficient.
OTOH, if it’s not a fact that MEST is dying and cannot sustain itself, my argument requires emendations.
**MEST = matter, energy, space, time cl
MEST! That’s a Scientology term! lukeprog
So…you say it’s a fact, and that means I’m supposed to then agree and forget physics?
The first two are *explicitly* covered by the 1st law. That’s why I starred the quotes of the 1st law.
As for ‘time’ or ’space’ ‘dying’, I have to say that’s one of the strangest things I’ve heard this week and there have been some whoppers.
Disagree? Don’t repeat yourself with a nod and a wink and the word ‘fact’ thrown in haphazardly and then expect me to go “OK!”. It won’t happen.
If you think you are right, show me *why* I would consider such comments to be related to reality at all, and then work up from there. To do that, you’ll have to go over *how* you arrived at your conclusion.
You might also want to clarify what you mean by ‘dying’ in this instance. (You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.)
As for your deity, whatever it happens to be, you’d also have to show how *it* is ‘more parsimonious’ and not just by sniping at the competition.
At this point, even a generic placeholder deity let alone a specified one doesn’t seem to have much explanatory power. I take it you aren’t arguing for the generic category of ’some arbitrary set of deities’, but a specific one derived from a specific lineage? Hermes
cl, the following in my earlier post were not addressed;
To be clear;
* The 1st law of thermodynamics describes matter and energy as unrelentingly efficient.
If you have proof that the 1st law should be discarded or amended because it does not describe reality, feel free to show me. You might also want to drop a note to the Norwegian Nobel Committee with the details as well. Hermes
Luke, mea culpa. I made a mistake when quoting cl two posts up. I didn’t notice that somehow(?) your name was inserted instead. Hermes
Luke,
You know I actually wasn’t too familiar with the etymology. I think it’s pretty useful as an acronym so I run with it. Do you have any posts about our Lord L. Ron?
Hermes,
In general, I define more parsimonious as “requiring the least amount of subsequent explanations.” Does that definition work for you?
Condescension rarely helps, but answering the following question might clarify: would you agree or disagree that the universe cannot sustain itself eternally? cl
cl,
There’s a category called ‘Scientology’ in my sidebar. lukeprog
Thanks for the refresher. Really. Are you capable of making it relevant?
I’ve already answered that a few times. If you want to go beyond that, it would be nice if you were actually willing and able to actually address my comments. Maybe if you did or admitted what you don’t know you’d get fewer condescending remarks? Perhaps? Maybe?
Here’s a couple hints that might get you back on track (and no I’m not being condescending this time);
* What’s the universe?
* How does the 1st law of thermodynamics apply to it? Hermes
Cl, here, I’ll answer the first one with reasonable level of specificity, ignoring space time for the moment, and giving a definition in plain English;
The universe — our universe — is either a subset of everything that exists or is equal to everything that exists. There may be other universes and the current iteration of our universe may not be the first instance. In any case, we are limited in our direct observations to the available evidence, though we can deduce more based on that evidence.
You probably want to insert your deity into the above in some fashion. Let’s hold off on that for a moment and deal with what we can mutually agree on, if that is possible. With that in mind and realizing that there are a multitude of possible contingencies …
* Do you generally agree with the above definition of what the universe is? Hermes
Luke,
I’d seen those a while back. They don’t touch on our Lord L. Ron at all. I was just wondering if you had anything on him that for some reason might not be in the “Scientology” category.
Hermes,
Yes, but you didn’t answer: does that definition of more parsimonious work for you or not?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be saying it can, which is why I ask. Help me out with a clear yes or no, i.e., yes you think the universe can sustain itself eternally, or no you don’t.
I’m both willing and able. I don’t know what else to tell you. You say you have difficulty understanding “the universe is dying” but I don’t know how else to explain entropy. I think von Helmholtz may have been among the first to refer to the universe as dying, in the mid-nineteenth century.
I agree completely.
Yes.
It’s still unclear to me what your objection is if you can state it clearly I’ll try one more time to continue but if not I gotta run. cl
cl,
Ah. Not yet. lukeprog
Cl, you act as if my opinion on reality somehow impacts reality itself at a fundamental — some subatomic or otherwise elemental or foundational — level. Well, it doesn’t for me or you. Reality is a toolkit, not a wishing well.
