Plantigized...

Alvin Plantinga, John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has written a scathing critique of Richard Dawkins The God Delusion.  You can read the review from the current version of Books and Culture Magazine.

My favorite little zinger is the following:

You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class. This, combined with the arrogant, smarter-than-thou tone of the book, can be annoying. I shall put irritation aside, however and do my best to take Dawkins' main argument seriously.

A great read for all those who are following the new more aggressive bread of atheists today.  For those interested in the title of this post, to Plantingize was once defined by atheistic philosopher Daniel Dennet as "making something that was believed in the middle ages sound very compelling again."  Alvin gets after it for theism.

Cuss. Cuss! Cuss?

There is quite a bit of discussion going on relating to John Piper's recent use of the language "God kicks your ass" at the Passion 07 conference.  Below are some comments I threw in the mix over at Challies.com regarding Piper's choice of words and Dr. Wayne Grudem's subsequent exhortation. 

Good discussion. I think what is missing is a real discussion of philosophy of language. Now, I am a realist so I believe that all of our linguistic symbols and signifiers have a referent. In other words, reality is not created and constructed by our words. All languages refer to things which are real in the created space/time order or metaphysical realities as is the case of language referring to God, souls, abstract ideas (sets of numbers etc.) Additionally we may logically rearrange ideas with our language as when we "refer" to pink unicorns.

The reason we can call something feces, poo-poo, etc. is that it refers to something. Additionally our language that God "kicks our ____" (choose your word) also speaks to an actual state of affairs that obtains. Now, when discussing profanities and obscenities Mr. Swindle makes a very important distinction above between the two so I will not repeat it here. (Here it is noted  that a profanity is speaking of something holy in a way that belittles, blasphemes...profanes.  Obscenities are that which is vulgar or offensive)  Yet, with the case of obscenities, one must discuss the usage of language within a cultural/linguistic group. Dr. Grudem has done this in stating the following:

A number of different words can denote the same thing but have different connotations, some of them recognized as "unclean" or "offensive" by the culture.

The problem here arises because we must ask "which culture" - There is no easily arrived at shared norm in English speaking culture today to which we can refer. If one follows what is allowable by censors on television, then ass is certainly not an obscenity at all. It perhaps was 50 years ago, but it in no way is "offensive, vulgar, etc." in the mainstream today. If however one means to "the Chrisitan community" we are again mired to differentiate acceptible language within certain subcultural groupings of Christians. Should Piper's language be considered obscene if his audience found no offense in it whatsoever? Or if someone actually took offense to it somewhere on the internet, or in the car listening to it on CD? In regards to language I believe we must realize that though reality is not constructed by language, things such as obscenities are quite communally oriented. Many words which would cause shame, derision in some parts of the body of Christ are completely benign and venacular to the culture at large. Words like "suck" "pissed off" are quite normal on the street. Many Christian converts, those who did not grow up in a certain sub culture, would have been right at home with Piper's remarks; perhaps discipleship will lead them to saying things other than "Kick your ___" or even dropping the whole "kicking" metaphor altogether. But I think what was communicated was more truthful, honest, and biblically faithful to some of Dr. Piper's hearers than just about anything I could substitute. Perhaps many who are not regularly engaged with real, worldly, non Christian speakers are outraged by someone saying "that sucks" - but believe me, in our "culture" this sort of language would not come close to meeting a dictionary definition of obscenity as: "Something or an utterance that is disgusting to the senses abhorrent to morality or virtue."

Reality, including truth and morality is fixed. I am not advocating for any sort of relativism at all. All the verses Dr. Grudem cited refer to real states of affairs before God which we must yield and obey. Yet they refer to orientations of the heart and affections and then expressions of these with words and actions. It is precisely here where it requires wisdom and discernment. To know what is corrupting talk and what is edifying in our community. Does it move one towards idolatry, self worship, the degradation of others, hatred of neighbor, profaning that which is holy, does it titilate, tear down, provoke unrighteous anger, mock, etc, etc. These are the questions we must ask for these things happen in our souls and in our communities. Does a Christian, who is looking at the death of his infant child and says "this present age sucks" committ a heinous sin? Or has he said something real and true about life outside of the garden in the language he finds as home. The language which we use to describe our inner states as well as the states of the world does shift. So my bottom line is this. I think such conversations about "corrupting talk and crude joking" will always happen within the body of Christ. Some calling for Piper's head because he said ass, others saying he didn't do a thing wrong. In the spirit of loving our brothers, our neighbors, we should not seek to offend one another, push the edges simply to ruffle others, etc. This is immature and sophomoric. Yet neither should we claim the definitive high ground above others whose language is a bit rougher than the small tribe in which we make our home. They might just be communicating gospel truth to others. Love covers a multitude of sins and helps us on in this conversation so please don't cuss me out nor smugly dismiss the discussion.

Retelling an old, old story - Naturalism as overarching meta-narrative

In part one of my mini series on the new atheism I thought it best to give some background to the narrative underlying atheistic thinking. For we all know that every worldview tells a story, a story which serves as the ground for understanding from within the worldview. Though its adherents may deny this, the new atheism of our day holds a large philosophical story as an interpretative framework for all its views and teaching. In other words, itt holds to a certain a meta-narrative. A meta-narrative is an overarching story by which everything else is interpreted and framed. Let me give an example for the readers of Power of Change which we would be familiar.

The Christian faith has a large over-arching story by which we build other areas of knowledge. The Christian meta-narrative is at times described with the following terms: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration. We believe that God created the world in pristine goodness. He then made human beings in the very image of God (imago dei) and as such our creation was a very good thing. We also believe that human beings sinned and rebelled against their creator resulting in this present world being under a curse. In such we see both goodness and evil in the world, both design and disruption, teleology and disteleology. In this age we hold that God has pursued creation by making covenants and entering relationships with his creatures. Then, in the fullness of time, God’s eternal plan culminated in the person and work of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, to finalize the work of God to redeem a people to be his own possession. The work of Jesus redeems us from the curse and we now await the consummation of the age with the restoration of all things. Creation will no longer groan and be in upheaval. Humans will be under the divine rule of King Jesus, the new heavens and new earth will overtake this present age reality and an eternal state of peace and blessing will commence. All things will then be fully reconciled to God and his people will rule and reign with him in his Kingdom. From within this story we interpret reality. It is how we see. From it we believe several things:

• The universe was created by a reasonable God. The created world is therefore both real and intelligible to the human mind
• Scientific study is discovering how the world is designed and created by a rational, purposeful mind…namely God. By reason, we may discover and learn true knowledge about the universe
• Human beings have immense intrinsic value as creations of God
  
• Human beings are uniquely responsible to their creator for their actions, be they good or evil
• Humans are separated from God, creation, and each other due to their sin which must be remedied. Our hearts and actions are by nature bent towards evil and we necessarily are under the wrath of a just and holy God.  The implications are that we are separated from God, alienated from one another, with our very souls living with self-deception and fracture.
  
• God has graciously dealt with sin and death through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 
  
• Human flourishing is found in being reconciled to our Creator and then using our lives to reflect his designs, desires, and decrees on the earth

Just an example.

Likewise, the atheistic worldview also has a story to tell by which they make their truth claims. Here is an example from a recent article in the New York Times.

The Enlightenment story has its own version of Genesis, and the themes are well known: The world woke up from the slumber of the “dark ages,” finally got in touch with the truth and became good about 300 years ago in Northern and Western Europe. As people opened their eyes, religion (equated with ignorance and superstition) gave way to science (equated with fact and reason). Parochialism and tribal allegiances gave way to ecumenism, cosmopolitanism and individualism. Top-down command systems gave way to the separation of church from state, of politics from science. The story provides a blueprint for how to remake and better the world in the image and interests of the West’s secular elites.