Additionally, why you are so fixated on a simple vocabulary word I can’t tell. Once again, my opinion of the word doesn’t change reality.
What does interest me is that you went into the mode of defining the word instead of addressing *how* it applies to reality; how it is that you’ve got the better explanation. This is yet again another instance of you breezing by an issue and asserting you’ve got the facts by doing no actual work to demonstrate how you are correct. Well, show me and stop dodging.
With that nonsense out of the way, going with the 1st law of thermodynamics, can you back up your statement that ‘matter, energy, space, time … are dying’ or ‘the universe is dying’.
None of that is in line with the first law, and you have not specified how such things that were never alive can somehow be dying. (An exception being made for what we know of specific things on a certain watery and volcanic planet, of course.)
Yet, after you address that, we’re still not even close to you showing *how* your “the universe + your deity” idea is simpler yet more accurate than just “the universe”. Neither does it apply fully to the definition of the universe I gave in my previous post.
If you grow bored with this, then I suggest you give up. I’ll nether teach you nor have any interest in you thinking that dodging teaches anything except that I end up learning that you don’t actually know what you say is so.
Your choice is to just give up as you planned, or move it on to somewhere else. For example;
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php?&board=52.0
If you don’t quit, just post a challenge there. I go by the same name here and there. Maybe you can show me that the universe is dying (if you think it is) and how your deity is the best possible description for the universe if not everything? Hermes
Hermes,
Hey, gee, thanks for the advice! [/SARCASM]
Truth be told, I’ll never give up on nor grow bored of philosophy, religion, logic or science. We’ve taken enough of Luke’s thread (seemingly) for nothing already. Last try (here at least):
Are you assuming I meant they were alive in a literal sense or something? Did you even Google the “von Helmholtz universe dying” string I left? The “dying universe” is a figure of speech some scientists have used to describe the ramifications of heat loss applied to the universe as a whole. Extrapolating the second law of thermodynamics leads to the conclusion that the universe (MEST) cannot sustain itself eternally. I’m still not sure if you’re denying entropy or not. I hope not. If not, then it seems you agree that the universe’s potential to do work is decreasing, which suggests you sufficiently understand the “dying universe” metaphor.
The relevance to the OP is that atheists can certainly cite the first law to argue the eternality of MEST, but the second law robs MEST of eternal efficiency or creative power.
I don’t need you to tell me what my choices are and I don’t give a damn about that forum. If you’re really interested in understanding my position track me down. I’ve got two posts on the argument from kinesis at thte top of my homepage and the second argues the Biblical God as the most parsimonious explanation. cl
http://merelymist.blogspot.com/
Second post is up. TaiChi
Cl, if you won’t write the words you mean, don’t blame me for not understanding what you mean. In the real world, there are no psychics. If you want me to give you my full attention, you know where to find me. After all, I did offer the proposal first. Hermes
TaiChi, great first reply.
I’ll monitor the thread at Merely Mist to see if you, Ayer(?), and Thomas can arrive at a mutual understanding and eventually agreement. Hermes
Cl, your blog post on ‘Proof of God’s Existence’ is amazing;
http://www.thewarfareismental.info/the_warfare_is_mental/2010/01/proof-of-gods-existence-1.html
On one hand you use words like ‘commonsense’, then on the other deny ‘commonsense’ when it is not in line with your initial biases. I hope that you are being paid for other skills, and not your grasp of logic. Hermes
Hermes,
While I completely disagree with cl’s position and probably agree with yours, I find your last few comments to be offensive in tone.
I think the debate would go better if you stuck to the issue at hand rather than use personal attacks. While they do not detract from the validity of your arguments, they also don’t lend them more credibility.
Carry on… Polymeron
Polymeron, I agree fully.
While it may not be obvious, I usually do have a clear awareness of what I intend to write as I write it, and how it will be understood by the reader. When I fail to deliver, and write what I did not intend or do so sloppily, it is a technical embarrassment.
On your entirely valid criticism, while I do not have a valid justification for my bad attitude — being overbearingly terse, arrogant, and unjustifiably snippy — I simply don’t care to play nice with people who are fervently not interested in reality. Few listen, but some do.
I do hand out the ambrosia hospitably, on a platinum tray, mainly to those who are interested in a conversation and are willing to change their minds, as I am. Ayer and Cl don’t seem to be willing or possibly able and I tire from bringing up points that are repeatedly ignored. They offer sophistication, clear thoughts, and a strong dose of intelectual blindness along these lines;
“Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.” — Michael Shermer
I should treat them better, but would it make any difference to anyone but me? Hermes
Polymeron,
I’ve thrown a few statements of position around in this thread. Which did you disagree with?
Luke,
I pre-emptively apologize if you find the following comment inappropriate. On the one hand I want to be real, on the other I do not want to contribute to the dumbing-down of this resource of yours (note: resource, not blog). That being said, I think a tactful skewering is in order here.
[SKEWER]
Hermes,
I applaud you for being able to concede your bad attitude but I encourage you to take the extra step by considering how that bad attitude and your bad faith presumptions in general might be impeding clear resolution in your discussions with theists. If you are “tiring” after a mere six or seven comments of a discussion *you* started, perhaps you should acquire the spent philosopher’s equivalent of Viagra, or at least avoid the use of non-sequitur and condescension if nothing else, and distill your objections to clear, concise statements instead of making all sorts of bad faith assumptions about your interlocutor. The latter dissuades reasonable individuals from discourse and that’s unfortunate for philosophy and the pursuit of truth you claim to pay such homage to.
With that I empathize, but I wrote the words I meant in my very first comment and explained that I was referring to entropy in subsequent comments. You’re obviously rushing because you’re inserting Luke’s name into comments addressed to me. I don’t know what school of rationalism you subscribe to, but I was taught to doubt myself when things don’t add up, and to give the other person the benefit of the doubt, a courtesy I extended you until you crossed the line.
You write of “technical embarrassment” but if I was you I’d be technically embarrassed that I failed to make the connection between entropy and the “dying universe” metaphor, even after having it stated four or five times, along with the reference to Hermann von Helmholtz. Perhaps if you didn’t assume I was “not interested in reality” you would have been able to glean the salient point.
You challenged me to show how “my deity” was “more parsimonious” yet when given a provisional definition of “more parsimonious” you twice refused to answer a clear “yes” or “no” as to whether you’d accept it. You’ve twice refused to answer whether you think the universe can sustain itself eternally. I pointed you to a post where I explain my “God is more parsimonious” argument in greater detail, and instead of acknowledging or commenting on it, you came back here, insulted me and then cited an irrelevant post. You claim I was “not addressing you” when I pointed you politely to the answers you sought and you replied with fire and sword.
You then went on to *answer your own questions* instead of giving clear answers to mine but if answering your own questions will suffice, by all means leave me out of your conversations with yourself.
I’m not dodging anything. I answered your questions clearly with “yes” or “no” answers, or by saying “I agree completely.” I invited you to my blog because that’s where my “God is most parsimonious” argument is. You ask me to catch up with you at Amputees but that assumes I want more discourse with you.
Certainly; it would make a difference to your interlocutor. You have the whole conversation framed in terms of yourself and that’s, well… self-centered.
And regarding the good ol’ them, that “gateway to other atrocities,” temporarily ignoring the questions privileged folks with computers can afford the luxury to pontificate on, recall that theists and atheists alike have one world to live in. Your tribalist use of them is the same sort of ideological fodder that fuels genocide when what we need is a new outlook for new times. When it comes to humanity there is no “them” only “us.”
If you want to apologize we could easily squash it and move forward, and if you respond with more fire and sword then I’ll be content to let the rational reader decide who’s erred and to what degree. Take care, cheer up a bit and try the benefit of the doubt once in a while.
[/SKEWER] cl
Just when one thinks the ad hominem is going to go away :|
cl: Polymeron,
I’ve thrown a few statements of position around in this thread. Which did you disagree with?
Polymeron,
I agree, and I acknowledge your opinion that my belief is a ludicrous proposition. If you’ll tell me your explanation I’ll tell you whether or not I think it’s more parsimonious than mine.
I acknowledge your claims of Biblical contradiction and inconsistency but object that such has no import to the question of the most parsimonious explanation for the universe.