Atheists Agonistes By RICHARD A. SHWEDER New York Times Published: November 27, 2006. (Also available here without subscription

This story is the reason we see things like the war between science and religion propagated by those from the enlightened crowd. The story is one of scientific, secular man fighting ignorance and superstition on behalf of the good of all mankind; kind of sounds like caped crusaders when you think about it. This is far from the truth. The reality is that science emerged from a people who held deep religious beliefs about the world. In fact many have made the argument that it is precisely the beliefs of Christian monotheism in Europe, which allowed scientific progress to be made. This is beyond the scope of this post so I’ll refer you to the works of Jaki, Duhem, and Pearcy/Thaxton for that discussion. Back to the atheistic metanarrative. Much of the ground for a worldview is “believed in,” it is a philosophical dictum held by all true believers. The grand story believed by the atheist is that of philosophical naturalism. If we do not understand this, we will not be able to understand our atheistic friend’s claims, arguments, and allergies to the very idea of the supernatural. So let us take a walk into naturalism as a philosophy.

Naturalism defined

Many people in our culture would see the Naturalistic worldview, that nature is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be, as a new development. Yet the historically informed know well that human history has been populated by naturalists as well as those with their eyes set upon deities. Though the “nature is all there is crowd”, has never held sway in large number on any culture, it is nevertheless not a new idea. The naturalist lineage of ideas traces back to the Ancient Greek atomists and experienced a rebirth during the renaissance in Europe much in the rediscovery of ancient Greek Skeptics such as Sextus Empricus. The view holds that our world is a closed system of cause and effect with nothing existing "outside" of nature and therefore nothing acting upon the world. No gods, devils, angels, demons, immaterial human souls, or real universal ethical truths existing at all. This is the story from which the new atheists spin both their rhetoric and scholarship. They simply see anything outside of matter/energy/space/time as silly, ridiculous, and misinformed. You can see this exemplified by the recently and cleverly created Flying Spaghetti Monster (if you have a good sense of humor, it is a clever deal - wrong, but clever). The Spaghetti Monster is the creator behind the “intelligent design” of the universe. The claim is that saying “God designed the world” is just about the same as saying “Flying Spaghetti Monster designed the world.” For those who by default cannot accept any sort of supernatural being, the concept of “God” is just silly and indefinable. You would need revelation from God to know his being, works and character. But of course if their can be no God in your story, this is of course just ridiculous. Naturalism has a very strong appeal and has grown in influence in Western culture over the last several centuries. Let us look at a few of its strengths to see why it has so powerful appeal on some people.

Naturalism – the exaltation of empiricist epistemology

One of the reason naturalism is so compelling is that it exalts empiricist epistemology. An epistemology is a theory of knowledge, or how we come to know things in the world. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, empiricism is defined as follows:

We have no source of knowledge in S or for the concepts we use in S other than sense experience.

See Rationalism and Empiricism at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ 

In other words, empiricism holds that knowledge and truth about the world is acquired through empirical investigation and the scientific method. In order to come to knowledge about something, we form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis with an experiment whose results are observable with our senses and is repeatable by others who can verify the truth. With this method in hand, many great things have been brought to the world by the minds of men. Let’s look at the real strengths claimed by proponents of naturalism.

Strengths of the Naturalistic Worldview

It has produced great goods for human kind – the examples of the great things brought to the earth from scientific and empirical research are astounding. Advances in health, medicine, communications, transportation cannot be overlooked. The scientific method and engineering have extended life spans, eased burdens of suffering, and given us really cool MP3 players to play with. In all seriousness, science is a great good to mankind.

It is accessible to people of all cultures – Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, etc. can all use this method to study things in the world and arrive at a shared knowledge of many things. No one argues over what we observe in a test tube. Well, maybe you do, but after a while consensus arrives in the process of good science. For instance, no one will argue today that water is a compound that is two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. Whether you believe Muhammad is the final messenger of Allah or not does not disqualify one for understanding basic chemistry.

Though these strengths are present, naturalism has gross weaknesses as a philosophy and it is my opinion that its strengths are actually stolen goods from another worldview. It is a worldview in which scientific realism is a distinct and expected view of the created world…but I am jumping ahead of myself. Smile. To a few weaknesses of naturalism/empiricism

Weaknesses of Naturalism

It is is self-refuting – Empiricism by nature is self-refuting. It is embarrassingly evident to all today that the claim “the only things that count as true knowledge are verifiable by our senses” is itself not verifiable by empirical investigation. Many in philosophical circles recount the embarrassing verification principle of the logical positivists of the early 20th century. The system simply logically eats itself. Its own primary truth is not verifiable by the theory. There is a good article available on the Vienna Circle and its logical positivism for those interested.

It is incomplete view of reality – It is accepted based on beliefs which cannot be demonstrated by naturalism. Some theistic philosophers have done some devastating work on the reliability of reason from “within a naturalistic framework.” Based upon naturalistic presuppositions our minds are nothing but the bumping together of atoms in the brain of a complex and specified ape. If our minds are the result of a random process, what right do we have to “believe” that our thoughts and logic have anything to do with reality? Philosopher Richard Taylor gives a fascinating example in his story of the “Road To Wales.” Let me summarize:

If we were traveling by train and looked out upon the hillside and saw an arrangement of rocks precisely configured to convey the message “Welcome to Wales!” what would we think? If the rocks were lying in that configuration by a completely random, unintelligent process, we would be fools to believe that it was communicating something “true” to us. In other words, if you thought you were actually going into Wales based on a random falling of rocks, you would not be rational to believe this. But, however, if the rocks were arranged by an intelligent agent, one would be right to believe the message found in the configuration of rocks.

If our existence is a random movement of atoms by the chance laws of nature, one is not justified in “trusting their messages” to tell us the truth about reality. If naturalism is true, we are completely unjustified in thinking our thoughts somehow tell the truth about reality. It is arrogant and ungrounded for us to believe the electrochemical machinations of the brain are arriving at anything remotely related to “truth.” However, if our minds are not the result of random, unintelligent processes, we would be justified that we have been designed to understand, think and process reality. This of course is a variation on the Argument From Reason put forth by many thinkers over time. For those interested, you can see the following.

Books, Chapter 2 - Naturalism in Ronald Nash, Life’s Ultimate Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy, CS Lewis’ Miracles, Victor Reppert’s CS Lewis’ Dangerous Idea. 

Web Sites: Robert Koons, Lewis on Naturalism, Doug Grouthis’ The Great Cloud of Unknowing, Victor Reppert’s The Argument from Reason

It does not see itself as the faith-story that it really is: Using a bit of  sarcasm, let me demonstrate with a short myth I crafted some years ago:

A long time ago, longer than any of you can comprehend there was the nothing. The nothing was infinitely small and infinitely dense, a mathematical concept called a singularity. This nothing just exploded “by chance” and went from nothing to a lot of things really fast. These things, mainly hydrogen, quickly began to combine. Overcoming the strong repulsive force, the weak gravitational force drew all this stuff together into stars. Everything came from these stars. Some of these eventually exploded in supernovas, further spreading and reorganizing the nothing. Eventually our own planet earth came from this nothing. This earth was really lucky. It would be the perfect distance from, the right kind of star to support intelligent life. It would be tilted at exactly the right angle to create seasons for growing and harvesting food. Luckily there was a soup, and there were some inorganic elements in that soup that got feeling a little frisky. They started to jump together to form amino acids, and luckily some of these were of the proper orientation and fell into the precise order to form proteins. These proteins were lucky to be folded in such a way to be useful to form all the machinery necessary to form cells. From these cells, combining and reproducing over a real long time, more complex life came about. Mutations and death and we end up with you. I’m glad we were smart enough to figure all this out. Instead of the world and life being designed and fused with meaning and purpose (which it appears). We are the result of blind chance plus matter plus time; there is no other meaning to life. And we all lived happily ever after because we are all good and nice blobs of reorganized nothing (except for the possibility of atomic bombs, terrorists, religious wing nuts, comets smashing into the earth, global warming, and swarms of nano-bots forming a gray goo that kills us all.)