Although I believe the dying universe was created, I’m not saying the fact of the “dying universe” requires a Creator. My original comment was in response to the “why can’t the universe be eternal” counter. I grant atheists and skeptics that the universe can be eternal, but counter that it cannot be eternally efficient. Instead of an infinite regress, we get an immanent discontinuity.
I don’t make the assumption that “something prefers to exist over nothing”, nor do I argue that “unlimited creation power is required for a limited amount of existence”. I simply accept the argument that transitions from potency to act require a mover, and go from there.
I agree and upon further reflection that’s why I refrained from calling Hermes an imbecile in my comment. cl
I do not purport to have the “correct” explanation; we are unable to observe anything outside our universe, including anything *before* our universe. Hence any explanation not relying on this universe’s properties is less parsimonious than the null model, that is, that it simply exists – albeit an explanation may possibly never be derived by naturalistic means.
I hold that they are relevant because you invoked the *biblical* god as the most parsimonious explanation. Considering the many versions, interpretations and contradictions in biblical accounts, I find the concept of “the biblical god” to be ill-defined, and you would need to elaborate on which specific account and interpretation you hold to be the most parsimonious explanation, as well as why it is more parsimonious than, say, Allah, Vishnu or the Flying Spaghetti Monster (in generalities, of course – I don’t expect one to start refuting deities one by one).
Call it a discontinuity if you like; I don’t see where the logical contradiction is, or why a “dying” universe requires an external explanation. You still haven’t explained that point.
I apologize if I have misinterpreted the assumptions at the base of your argument, but that is because you have not, in fact, laid out your argument yet.
I only read the first version of your comment; I’m glad you edited it to be more civil :) Polymeron
Cl, metaphor (personal desires) vs. actual (raw reality). I find it convenient how often those are swapped. Why not just deal with reality and say what you mean first (protestations otherwise, you did not)? I could deal with either fork, but I doubt you’re actually interested and may drift back to swapping words around as if they are interchangeable.
BTW, parsimonious doesn’t mean ‘I like it more’. You are still left with how.
As for boredom, that was your complaint. I suggest giving into it and letting this one die. Maybe a later draft will make things gel for you?
You know where to find me if you want a better attitude and my full attention. I’ve already spent enough on a soon to be abandoned blog comment thread. That is all. The rest is up to you. Hermes
Polymeron, that was coherent and a joy to read.
I am in full agreement again, even though I don’t choose patience, and am siding with tactical impatience in this instance.
I am sure you are prepared for the tedium of dragging out each and every assumption. I suspect 3-4 more whoppers framed in the guise of ‘Well, of course I meant that, not the other thing!’. Blindness or an intentional attempt at dragging you down? It could be either. Hermes
Luke,
I’ve found a source which offers argument from the same considerations as I have here:
The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Religion (2005), Cosmological Arguments, by William Rowe, pp. 107 onwards. TaiChi
TaiChi,
Thanks. lukeprog
Polymeron,
Apology accepted, but note that I was never really making an argument here. I came to the thread, saluted Luke for debunking a bunk atheist objection to a common theist argument, then Hermes took some shots to which I responded, which may have lent the perception of an argument.
As far as my “argument,” it’s really quite simple and I laid it out in a clear, concise language in my last comment:
If you think any of that is unreasonable, I’m open to hearing why. cl
cl,
As I see it, your statement reasonably requires a clarification as to its relevance (to either the original topic, or the Atheism and Religion debate at large).
If your statement is a casual observation, then it can go uncontested and without further comment. We can likewise agree that the universe can be eternal but not orange, or eternal but not smell like lilacs – possibly correct observations that nonetheless have no bearing on the discussion.
If, however, the point about the free-energy efficiency of the universe is relevant to the debate in any way, it falls to you to explain how.
Regards,
Polymeron. Polymeron
Polymeron,
That’s why I asked what your preferred model was. Some posit matter, energy, space and time as an eternal series of iterations, but it would seem to me that a dead universe lacks potency. Of course if this universe is actually one of many sparks in a macro-explosion, that wouldn’t seem to be a problem.