Now I am having a bit of fun here to show a point. I know some secular folk are a bit red in the face for me doing this. I do want to say that I once believed this meta-narrative – the lucky star dust story. I just want everyone to agree that even the stories many of us accept as true can seem a bit far-fetched when we look at them at face value. We all need to know how our worldview sounds to those who are not true believers.

It is stealing capital from theistic worldviews - To give life meaning and value, atheists have to steal from other worldviews in order to give life meaning. They readily accept that life has no “ultimate meaning” and Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, have all affirmed the absurdity of life and its meaninglessness. Because nihilism is literally unlivable as a philosophy, many atheists today choose “local meanings” to create meaning for their lives. My life is meaningful because “W, X, Y, Z” where one might choose “Family, Success, Music, Sports” or whatever to give life “my meaning.” I will cover this in a coming entry, but I want to say here. Local meaning is not meaningful unless one denies what he already knows about ultimate reality. I do think this is done daily by many people – just don’t think about the big picture – that will bum you out. Just have sex, eat food, laugh, love and try to enjoy life before you die. Such daily distraction and self-deception must be the case if atheism is true. The problem is you must, in practice, deny the implications of your own worldview to do so. Some have even gone as far to say, that as a society, we need to tell ourselves Noble Lies to get by. I personally, prefer noble truths to noble lies. (No hat tip to the Buddha here; for a look at the Noble Truths of Buddhism, see my post – Buddhist Insight and Christian Truth)

It is arrogant and full of pride – Not that this is indicative of just one worldview, but just take a quick read at Stephen Pinker’s recent comments in the Harvard Crimson to see the “we are smarter than you” sort of view that gets contagious among the new atheists.

In conclusion, this first post was written to remind us of something as we go to several other topics surrounding the new atheism. It is important to remember that “Naturalism” is their story and they are sticking to it. This will help us understand why they teach, believe, and at times spew vitriol towards faith. There is a more excellent path – neither blind faith in believing nonsense, nor acting as if there is a “faith-less or story-less” worldview out there. It is an ancient path set forth by the prophets, the apostles, and men such as Augustine and Anselm in days past.

Fides Quaerens Intellectum – Faith (in God) seeking Understanding

That's my song...at 11:30 on Tuesday, December 5, in the year of our Lord 2006. 

Great little exercise

Justin Taylor has a great little post to help us how to think through arguments presented in the public square.  I highly recommend going to this post and doing the little exercise recommended.

Learning to love God with our minds...a good path 

The Nature of the New Atheism

In the coming weeks I will be trickling out (without a production schedule) a blog series I am calling The Nature of the New Atheism - There has been a bit of a buzz in the media as of late about certain thinkers and leaders many are calling the New Atheism (See Wired Magazine Article - The Crusade Against Religion). 

Recently I have finished a book featuring the thoughts of Bad Religion front man Greg Gaffin, read some of the recent articles on the net and ordered another book by the atheist crusader Sam Harris.  I was thinking of reviewing books, engaging the articles, etc. but then had a bit of a different idea this morning.  What I propose I do is to cover some of the main ideological thrusts from the contemporary (really not all that new) atheistic front in our culture highlighting the books/works of various thinkers along the journey.

So in brief, here is my proposed outline with a brief abstract for each of the five stops on the path.  These entries I hope will be written well, but they will not be research papers handling all the breadth and depth of each topic.  My prayer is that they would serve as food for thought and dialog for us in these important times.

1. Naturalism as the overarching meta-narrative - the atheistic worldview has philosophical naturalism as its foundational story.  The view holds that our world is a closed system of cause and effect with nothing existing "outside" of nature and therefore nothing acting upon the world.  No gods, devils, angels, demons, non material human souls, universal ethical truths existing at all.  This is the story from which they spin both their rhetoric and scholarship.
2. Man de-centralizing man - For millennia human beings have thought that they inhabited a special and unique space in the cosmos.  Man, as it were, sat upon a throne at the top of the chain of being, a crowned creature in a world of matter, energy, things living and without life.  The atheistic project has sought to take man off of this throne and remove his crown.  Human beings are but a fortunate convergence of time + matter + chance - a combination which has deceived us into thinking we were special, that we had souls, that consciousness was spiritual, even made in the imago dei.
3. The primacy of the brain and “evolutionary wiring” - With the advent of neuroscience and the continued creation of computational devices which mimic "thinking" (think...your computer) much is being said today which reduces all consciousness to the function of specialized matter, localized inside your skull.  Ethics, language, sin, and religion are now matters of localized brain function brought into play by the work of evolution.  Over the years we were fashioned into "meat machines" whose brains foster all these illusions upon us.  Morality, God, that you are a soul not just a body etc. are just projections of human brains.  This area goes sci-fi really quickly - so we'll have some fun with this one.
4. The Fear of Religion and Anti-Religious crusading - With our world embattled by Islamic terrorism, the secularist is now setting aside his postmodern tolerance (well, only a few loud ones are) to rant against the evils of religion.  Not simply the religion which blows up one's self in the name of Allah, but ALL religions of every stripe.  They are outmoded evolutionary hang-ups that we need to grow out of and become enlightened naturalists who will bring utopia to the earth...or at least get us colonizing space before we blow ourselves to smithereens. 
5. Why Atheism is not the major boogy man it once was - Really, atheism is not the big bad enemy it was in the 19th century Europe and America.  There are new enemies now at the gates of belief.  It remains a formidable element of thought in our culture which we must engage (ie - why I am even writing this) but there are other views which I believe hold more challenge in the future of Christian Orthodoxy. I will discuss the challenges facing atheism and the new boogies in the final post.
   

Now, I just pray I can complete this sucker before Thomas Reid turns 1 in August of 2007.  Seriously, I hope I can crank these out over the next month or so.  Pray for me will you - I promise I have too much to do than try and write this stuff - but what do you do with an idea that grips tightly onto your soul...

Should be fun. 

The Postmodern Worldview and Dr. Bauchman's lecture

This morning at the Desiring God National Conference, Vodie Bauchman gave a great message entitled The Supremacy of Christ and Truth in a Postmodern World.  It was very compelling and passionate plea for the truth of the Christian gospel in contrast to a secular view.  Tim Challies summarizes the message here.  

Though I thought this message was very good, it should have
been titled "The Supremacy of Christ and the Truth in a Modernistic World" - Bauchman clearly represented a humanistic/nihilistic worldview that he called "Postmodern secular humanism" - this view was not a postmodern one. 

Just for interest, Bauchman asked four questions of worldviews which I find helpful: 1) Who am I? 2) Why I am here? 3) What is wrong with the world? 4) How to we make that wrong right? Seeing how Bauchman answered these for "postmodern secular humanism" it will be evident that he was representing a modernistic view not a postmodern one:

Secular Humanist Perspective

Who am I? You are nothing! You are an accident, a mistake. You are a glorified ape and that is all you are. You are the result of random evolutionary processes. There is no rhyme, no reason, no purpose.

Why am I here? To consume and enjoy. No amount is ever enough as we always want a little bit more. All that matters is power. The answers to the first two questions bring about the social Darwinism that has caused such harm to the world.

What is wrong with the world? People are either insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed. People either don't know enough or they aren't being watched enough.

How can what is wrong be made right? More education and more government. Teach people more stuff. The problem is that if you take a sinful human being and teach him more, you create a person with greater ability to destroy. Then we govern them more, but who governs the governors?

This is a good critique of the worldview that flowered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but I do not see this being a view held by postmoderns.  To illustrate, I am going to track through the four questions as they might have been answered by that view.

Who am I? A postmodern reply would be along the lines of the ecclectic self.  A person is how they are self-defined through their choices and cultural proclivities.  One may choose to self-identify with certain groups, causes, styles, beliefs, brands, music, film etc.  The postmodern person can build their self how they see fit.  It is a fundamental denial of an ontological and universal human nature...in its place is substituted a constructed self made in the image of the choices of the autonomous man.

Why am I here? We are here...there is not an ultimate explanation for this fact.  Due to this reality, and my felt need for meaning, the postmodern desire is to create this meaning in community and live it there.  Ultimate metanarratives are replaced by mini narratives which we create (with language) and enjoy our together.

What's wrong with the world?  Human beings have for millenia had the perchant to absolutize the views of their tribe.  As a result peoples have sought to conquer, destroy, and oppress others with their absolutist ideologies...many times using such elegant tools of persuasion such as tanks.  This in the postmodern mind is very bad [don't ask if it is absolutely bad - that would be obnoxious of you]

How can this wrong be made right? Human beings should embrace a tolerant view of the world where all views are equally valued, even celebrated, and human beings are thereby free, without fear, to create meaning and enjoy the creation and enjoyment of their selves.

I think thinking through how the gospel Truth confronts these issues and fulfills the longings behind them, would be an interesting talk to hear Dr. Bauchman address.

On a final note - Tim Challies is summarizing the sessions on his site - they are very good summaries of the messages given.  Additionally, Desiring God will be providing the audio for download, free of charge, later in the week.  Isn't free a good thing?

The "New" Faces of Atheism

Newsweek has an article they are calling The New Naysayers which chronicles the work of several atheists who think religion is the root of all evil.  It is interesting that the article would call Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins new faces in the atheistic world of things.  Dawkins is a well known Darwinist bull dog and Dennett is highly active with many publications which are far from friendly towards belief in God.  In fact, Dennett is invovled with the Center for Naturalism which desires to purge the world of superstitious religious beliefs.  Interestingly enough I plan on reading Dennett's new book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon here in the next few months.  Anyway, the article is an interesting read for those who like to know what the leading thinkers in unbelief are up to.  Here are a few examples of the kinds of explanations of life you get with this group of people.  Feel the love from the Just so stories world of Evolutionary Psychology.  It simply demonstrates what I have always found as a terrible weakness in naturalistic thought - that of explaining the prescriptive nature of ethics.  This feeble attempt to explain altruism and supererogatory acts is week enough in giving a reason why there is morality (descriptive nature of ethics - which explains what is), but it does absolutely nothing to tell you why one ought to be moral tomorrow.  You simply can do what ever the heck you want...as long as you can get away with it.

But Dawkins attempts to show how the highest of human impulses, such as empathy, charity and pity, could have evolved by the same mechanism of natural selection that created the thumb. Biologists understand that the driving force in evolution is the survival and propagation of our genes. They may impel us to instinctive acts of goodness, Dawkins writes, even when it seems counterproductive to our own interests—say, by risking our life to save someone else. Evolutionary psychology can explain how selfless behavior might have evolved. The recipient may be a blood relation who carries some of our own genes. Or our acts may earn us future gratitude, or a reputation for bravery that makes us more desirable as mates. Of course, the essence of the moral law is that it applies even to strangers. Missionaries who devote themselves to saving the lives of Third World peasants have no reasonable expectation of being repaid in this world. But, Dawkins goes on, the impulse for generosity must have evolved while humans lived in small bands in which almost everyone was related, so that goodness became the default human aspiration.

Or try this on for size.  I could replace my worship of the Trinitarian God, who loved me and gave himself up for me with the worship of [Gm1m2/r²]. 

On the science Web site Edge.org, the astronomer Carolyn Porco offers the subversive suggestion that science itself should attempt to supplant God in Western culture, by providing the benefits and comforts people find in religion: community, ceremony and a sense of awe. "Imagine congregations raising their voices in tribute to gravity, the force that binds us all to the Earth, and the Earth to the Sun, and the Sun to the Milky Way," she writes.

Praise Gravity from whom all cohesion flows, praise that mathematical reality here below, praise it for destroying us with black holes, praise quasars, red dwarfs and wormholes....aaaaaaamen. Give me a break. 

I personally worship the one whose mind designed gravity and the marvelous created universe in which it operates.

(HT - Ben Vastine for pointing me to the Newsweek piece) 

Ever After, Utopia, Perfect Worlds, and The Existence of God

The other night I was watching Ever After, a Cinderella movie, with my wife.  And yes, men, when my wife said she wanted to watch "Ever After" I said yes, with a full track record of confirmed masculinity. 

In the movie a little girl is given a book from her Father.  The title of the book was Utopia, a work by Thomas More.  The idea of the word Utopia is to create a perfect world, a heaven on earth sort of scheme.   Now, such thinking is universal to all cultures--this world is flawed and we need to create a better world.  Utopia schemes and fix the world diagnoses have wrought all sorts of horrors on the earth...that study will be saved for another day.  Yet while watching the movie I paused the film and began to talk to my wife.  Of course she just looooves, to stop a movie from my philosophical ramblings.  I thought, how do we get this concept of "a perfect world" - nobody has ever seen one.  This of course led my thoughts to the topic of epistemology.  I know you are thinking - watching a Cinderella movie of course leads to epistemology, what else would you be thinking about!!! Right.  But here me out.

If one is an empiricist in her view of knowledge she believes that there is no knowledge that exists in the mind which does not first pass through the senses.  In the other words, if we do not sniff, touch, taste, see, hear it - the mind has no raw data from which to build knowledge.  This of course brings up a problem when talking about Utopia.  How does one get the idea of a "perfect" world into ones mind from sense data in the world.  No one has ever seen, touched, tasted, sniffed, or heard "perfect" in this world.  All we see is a matter of degrees - that there is bad, good, and better.  For the empiricist, one can only infer, from degrees of goodness or badness in things, that there must be a perfect.  However, he is speaking of something he has no knowledge of - that of course IF empiricism is correct.

However, what if there IS a perfect, there is a perfect world, a source of perfection which is not currently observable to the senses but is present in the mind by which we know this world is NOT perfect.  We just somehow know that there exists "the perfect" - this knowledge is given to us.  Now, I meet all sorts of people who would subscribe to the proverb "Nobody is perfect" or "I am not perfect" - for years now I always ask a follow up question.  How do you know that "you are not" unless there is someone/something which is.  It seems like an empty comparison that is quite meaningless unless there is that which that is perfect.  If there are flaws in persons, things, or even this world (after all it is NOT utopia), then there is something, yes I would say someone which we and this world fall short of. 

The existence of the knowledge that this world is broken demonstrates to me that it falls short of a perfection.   The knowledge of this perfection must find its ground in someone/something - I find this a compelling confirmation that indeed, there is a God...who in himself is the source of all perfections from which we fall short. 

Romans 3:23

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God - Read all of Romans 3

Romans 8:20-25

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  Read all of Romans 8

And yes, someday, the children of God will live happily ever after...and that ain't no fairy tale pipe dream. 

The Way I See It

Ethicist Wesley J. Smith has a quote (#127 to be exact) in Starbuck's The Way I See It Campaign. It is certainly one I pray many people discuss over a cup of five dollar joe. Here is the quote:

The morality of the 21st century will depend on how we respond to this simple but profound question: Does every human life have equal moral value simply and merely because it is human? Answer yes, and we have a chance of achieving universal human rights. Answer no, and it means that we are merely another animal in the forest.

For the complete article, go over to the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network Web Site.

The Great Philosophers on March Madness and Bracketology

What Would They Say About March Madness and Bracketology?