Does that make sense? cl
It might make sense, yes, but I still don’t see the relevance to the discussion. Would you care to explain? Polymeron
Why? Better yet, *how* does it ‘lack potency’ and more important *how* is that ‘lack of potency’ relevant in describing and understanding reality as it actually is? (Within the scope of the universe definition agreed on before.) Hermes
Polymeron,
In his hypothetical exchange back up in the thread, commenter Paul asked why the universe couldn’t be eternal. Though technically we could suppose it can, “why can’t the universe be eternal” is a poor counter for the reasons I went into. Without potency, it would seem this universe couldn’t “iterate itself” into the next. cl
Why do you need it to? Hermes
No, he didn’t. Talk about ‘eternal’ was your addition, not his. In response to his long fictional conversation, you cut lopped off the end and made this comment;
As such, I refer back to the first law of thermodynamics. Hermes
Then,
Then,
Yet, keen readers will note that who introduced the term was never an issue which makes Hermes’ response a non-sequitur. In addition, earlier in the thread in commenter Paul’s hypothetical discussion – exactly as I allege – the reader will find,
So yes, he did, and it’s all right there in the thread for anyone to see. cl
What? Silence? Hmmm… Hermes
Exactly, a keen reader will indeed note things like the actual order of the quotes cited in each of our examples. That you made an issue of “eternal”, though, and did it first does indeed make it an issue. If not, why bring it up later on? Why not ignore it like a bad dream? Seems cluttered and inefficient if you didn’t mean it in each instance.
What Would E.B. White Do?
I will leave it to those keen readers to judge for themselves. All 5 (3?) of the remaining stalwarts at this point.
My question to you cl is this: Are you coming here with your A game? I’ll state right up front that I’m not. You have ~maybe~ 80% of my attention and quite a bit less of my care, yet I’m not someone who considers his livelihood to be writing. It’s good that you do have that profession, and I am not knocking it. Yet, it’s not mine. Because of that, I could be somewhat forgiven for making goofs (like the “you cut lopped off” mistake I made earlier). Order and attribution, though, seem like big errors unlike redundant extra words.
For the keen readers, I leave the following;
Cl’s comment: “eternal requires no cause” appears about 75 lines before Paul’s “I don’t quite understand how God is eternal vs the material is eternal is a better explanation”. No hand waving required.
Am I missing something?
(FWIW, I ignore E.B. White on a constant basis. It’s easy, though, he’s dead. Consistently so.) Hermes
Cl, anytime …
Specifically, how does your comment “That which is eternal requires no cause, by definition.” not apply to both your preferred deity and the universe?
* If it does not apply to either, then I’m happy to drop it just on your assurance you that you swear not to argue that it applies to your deity again.
* If it does apply to your deity only, I’m still waiting for you to say *how*.
* If it applies to both, then I’d also like to know that is your position as well. Hermes
Infinite regress of explanations is irrational indeed. But I still fail to see how that makes God the best explanation as the first cause. Why must ‘it’ be personal, moral, or triune? John
Godists can neither by definition nor by postulation instantiate that married bachelor called God. As His incoherent attributes contradict each other, He is as a married bachelor or square circle, so we ignostics find then that He cannot exist. Google the ignostic-Ockham to see why in full. Michael Martin, Nicholas Everitt and Theodore Drange are making the incompatible properties argument.
One can understand the term God but as His properties so conflict, they make Him meaningless. I had to phrase it thus because David Ramsay Steele makes the point in his book that as we can understand the term, He isn’t meaningless. No, as stated.
We need to get theists to understand that from the very term, there is no there there!
Indeed, as we show that He cannot be the First Cause,etc., then those terms also show His meaningless. Again, this is my contribution.
Furthermore, theists ever beg questions in discussing that square circle: logic is the bane of theists.
Google also skeptic griggsy to see that I mean business! Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth
“Many of our most successful explanations raise new puzzles and present us with new questions to be answered”.-Greg Dawes
To me,the key word in this sentence is “new”.
God is not a new question or a new puzzle to the question of complexity in the world. It’s the same question. kilo
A great post, Luke. I have a bone to pick, but first agreement. It’s true and often frustrating, in scientific and philosophical endeavors alike, that the efforts to find ultimate explanations turn up all manner of primitives, brutes, givens, and postulates that defy further analysis. In some cases, these may be considered stop signs, in others, merely a yield. But, it cannot be elephants all the way down. Or, as Lewis pointed out, seeing through every veil is equivalent to seeing nothing at all. So, it is right, in principle, to allow ultimate explanations, though we should not be too hasty in conferring that status.