[Updated 3/20/06 : Due to UNC's recent loss to lowly George Mason University (no offense), the illustrations below of the philosophy of the great thinkers lose some force.   However, not being a fair weather fan, I stand by the arguments below.  Though I may have to be an antirealist to hold the one that says Dook sucks...they still look pretty good]

Plato	There is a perfect basketball bracket, but all brackets are but shadows of the form. Though the bracket last year where UNC defeated a powerful Illinois team came very close to the good. I came to this through use of the dialetic with a Dook fan.
Aristotle	Ethically, one can find a a good bracket by approaching the golden mean. One should not just pick all top seeds, or all upset games, but in moderation, you may approach a virtuous good life in March Madness.
Plotinus	The basketball teams all emerge from the world soul and all eminates and flows forth from the one. Do you know what the heck I am talking about?
Augustine	You cannot teach me about basketball brackets using signs and symbols for we all innately know by divine light the truth about basketball.
Boethius	God knows all things from a standpoint of eternity, even though the games must be played in time with players making good shot selections. For we indeed are guilty of taking bad shots.
Anselm	In all knowledge of basketball, I have faith in my team, though my faith is seeking understanding. In fact, I have an a priori proof that UNC is a necessary team. First, would you agree that UNC is That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Thought?
Aquinas	One must properly demonstrate from the principles of reason that UNC is the best team. Anselm is a fine boy, but on crack. We have no knowledge in the mind except that which first exists in the senses. Here are five ways (a posteriori) that demonstrate that UNC is the greatest team, by way of observing their effects.
Descartes	Here is how I pick my bracket. I just doubt I can do it...but then, because I am doubting, I know I have the foundation from which to build my picks. I pick, therefore I win!
Pascal	The one who picks Dook and the one who picks UNC both make a wager. But are both choices equal? Say if I choose UNC and they win it all - I have gained everything, say I pick UNC and they are not the greatest, I have had a good pick and still loose nothing. If I pick Dook and I am right, great I win, but don't really know this for I am dead. But if I am wrong - I have lost everything
Hume	Do we really have knowledge of the causes for our bracket choices and the winner of games? We think we do, but we just know this by custom. For it is neither a matter of fact or a relation of ideas.
Kant - Ethically	Categorically, one has the imperative to pick the Tarheels. If one does not, it makes all picking impossible.
Kant - Epistemologically	Concepts without Brackets are Empty. Brackets without Concepts are Blind. So the categories in your basketball mind, structure the reality of your bracket.
Hegel	The thesis that Kentucky is the greatest basketball program is challenged by the antithesis that Dook is the greatest. I think the synthesis that is spawned is the UNC must be the best - we are moving towards an ideal.
Wittgenstein	I don't really think we can talk about brackets and basketball, but you have your own language game, so by all means talk about basketball games.
A. J. Ayer	Mr. Ayer, Dook sucks! Well, Reid your feelings of basketball ethics are meaningless, only statements that are either analytic or empirically verifiable are meaningful. Wait Mr. Ayer, that statement is neither analytic or empirically verifiable. I knew you were wrong...so Dook sucks!
Deridda	Car-olina or Carolin-a. Yeah Jaques, but South Carolina sucks, and there is a difference!
Plantinga	Belief that UNC is the best college basketball team is properly basic in one's noetic structure. As long as one can defeat the defeaters for such a belief one is rationally warranted in holding it. A broader foundation is appropriate in religious epistemology. Joe and Suzy Tarheel are rationally justified to believe that UNC is the best; even without proof. But Reid has developed a dozen or so proofs that many other believers ought to make use of

Book Review: The Science of the Soul

Science of the Soul: Scientific Evidence of Human Souls
Kevin T. Favero Edina: Beaver’s Pond Press, 2004

The nature and makeup of human beings has long been the source of questioning wonder and curiosity. Just what are we? What is the nature of consciousness? Are you human beings merely bodies and brains or is their something that our forebears and many today call the soul? The very fact that we do think, ponder and wonder about such things is in itself a truly amazing phenomenon, unique in what we know about the created universe. In this book, The Science of the Soul, Kevin Favero, an electrical engineer by training, tackles a unique question. Is there good scientific evidence for the inference that human beings have supernatural souls as well as physical bodies?

What is at stake in this debate is very important. If there is no soul, no transcendent reality, no god; if matter/energy is all that IS, then what do we lose? A quote from the Center for Naturalism will help demonstrate what is at stake

Naturalism as a guiding philosophy can help create a better world by illuminating more precisely the conditions under which individuals and societies flourish, and by providing a tangible, real basis for connection and community. It holds that doctrines and policies which assume the existence of a freely willing agent, and which therefore ignore the actual causes of behavior, are unfounded and counter-productive. To the extent to which we suppose persons act out of their uncaused free will, to that extent will we be blind to those factors which produce criminality and other social pathologies, or, on the positive side, the factors which make for well-adjusted, productive individuals and societies. By holding that human behavior arises entirely within a causal context, naturalism also affects fundamental attitudes about ourselves and others. Naturalism undercuts retributive, punitive, and fawning attitudes based on the belief that human agents are first causes, as well other responses amplified by the supposition of free will, such as excessive pride, shame, and guilt. Since individuals are not, on a naturalistic understanding, the ultimate originators of their faults and virtues, they are not deserving, in the traditional metaphysical sense, of praise and blame. Although we will continue to feel gratitude and regret for the good and bad consequences of actions, understanding the full causal picture behind behavior shifts the focus of our emotional, reactive responses from the individual to the wider context. This change in attitudes lends support for social policies based on a fully causal view of human behavior.

Center for Naturalism Internet Site, accessed April 10th 2005. Emphasis Added.

In a naturalistic view there is no person who is responsible for their faults or virtures and therefore no one is truly deserving of praise or blame. We then must configure reality, through politics or force, to “make people” the way we want them to be. One ought to question the one who says he has the ability to "control environments” in order to control the behavior of others. This has been envisioned by many who have taken a naturalistic view as utopian scheme after utopian scheme has oppressed people for the last several hundred years.

If naturalism/materialism is true, then many questions arise. How is matter “good”? How does a purposeless universe give rise to purpose? How does non conscious matter give rise to true meaningful human volition? How do we know that the bumping together of matter and energy in our brains arrives at anything that we would call “true”? These questions find no satisfactory answer from within a naturalistic framework and rightly put the worldview in question.

Favero’s effort in this book is to provide an argument that falsifies naturalism; a most worthwhile pursuit. For if there is something that is beyond matter and energy, indeed supernatural (i.e., beyond or outside nature), even our own souls, then truth, free will, and morality become very meaningful. Now we turn to the argument presented in The Science of the Soul and the attempt to infer the existence of souls from science and logical thought.

The Thrust of Favero’s Argument

The thrust of Favero’s argument for the existence of souls is laid out in the introductory chapter. His basic thesis is that if matter/energy is all that exists, then this matter/energy must by necessity interact according to the laws of physics. We know of no matter that has a mind of its own and decides what it will do autonomously. All matter/energy must follow a natural course including that which makes up human beings. All that we are, our brains and central nervous systems, must up operate by predetermined natural laws. It is then a logical implication that human beings do not have free will. Favero argues that if it can be shown that human beings do indeed have free will, then this volition requires an explanation that is not natural, which is not operating according to the laws of nature. In logical short hand his argument is this:

• If matter/energy is all there is then there is no free will
• There is Free Will
• Therefore matter/energy is not all there is

It is a valid Modus Tollens argument

• If P then Q
• Not Q
• Therefore Not P

With
P = Matter/Energy is all there is and Q = There is No Free Will

With the conclusion being not P = “it is not the case that matter/energy is all there is.”

The bulk of the evidence he then marshals is necessarily in support of the premise that we do indeed have free will. He then argues that the source of the free will we have must come from something other than matter/energy operating according to the laws of Physics. Hence his conclusion, the reality of free will demands a super-natural source, which we call the human Soul.

Support in the Sciences

The middle section of the book is a survey of various scientific fields and their contribution or detraction from the idea that human beings have free will. Each chapter surveys a discipline of science and interacts with the nature of human free will from the perspective of that discipline. The four covered are biology, quantum physics, philosophy and science (soul-brain interface), and mathematics. I will treat each section briefly in turn.

In the chapter on Biology he lays out several views, theistic evolution, special creation, and intelligent design without saying definitively which view he holds. His only contention is that each view does not contradict the existence of supernatural souls and the reality of free will. Only the naturalistic/deterministic evolution of matter + time + chance is incompatible with free will. One of the chapter’s strengths is that all who believe in the soul will find their view fairly represented, yet I did find it a bit contrived that God would at some moment make a pre-Adamic hominid into a “real human” by putting a soul there after the purely natural process of evolution. I think the secularist and some of religious persuasions will find difficulty with such a scenario.

The chapters on Quantum Physics and the Soul-Brain Interface I found to be fascinating and very helpful. Following the work on Sir John Eccles, Favero’s discussion is about how certain quantum phenomena could be the mechanism by which the Soul works out its decisions in the brain. I found this to be a refreshing attempt at explaining in scientific terms what happens as the conscious soul thinks and acts through the brain and the central nervous system. He is very clear that attempts to explain free will by saying quantum reality is the source of such volition are destined for failure. Again, if matter/energy is all there is, then it must follows the rule or laws of physics, even if the probabilistic rules of quantum mechanics. Though quantum fluctuations, and the bundling (or collapsing as some prefer) of the wave function of the electron may be the mechanism of free will, it could never be the source. I find this line of thinking to be a great frontier of study in the science of consciousness.

The final supporting chapter dealt with the discipline of mathematics. The discussion here centered around non-computational aspects of human thinking, namely insight and intuition. This chapter closely follows the work of Roger Penrose in his mathematical study of human thinking. Penrose, though a naturalist himself, stands out against the reduction of human thinking to be analogous to that of a digital computer (see Dennett and Kurzweil). Penrose demonstrates that there are “noncomputational” aspects of our thought that a computer can simply not perform. If one finds halting problems, tiling problems and Gödel’s Theorem of interest (and I must admit I loved this chapter) then the chapter on Math will be a delight.

Weaknesses of the Book

Overall I found the book interesting and a helpful debate on this issue of human anthropology. I did however see a few minor drawbacks. First, the writing style was sometimes a bit redundant with the same thing said in various places. At first this appeared to me a strength, yet I found myself thinking, “you said this already, several times.” Reinforcement is helpful, but after a few repetitions I felt like we were beating the proverbial dead horse. Second, there were a few anachronisms in the history of philosophy that I feel could be corrected. One example is on page 43 where the following statement was made:

During the Age of Reason in the 1600s and 1700s (also known as the Enlightenment), some scientists and philosophers identified the ability to reason as the characteristic that separates humans from other animals.

This is true, but this idea was present in Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and many thinkers much earlier than the Enlightenment. This is not a huge mistake, but can appear a little incomplete. Finally, I noticed a few of the quotations in the book were not footnoted (see quotation from Weinberg on page 253). This was rare as the documentation in the book was otherwise fantastic. These minor drawbacks aside, I now turn our attention to the many strengths I found in the book.

Strengths of the Book

The strengths of the book were many and the following are those which I found outstanding. First, Favero lays out well all the implications in the denial of free will in great detail. He clearly shows the effects on law, morality, relationships, even one’s own internal life, when free will is denied. He connects a denial of free will with naturalistic assumptions or presuppositions about the world rather than a scientific or phenomelogical demonstration that human beings lack free will. In other words, people deny free will because of bias, or prejudice against non-material explanations of the world. The inconsistency of materialists denying free will yet then appealing to people to make choices, decisions, etc. was brought out with clarity and force by direct quotations from the literature. Secondly, the author has clearly done his homework. His survey of the relevant literature was copious and the bibliography is an invaluable resource for those interested in the mind/body problem and physicalist debate. The minor footnoting problem aside, the book is very well documented and expansive in its handling of the subject matter. Third, Favero made great effort to make the work accessible to the layperson. In this goal I think he partially succeeded. For those with any scientific background, even a few college courses, will be able to work through the book. Yet to fully grasp some of the concepts a cursory knowledge of some of the sciences is helpful. Fourth, he makes a great distinction between theological determinism, the idea that God predestines and brings about certain things and naturalistic determinism. The former view supporting some manner of real choice and free will while maintaining God as an active chooser and actor in the world and the latter being a completely closed system of cause and effect with no room for free will in us or in God. This discussion, though brief (see pages 39,40), qualifies “free will” enough where one who holds libertarian free will or theological compatibilism could be in concord with the main argument of the book.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed The Science of the Soul and its contribution to the debate on the mind/body problem from a scientific point of view. I was greatly encouraged by the level of research and effort put forth by the author and enjoyed some of the mind puzzles brought forth in the book. The study of consciousness, the nature of humanity, and the resulting societies we will create based upon such knowledge is of utmost importance. People have long assumed they had a self, a soul, which is the true person which they are. This is now questioned in the halls of learning and many are asleep as to the debate and the consequences of wrongly assessing human nature. I thank Mr. Favero for bringing forth the debate with both rigor and passion which is seen clearly in a quote from the book’s conclusion.

It is my hope:

• that all people can recognize there is overwhelming evidence that leads to the conclusion that they have supernatural souls;
• that this recognition and the hope for eternal life will help relieve at least in part the depression and suffering experienced by some people;
• that belief in a supernatuality reality and a supernatural Being is a source of healing for guilt
• that people will realize how wonderful free will, life, and existence are; and
• that these realizations will result in an attitude of awe and thankfulness and will renew the joy of living in many people.

Finally, I hope that a recognition that each human soul is made in the image of a spiritual God will help human relations at all levels and lead to a spiritual millennium.

The Science of the Soul, 325 

To this I would only add that these are possible and described by the term “salvation” in the Christian Scriptures. A great truth of the Christian worldview that souls need redemption, reconciliation to God, forgiveness from sin, and thereby be set free to love God and one another. And such was purchased on the executioner’s cross where the Son of God, by his own free will, gave his life as a ransom for many.

The book may be purchased directly from: http://www.scienceofsouls.com/ 

Plantinga on ID Decision

William Dempski has a post recording Alvin Plantinga's thoughts on Judge John Jone's arguements against Intelligent Design being science. You can read the post here.

If you happen to be new to Plantinga the wiki on him is a good place to start. Many of his works are linked here.

Here is the link from Uncommon Descent Uncommon Descent � Alvin Plantinga on Judge Jones’s Decision

Palm, Treo and Brains - Jeff Hawkin's New Venture

Jeff Hawkins, who gave the world the PalmPilot in 1996 (I had one of those first little gems) and the founder of Handspring (who gave us the Treo) is now on to looking ot produce a computer based upon his theories of brain functioning.

An interview with Hawkins is available on NPR - NPR : PalmPilot Creator Models Computer on Brain.

Hawkins new company, Numenta , has this as their mission:

Numenta is developing a new type of computer memory system modeled after the human neocortex. The applications of this technology are broad and can be applied to solve problems in computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics and machine learning. The Numenta technology, called Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM), is based on a theory of the neocortex described in Jeff Hawkins' book entitled On Intelligence (with co-author Sandra Blakeslee).

I try to stay up on the Artificial Intelligence conversation, so I need to pick up this book along with Kurzweil's Singularity (which is on its way in one of those delicious little brown Amazon.com boxes)

A Review of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett

There is a very interesting book review of Daniel Dennett's most recent railings against religion. See 'Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon,' by Daniel C. Dennett - The New York Times Book Review An interesting quote from the conclusion of the review:

Dennett recognizes the uses of faith, but not its reasons. In the end, his repudiation of religion is a repudiation of philosophy, which is also an affair of belief in belief. What this shallow and self-congratulatory book establishes most conclusively is that there are many spells that need to be broken.

Dennett and other naturalists have yet to face the true music of their own imploding idea. What good reason to we have to trust the musings of the meaningless mush of matter between our ears? Naturalism offers no good answer. If our brains are the result of a long, blind, material process, then we have no good reason to think that our thoughts should arrive at anything that is "true" or any real reflection of reality. Now, I am no anti-realist, as I believe our minds, our logic, transcend matter alone and our sense perceptions and rational inferences should be trusted. Not on any naturalistic worldview, but rather on one grounded in metaphysics. For indeed truth exists outside of our selves and ultimate reality, yes even God, casts a beautiful light that makes our knowledge possible. And at times our knowledge is true.