That being said, I think your shorthand use of “God did it” as the supposed conclusion of the arguments of natural theology is an unfortunate mischaracterization, especially considering the question at hand of appropriate explanation. These arguments, when carefully articulated, are indeed closely analogous to the forms of reasoning in theoretical physics: because of e, some entity x must exist with property p; we’ll give it the name y. The unseen postulate in such an argument is ascribed only the property or properties implicated by e, say a charge of -1. Likewise, as far as the argument goes, the careful theist will be content with stipulating only the properties that follow. That is why we have all those terms of art like “an uncaused cause”, “an unmoved mover”, “a designer”, “a necessary being”, etc.
If the theist has been appropriately modest in their conclusion, the question that you suggest should be asked instead — “Why is God the best explanation for that?” — will be answered by a return to the argument to see if it is valid. For, in that case, “God” is just y, the name he gave for x with property p, and the argument is supposed to have shown that such an entity must exist to explain e. “God” is a freighted term, and I don’t mean to deny that calling y “God” is bound to conjure up more than the argument is purported to demonstrate. But at least in academic philosophy of religion, I find that as a rule, care is taken to proscribe the entailments of a given argument. (Of course, if it needs to be said, if x is taken to be the God of Abraham, additional legwork will be required.)
By the way, if the slaughterhouse is still open, it may be time to give your tagline from Roberts another look (bit.ly/aIAtRG). Luke, you are a much appreciated voice in the conversation about ultimate reality from both sides of the aisle. No small feat. Thanks, and keep up the good work. Nathan Jacobson
Nathan,
The question “Why is God the best explanation for that” comes in at one or another premise of the argument. For example, Craig’s version of the teleological argument:
1. The fine-tuning of the universe to support life is either due to law, chance or design.
2. It is not due to law or chance.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning is due to design.
Here, the “Why is design the best explanation?” comes in to cast doubt on premise #2.
In the Kalam argument, this question comes into play on premise 4, which seeks to establish that God is the cause of the universe. Or, here is Craig’s moral argument:
1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
2. Objective moral values do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.
Here, our best explanation question comes into play on premise 1.
(I use Craig’s versions because they are short and syllogistic.) lukeprog
Nathan,
Also, re: the quote at the top of my page, see here. lukeprog
John,
I wasn’t sure if your comment was to anybody in particular, but speaking for myself, I frame the argument in Aristotle’s language which I find convincing. While I don’t want to copy and paste my entire argument here, Koons summarizes it well enough for a blog comment:
You can find more details here, if interested. cl
Luke, you’re quite right that in the abbreviated form of Craig’s moral argument, the move to “God” begs questions. In Craig’s case, unless he’s debating Shelly Kagan, he will be ready to provide the supplementary premises. For many others, including myself (who concedes the force of Euthyphro), it will be a struggle. Nonetheless, I think the arguments of natural theology more often conform to the outline I suggested above. For example, Craig’s version of the Kalam leads to some entity x with the property of personhood or agency.
Thanks for the link to your take on the Stephen Henry Roberts’ quote. Your principled objection to epistemic double standards is a bracing and worthy challenge. And, I might add (as you do), that no view is immune, as when belief in God is psychologized or located in the brain without noting the self-referential implications for not believing. I’ll be adding some engagement with your thoughts in my own essay on the “one less god” idea. Regards. Nathan Jacobson
Nathan,
Just so you know, I don’t endorse a ‘one less god’ argument. ‘One less god’ is a rhetorical flourish meant to show believers that they know quite well what it is like to disbelieve in gods. lukeprog
Something about this didn’t set right with me, and I think I see what now. When someone tells me that “God did it,” they’re saying that things are too complex. This isn’t the time to point out that God is improbable or untestable; they’ll merely say that this is the mysterious nature of God. Beyond empiricism.
This is the time to illustrate that their argument is a form of special pleading. That it is logically inconsistent, and fails immediately by way of reason, with no need for physical evaluation.