For an interesting exchange on Naturalism - see also my post on The Center for Naturalism

On Color

Appearances matter because God gave us eyes - which perceive color, textures, beauty. Now does color exist in things and present itself upon the soul? Or does the mind create color due to certain sensible light which reflects from the thing itself. I think both - making Aquinas and Locke Kiss :) The thing itself does not "exude" color as once thought, but it does have certain properties in itself which absorbs or repels certain wavelengths of light. These are perceived by our eyes and brains and so we experience "orange" - So a modern and premodern view of color can be perhaps reconciled. The thing does have a property of "color" but we can describe the whole process a bit more with the tools of modern understanding. Now, the postmodern view of color? A Postmodern View - Well, since there are color blind people, and people can see different colors trippin on LSD...well, there is no color, only that which you experience. And this is true for you and you can drive that way if you like. Wait a second, you better stop at the red light!!!

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Simulate Your Brain

The New Scientist has an article about a new project to attempt to simulate the human brain in silicon. The article is a fascinating look into The "Blue Brain" project between IBM and a group of Swiss researchers. The hope of the project is described as:

The hope is that the virtual brain will help shed light on some aspects of human cognition, such as perception, memory and perhaps even consciousness...It may also help in understanding how certain malfunctions of the brain’s “microcircuits” could cause psychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and depression, he says.

A super computer will be set up now to mimic the functioning of the brain. Due to my background in computer science, this is an interesting process. The goal is said to be "set up a virtual brain" that will "shed light" on aspects of human cognition. Yet to build a brain simulator you must be able to already do several things in order to know that your simulator in any way will actually simulate the brain:

1. Know how to map out the brain in hardware. A complete mapping of the physical structure of the brain in corresponding hardware
2. You must already know how that hardware should interact so as the brain will function as a brain. This "intelligence" then must be programmed into the hardware and software of the system so that the functionality will be as a brain should function.

It seems that you must set it up to produce certain behaviors in the system - this seems to require knowledge of how human cognition works in order to set it up. What then is our assumption of how human cognition functions. Are we not making a philosophical assumption, that consciousness, congnition, etc. is no more than certain electrical patterns in brains that can be mimicked...it seems the latter faith may be involved in such brain simulations. Here arises a philosophical problem. When we observe the electrochemical interactions of the brain, we have no knowledge as to what these reactions are producing in the mind of the person. For this we must ask somone - namely the one who is having a first person experience of his own mind. Thoughts and their correlated brain states are not identical - they have different properties. Take for example the truth that 2 + 2 = 4. If you don't think this is true, please consider it again - you are scaring me. Now think of that truth just for a moment. When you did your brain did certain electrochemical gymnastics. Now is you thought of 2 + 2 = 4, the same as my thought of this? If you say yes, and if you are a materialist (thoughts are only electrochemical processess in the brain) you have a problem. Your thought and my thought had completely different brain matter involved, different hunks of matter/energy - they are not indentical...so our thoughts of this truth must somehow not be equated simply with brain chemistry. Our thoughts of truths must be thoughts of something that is "not in your brain" It is a welcome thing to understand brain function better, to be able to treat maladies and injuries to the brain in more effective ways. But let us remember that thoughts and consciousness are different than the hardware in which these things work out in the physical world. To do otherwise is to make a philosophical blunder - and we will misunderstand human cognition if we only look at brains - real or virtual. Out...

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Interesting read on Western epistemology (theories of knowledge) at the Evangelical Outpost

Part I - Cogito and Christ:
Doubt, Certainty, and Epistemic Humility Part II - Cogito and Christ:
Doubt, Certainty, and Epistemic Humility (Pt. 2) The philosopically interested depart to the Outpost at once! Those who are not don't just go get a latte...a word from Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason is helpful

My point is simply this. The way to deal with vain philosophies, wherever they may be found, is to have good philosophy, not to abandon the art of critical thinking altogether. And if the church is to survive [and thrive] in the twenty-first century as an important and significant player in the marketplace of ideas, then those who are members of the church are going to have to recapture the traditional emphasis on the mind and learn to manage and use the tools of thought in defense of the Gospel.

Amen! Amen?

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The Moral Universe of Star Wars

I have to admit that I love the Star Wars films. I even like Attack of the Clones, the one that only made a measley 310 million dollars, and put most star wars fans to sleep. Perhaps I like the movies because I was 5 years old when I saw Episode IV - everything seems cool to a 5 year old. Especially outer space, intergalactic space battles, dark villans and hopeful heroics. It is interesting to observe the worldviews active in Star Wars. It is common knowledge that Lucas was heavily influenced by the works of Joseph Campbell, his views about human myths, the nature of our heroes, and common themes in religions. We know there are strong doses of Eastern mysticism and pantheism throughout the films, but today I don't want to travel down that well trod path of critique (the force, gurus like Yoda, good and evil being two sides of the same entity, etc.). Rather, I want to look at something more contemporary in these movies, namely the moral view of the universe offered in the saga.

The most recent installment, The Revenge of the Sith (stop reading if you still want to see the movie unmolested by my comments - I thoroughly enjoyed this one and will probably see it again) features some moral philosophical reflection between the two main characters of the film - Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. In the final scenes of the movie there is some dialogue leading up to and throughout the epic light saber dual.

Obi-Wan is talking to Skywalker about his pride and his lust for power in terms that have you to believe that he thinks these things are wrong - really wrong - not just in his opinion. He explains to young Skywalker that the Jedi are good yet the Sith are evil. The reply from Skywalker is that "from his persepective" the Sith are good - here enters an ancient, but ever popular philosophy of our day - that of Moral Relativism. A quick definition may be helpful.

Relativism is the denial of any absolute or bjective standards, especially in ethics. (See objectivity.) ethical [or moral] relativists can be individual relativists, who hold that what is morally right is relative to the beliefs or emotions of the individual, or they can be cultural relativists, who hold that what is morally right varies with different societies. (See subjectivism.) Analogously, in epistemology relativism holds that what is true is dependent on the individual or the culture.

Evans, C. Stephen. Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion, Page 101. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002.

So the dialogue begins with moral clarity - Obi-Wan knows that his young padawan learner has gone bad, gone to the Dark Side (here Dark is thought to be "bad"). He has murdered innocents, even younglings (very young Jedi in training) - and all of this is known to be bad to us - really bad. But at this juncture, Anakin tells us he is doing what is right from his perspective - good and evil are just relative to the person or the viewpoint. Now, how will Obi-Wan continue? He has spoken in absolutes about Anakin - we all know there is a good and bad to the moral universe we observe in these films - we know this to be so about our real lives. Here is where the film turns...Anakin says to Obi-Wan "If you are not with me you are against me". To this Obi-Wan replies the one who speaks in absolutes is already gone. To this I only scratched my head. Did not Obi-Wan just tell us that "pride" and "lust for power" had turned Anakin "bad" - are these just relative opinions? Are his judgements of good and evil correct? Absolutely? If not, then Anakin and he are no different - killing younglings and defending the republic as a virtuous Jedi are just two equally valid perspectives. Yet when Anakin speaks in absolutes he is chided as being lost already (I only assume that Obi-wan thinks it is "bad, really bad, absolutely bad" to speak in absolutes). This is just poor thinking and rife with self-contradiction. It is like saying "it is absolutely bad to make absolute moral judgments" - the speaker is shooting himself in the proverbial foot - doing the very thing he claims it is wrong to do. Philosophers refer to this as self-defeating or self-referentially incoherant statements. They should not be believed.

One can perhaps see a shot at President Bush in this line for this president has said "Those who are not with us are against us." Such would not be surprising. However, a really interesting thing is that the words of Anakin Skywalker actually find there origin from another very different tongue than a 21st century American president. These words are from very mouth of Jesus of Narareth:

30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Matthew 12:30

23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Luke 11:23

One must think then that Jesus, who clearly speaks in absolutes, as one with moral authority and clarity, would be on the wrong side of the Star Wars moral universe.