Good article though. I really had to delve deep into what my position is and why. I love that. Steve P
I believe this argument is only effective in a taste-of-your-own-medicine sort of way. That is, this argument should only be used to demonstrate fallacious nature of the theist’s objection.
If a theist claims that the big bang is an insufficient explanation because it does not give causal explanation, then you can demonstrate that, by the same faulty logic, their own God fails to pass the same test.
I would only use this argument to show the failure of the principle objection when made by the theist. Data
I ended up on this website through a google search and didn’t see any thorough enough replies to cartesian’s first comment, so even though it was a while ago, I shall write a reply of my own.
In some sense you are correct, there are counter examples. But in another, you’re cheating, BIG TIME. To be full correct what needed to be said for full accuracy was “God did it is a terrible explanation…based on the data we have available to us at the moment.” But does that really need to be said? Can’t we automatically assume it’s true? I will assert with a high degree of confidence that human beings do not randomly turn into giant insects, despite what happens in Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”. And I think you would agree with such a claim But, what if we woke up tomorrow and witnessed this happening on a regular basis? We’d be forced to change our position wouldn’t we? But once again, this is true for any idea we have of how the world works. All our ideas are based off the information currently available to us. And you are being hypocritical in criticizing Luke for not making this clarifaction while not abiding by this standard yourself. Your counter example starts off with the idea of tomorrow, but what if there is no tomorrow? What if the world ends today, 5 minutes from now. Sure it might seem like there will be a tomorrow based on our current knowledge, but what if there isn’t? And as for waking up, that’s another whole set of assumptions…
“Why, in this case, is it not plausible to say God did it? Seems pretty plausible to me. Are you just reporting that it’s implausible to *you*, an atheist? Well why should that worry the rest of us? Why think that a good explanation must be plausible to those who disbelieve in the entities postulated by the explanation? That’s an unreasonably high standard for explanations!”
-I’d say that it’s currently an implausible explanation, due to lack of any supporting evidence. This puts in on equal footing with any other explanation that could possibly be proposed for how the universe began. Sure, it could be right, but so could any arbitrary explanation I could propose.
“…is not testable…
Why does it have to be testable to be a good explanation? I’m more convinced that, in this case, “God did it” would be a good explanation than I am that good explanations must be testable. And in a very broad sense of possibility, this explanation is testABLE: we could ask God if he did it, and he could say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. That’s a test for the truth of the explanation. So, in that sense of “testable,” this explanation is testable. Why do you think “God did it” isn’t testable? And why do you think that’s important?”
-In the case of your counter example, God did it would be an explanation to consider. But what you’re proposing is an event unlike anything we’ve ever observed that would force us to fundamentally rethink everything we thought we knew about how the universe worked. But I could propose a similar event for any other idea that currently has no real evidence to support it. The point of testability is that it should ultimately let us determine if an explanation is true or false. And “God did it” is currently untestable. Is it really that surprising that an explanation without supporting evidence that can’t be tested is being called terrible? What term would you use to refer to it?
“…has poor consistency with background knowledge…
This seems pretty question-begging. I think “God did it” coheres quite well with *my* background knowledge, and the background knowledge of billions of other theists around the world and throughout history. Do you just mean to report why *atheists* won’t like “God did it” as an explanation? Again, why think that a good explanation has to cohere with the background knowledge of people who disbelieve in the entities postulated by the explanation? That’s an unreasonably high standard for explanations.”
-I think there are different definitions of background knowledge at work here. I’d be willing to assert that “God did it” as an explanation for the existence of the universe isn’t supported by any data we’ve obtained while studying the origins of the universe. We have certain information available to us, we want an explanation based on this information that is suggested by our data and does a good job of explaining it. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
“…comes from a tradition (supernaturalism) with extreme explanatory failure…
I have three worries about this: first, why think that this explanation has to “come from” any tradition at all? And what does it mean for an explanation to “come from” a tradition? When I see the hairdryer out and say “My wife did it,” did that explanation “come from” some tradition? Which one? If the wifediddit explanations don’t come from a tradition, why think Godiddit explanations must come from a tradition?
Second, it looks like we’ll have a generality problem here. How does one determine which tradition an explanation comes from? If we say that “God did it” comes from supernaturalism (a very general, broad tradition), then perhaps we’ll run into many problems (we can grant that there have been a lot of failed supernatural explanations in the past). But if we say “God did it” comes from Lutheran Protestantism Christianity (a more specific, narrow tradition), we’ll run into fewer problems (though the Lutherans may have offered some failed explanations in the past, surely they’ve offered fewer than all the supernaturalists in the past). And if we say “God did it” comes from the tradition of scientifically informed theists (a super specific tradition), we’ll run into very few problems, if any. So even if we grant that explanations must “come from” a tradition, why should the theist accept that his explanation “comes from” the problematic general tradition, rather than the unproblematic specific tradition?”
-I think the worry here is mainly that “God did it” for the birth of the universe is simply another “God of the gaps” argument the likes of which has been seen time and time again throughout history. This isn’t a reason to automatically reject this explanation, but I’d say that it’s a strong hint that we should poke around for quite a while in search of a non-supernatural explanation before we begin to consider supernatural ones.
“Third, the history of naturalism itself is littered with explanatory failure. Read Lucretius’ De Rerum Naturae: completely naturalistic, and completely wrong. Read Aristotle’s naturalistic explanations of the natural world: he was really wrong very often. Ptolemy was wrong. Newton was wrong. Either special relativity or quantum mechanics is wrong, since they contradict. The entire history of science is a history of overturning wrong explanations. That overwhelming history of failure has even moved some people to be very skeptical of our current favored explanations! In any event, naturalists have been wrong at least as often as they’ve been right, throughout history. So if theistic explanations are in trouble because of their track record, so are naturalistic explanations! And even more so, from the perspective of a theist. I think theistic explanations have been right way more often than you do, and I think naturalistic explanations have been wrong way more often than you do. So the question of which has a better track record is really controversial, and it seems pretty question-begging to assert that theistic explanations have a worse track record. I’d think you’d actually need to prove that.”
-You are correct in that natural explanations have often been shown to to be wrong, that’s the real reason we require testability. Without it we can’t separate wrong ideas from right ones. With “God did it” there’s really no way to approach the question of whether this is a correct explanation or not. That’s why naturalistic explanations have always managed to eventually get it right in the past despite numerous failures. And if no data points to it, and we can’t test it, why should we even consider it?
“…lacks simplicity…
Why think that “God did it” lacks simplicity? How could any explanation be *more* simple, especially in the star-spelling-John-3:16 situation as I described it?”
-Well it introduces the concept of God which itself is very complex without really providing any information on what is going on.
“…offers no predictive novelty…
I’m not super-sure what this means, but I doubt it’s necessary for a good explanation. I guess it means something like “issues new predictions.” I see the hairdryer out again. I posit this explanation: “My wife did it.” Seems like a really good explanation to me. But does it “offer predictive novelty”? If not, then offering predictive novelty isn’t necessary for a good explanation. If so, what are the novel predictions, and why couldn’t “God did it” offer the same sort of novel predictions in the star-spelling-John-3:16 case?”
-I’d say that “God did it” does in that case, of course predictive novelty is based on the idea that future data you gather will support your theory, and in this case you’re waiting not on just mere data collection but on an event so fundamentally different from anything that has ever happened that it will cast doubt on much of what we know.
“…and has poor explanatory scope.
I don’t really get this one either. Do you mean that “God did it” doesn’t explain very much? Well, big deal. There are lots of good explanations that don’t explain very much. “My wife did it” explains why there’s a hairdryer out, and not much else. Still, it’s a darn good explanation. If we see John 3:16 written in stars, “God did it” seems like a darn good explanation, even if it doesn’t explain much else.
So, I don’t think you’ve given us much reason to think that “God did it” is a terrible explanation. You haven’t even given much reason to think that it’s not a good explanation! Is this what Dawes was up to, or did he have more to say?”
-”Wife did it” provides a model of how a specific household item moved from one location to another by interaction with living humans. This can be extended to other house hold items and beyond allowing for the creation of a theory on how humans interact with objects. “God did it” really doesn’t tell us anything. We want be able to use our theories to construct nice mathematical models of how certain events transpired. Ok, so lets model the beginning of the universe based on “God did it.” So God did it, and that’s basically as far as we can get, our understanding of what is going on hasn’t really improved. A1