The sad thing is that Star Wars has clearly defined good and evil, the good triumph in the end (see Episode VI Return of the Jedi) and all this moral relativistic goofiness is smuggled in to appear mysterious or profound, to pander to the relativistic spirit of our age. Such confusion is not needed.

A people can never oppose evil, be it Darth Vader or Hitler, by standing in mid air on the moral mushiness of relativism. To fight evil, we must stand upon moral ground. To push back injustice and aggression. In short we must combat evil with what is good, right and true. Such issues are difficult, yes, but we ought not sell away the good for a bowl of relativistic porridge.

So one thing is true - the phrase "He who is not for me is against me" has quite a different meaning in the mouth of different speakers. In the mouth of those who are evil, like Darth Vader - it is an invitation to be on the dark side. Yet in the mouth of the truly good one, yes even God incarnate, it is a wonderful truth to help us discern darkness from light.

The moral vision from Star Wars is no guide, yet thsoe who know good from evil from the law of God in the conscience, know quite readily that Vader is bad and the Jedi are good. Lucas knows this, he wrote the story...he just seems unwilling to face up to this in reality and sows into the relativistic mush to seem enlightened to already mushy minds.

Jesus knew better. So should we...

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Christianity and Nation States...Law and a Just Society

In response to the Kingdom of Heaven Post a friend asked if those in the name of Islam and Christianity were both just power hungry to build states and grab wealth. Probably a little of both…but the question about the two religions and their relationship to state building is an interesting one. Islam is by nature a state building faith – in its inception, Islam establishes the law for the land for the areas which it rules. So religious expansion and geopolitical expansion were one in the same for early Islam. The question is still valid for Islam today as some are attempting democracies Christianity by nature is not a state building religions, but Christians can be involved in the affairs of the state. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Christian (he’s not right on everything, but one of the greatest thinkers in church history. One of our finest minds) talked about the relation between Eternal Law, Natural Law, Divine Law, Human Law, and the Law of Sin. The following would be helpful in thinking about the role of the Christian Faith in relationship to “political states.”

• Eternal law are the principles by which God created and governs the universe. Protestants call this the “decrees of God” – it is the counsel of his own will (Eph 1:11), which we know little of. God makes his own choices freely based upon his own reasons. We know of the Decrees only as he revealed – other parts we know nothing of (Duet 29:29).
• Natural law is the law “written on the heart” (Rom 2:13) – the conscience by which people know Good and Evil – right from wrong. Sin mars this faculty in man, but it remains none the less. These are things that people “Can’t Not Know” – ie that Murder is wrong, it flows from the moral nature of God and presses upon people. People suppress this and hold it down in wickedness, many becoming callous as to be seared against God’s witness in conscience. See Romans 1,2. This is shared by both regenerate and unregenerate – though our Reformed brothers (and I am very reformed) some times do not like saying that non-Christians know right and wrong. Thomists think Natural law is evident to right reason, reformed scholars say that the noetic effects of sin blur, mar, even destroy this capacity in people. Though some make room for “common grace insights” ie that murder is wrong. CS Lewis was big on natural law as well.
• Divine Law – the reflection of God’s Eternal Decrees revealed in God’s Word which directs us towards faith in Christ as the way of forgiveness, reconciliation, with God. \
• Human Law – Law of Nations/Civil Law – the applications of Natural law to specific times, places, and issues a society faces (ie for us – laws on cloning, outlawing slavery, rights to vote, speed limits etc.) Law of Nations would be a derivation from a basic moral principle – “doing no harm to your neighbor” and making a deduction that “you should not shoot him with a gun” and punishing those who do. Civil law would be something for the common good but could have one or more solutions (which side of the road to drive on so people do not crash into each other) Human law is for believers and unbelievers – it should be derived for the common good. God’s word (Divine law) should not be forced upon unbelievers, but Human law should not violate divine law either (hence the dotted line in the diagram). For Aquinas if Human law violates natural law (it is immoral) or Divine law, it is not a valid law but an act of violence against God and man.
• Law of Sin – the consequence of sin and rebellion against God. This affects us and puts us in bondage as we are distorted and corrupt in our very nature (Fallen) – Reformed thinkers and Thomists disagree as to the extent of the affect of sin on the mind – is the mind or the will fallen and to what extent is the issue. Thomists seemed to say that the mind was able to function though at odds with our feelings, affections, desires – hence man is at odds with himself due to his separation from God. Reformed thinkers tend to further stress the noetic affects of sin (the mind fallen as well). The diagram and thought follows very closely a discussion in J. Budzizewski’s Written on the Heart, The Case for Natural Law – 60-63.

Most believers, and certainly those in the American Civil tradition hold that Natural law (ie self-evident truths of moral reason) should provide the basis for Civil law. In the past our laws were written based on Natural law and not contradicting Scripture – though today, that sort of reasoning is not widespread with other ideologies and political philosophies (utilitarianism) hold many thinkers in tow. So Christians should form “just states” and societies for the good of all, so that the Gospel, the Word of God is free to go forth to convert sinners and then those converts should then “Obey Government” (Rom 13) – unless it does violence to conscience commanding us to violate Divine Law…Christians should not seek to conquer their neighbors but do have the right to wage just war in defense.

Now the question arises…Were the “Crusades Just?” – That is a complex question – the initial response of Europe was very well a just defense against an aggressive invader. It seems to me like much of the activity of European knights certainly not, but I am no expert on the precise history…just the major facts. Now, to the Medieval Crusader States. The Kings of that era were interested in the faith but also very much interested in power and wealth. In fact, much that did violence to “law” was done in the name of God by rulers of Christian provinces. When a Christian murders and conquers the innocent in the name of Christ he is clearly in the wrong. There was much excess on both sides during this period of history and the results still carry into our day.

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Center for Naturalism

Yes, they are serious. The scholars at the Center for Naturalism have a vision for all of our lives. We who are simply a connected chain physical causes, bound together by the laws of physics, a big blob of determinate matter, have much hope for the world the Naturalist will create for us! FYI - Definition of Naturalism or popularly put by the late Dr. Carl Sagan - The Cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, all tha ever will be. Straight from this site we find the following vision of the world:

Naturalism as a guiding philosophy can help create a better world by illuminating more precisely the conditions under which individuals and societies flourish, and by providing a tangible, real basis for connection and community. It holds that doctrines and policies which assume the existence of a freely willing agent, and which therefore ignore the actual causes of behavior, are unfounded and counter-productive. To the extent to which we suppose persons act out of their uncaused free will, to that extent will we be blind to those factors which produce criminality and other social pathologies, or, on the positive side, the factors which make for well-adjusted, productive individuals and societies. By holding that human behavior arises entirely within a causal context, naturalism also affects fundamental attitudes about ourselves and others. Naturalism undercuts retributive, punitive, and fawning attitudes based on the belief that human agents are first causes, as well other responses amplified by the supposition of free will, such as excessive pride, shame, and guilt. Since individuals are not, on a naturalistic understanding, the ultimate originators of their faults and virtues, they are not deserving, in the traditional metaphysical sense, of praise and blame. Although we will continue to feel gratitude and regret for the good and bad consequences of actions, understanding the full causal picture behind behavior shifts the focus of our emotional, reactive responses from the individual to the wider context. This change in attitudes lends support for social policies based on a fully causal view of human behavior. Center for Naturalism Internet Site, accessed April 10th 2005. Emphasis Added.

Reminds me of a quote from GK Chesterton:

The determinist does not believe in appealing to the will, but he does believe in changing the environment. He must not say to the sinner, “Go and sin no more,” because the sinner cannot help it. But he can put him in boiling oil; for boiling oil is an environment.

GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: NY, Image books, 1959) 20. Originally published: New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1908. Emphasis Added.

One ought to question the man who says he has the ability to "control environments to control the behavior of others Out...

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