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JOHN W. LOFTUS SAID:
Have you yet reviewed Erik J. Wielenberg's book, Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe? (Cambridge University Press, 2005). I don't think such simplisms, even if coming from my friend Copan, are worthy of what we in the opposition are actually saying.
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Happy to oblige, John.
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How does Wielenberg's godless universe manage to contain genuine intrinsic value?...On the positive side, Wielenberg asserts an extremely strong form of ethical realism. Ethical truths are "part of the furniture of the universe". Moreover, they are not only objectively true, but are necessarily true, constituting the "ethical background of every possible universe." (p. 52). Yet it is not at all clear how most of the forms of naturalism currently on offer could support such universal and necessary ethical truths. Wielenberg announces at the start of the book that he is not the brash materialist kind of naturalist who believes that all facts are scientific facts or reducible to the language of physical science. But he goes on nevertheless to endorse a radically materialistic picture of the cosmos, where everything there is arises "through a combination of necessity and chance" (p. 3) from physical and chemical origins. Could such a picture of the universe allow for irreducible necessary truths of morality?
We are told at one point of ethical truths lying "at the very bedrock of reality, created by no-one, under no-one's control, passing judgement on the actions and character of God and man alike" (p. 67). Leaving aside the talk of "passing judgement" (which Wielenberg acknowledges to be "metaphorical"), what we are offered seems to be something like (as McDowell has termed it) 'rampant Platonism'. Yet if this is what Wielenberg's form of 'naturalism' ends up buying into -- a supposedly wholly material cosmos mysteriously conjoined with necessary values inhabiting a Platonic limbo -- one cannot but wonder why such a picture is supposed to have a decisive edge over the traditional theistic picture of a necessary being who is the eternal source of all meaning and goodness.
http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=3301
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So basically he dodges in and out of his true worldview to desperately fit objective morals in there somewhere?
ReplyDeleteone cannot but wonder why such a picture is supposed to have a decisive edge over the traditional theistic picture of a necessary being who is the eternal source of all meaning and goodness.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter two Wielenburg takes on Bill Craig (and with him Paul Copan) by critiquing the very things you quoted in your earlier Blog entry. I won't type them in here, because you apparently read the book, right? And you're still sure to disagree with any critique of the Euthyprho dilemna.
But I just don't see where a Christian ethics based in a divine commander have any less problems, especially when Christians have understood so many different ways of obeying those commands down through the centuries. It just looks like a human enterprise to me, which has similar serious problems.
What we know is that down through the ages we have all come to better understandings about how to get along in our world. Not that there are still backward people who want to blow up abortion clinics and become suicide bombers, only that civilized, educated people are, on the whole are better people than those of the past. There have been certain ethical improvements over the years which makes Hitler look better when compared to Genghis Khan, and our problems with regard to racism seem "slight" by comparison to the evils of slavery in the South (and sanctioned from the Bible), and the problem of equal pay for equal work for women to be small when compared to the day when women couldn't vote and were regarded as chattel. With each successive improvement Christians began reading the Bible in light of these social developments, but for the most part they were against every one of them. You stand on the shoulders of those Christians who interpreted the Bible is inhumane ways, and yet you claim you wouldn't have done so. That's just not probable.
So where does that leave us? In the same boat. Tyring to get along with one another, to live decent and happy lives with one another the best we can. The problem is that one group of people thinks the way we should do this is commanded and sanctioned in the Bible, that's the only difference. I think such a claim is a farce, given the history of the church. Just because Christian ethics have evolved in the same direction as civilized society has travelled doesn't mean the Christian can claim their ethic is better. I think a strong case can be made that the way society has travelled in turn changed how the church interpreted Biblcal ethics, not vice versa.
For starters, John, as a naturalistic evolutionary atheist (or agnostic), on what basis do you make the ethical and moral judgments you've made? On what basis do you apparently seem to consider Hitler and Genghis Khan in the wrong? Likewise for people blowing up abortion clinics, suicide bombers in the Mideast, race-based slavery, etc.?
ReplyDeleteAlso, how do you know your reason is in fact reasonable -- and reasonable in such a way as to objectively arrive at the ethical and moral judgments you've evidently arrived at above?
And even if we assume naturalistic evolutionary atheism is true, why is the Biblical worldview "worse"?
"I just don't see where a Christian ethics based in a divine commander have any less problems..."
ReplyDeleteWell, for one thing moral imperatives are immaterial. That's a problem for materialists.
We are able to make valid distinctions between one group of atoms (person A) and another group of atoms (person B). I'm not sure how a materialist can do that. Pretty much every major problem I studied as a philosophy student (universals, identity of self, induction, etc.) was a problem because atheism was assumed.
So with God, moral laws flow out of His Nature, the ground of all being.
So trouble figuring out particular divine commands is a radically different question than whether we can have an objective morality at all.
In addition to noting the many unproven assertions and self-contradictions in John Loftus' response, we should keep in mind that even if most professing Christians were wrong on a given issue historically, it doesn't therefore follow that all were wrong or that the majority were wrong as a result of being Christian. As with atheism, Buddhism, Islam, and other belief systems, most people who associate themselves with Christianity don't think in much depth about the worldview they're associating with. And there are other influences in their lives.
ReplyDeleteBut Christians who were significantly knowledgeable of their religion often did take what we would commonly consider the right position on issues, and sometimes the Christian world in general took the right position when the non-Christian world around them didn't. For example:
http://www.christiancadre.org/member_contrib/cp_charity.php
http://www.christiancadre.org/member_contrib/cp_infanticide.php
John Loftus writes:
ReplyDelete"Not that there are still backward people who want to blow up abortion clinics"
And backward people who think that abortion should be legal in cases in which the mother's life isn't in danger. But you and your fellow writers at Debunking Christianity surely aren't backward like that, right?
Earlier I had said, "But I just don't see where a Christian ethics based in a divine commander have any less problems..."
ReplyDeleteLet's take what Patrick Chan said and show you what I mean by inserting some different words....
For starters, Patrick, as a believer in God what basis does your God make the ethical and moral judgments he's made? On what basis does he apparently seem to consider Hitler and Genghis Khan in the wrong?
Also, how do you know your God's reason is in fact reasonable -- and reasonable in such a way as to objectively arrive at the ethical and moral judgments he's evidently arrived at above?
This is the Euthypro dilemna, and it applies wherever the buck stops, with us or with your God. That's why Wielenberg talks about eternal Platonic values. You must assume the same thing if you wish to continue calling God "good." For if the word "good" applied to God means anything at all, it means he's conforming to standards we think are good. If not, then God is, well, God. He can command anything and call it "good" simply because he commands it. What we want to know is the basis for God calling something "good." You cannot even say God is "good," for to do so you need a standard to say so, which applies to God.
So, we're in the same boat, you just fail to see it. It's ignorance on your part to say otherwise. Some things are just obvious, and that's all one can say about them.
JOHN W. LOFTUS SAID:
ReplyDelete“I won't type them in here, because you apparently read the book, right?”
You asked us if we had reviewed the book, so I posted part of a review.
“Civilized, educated people are, on the whole are better people than those of the past. There have been certain ethical improvements over the years.”
His appeal to moral progress assumes what he needs to prove.
“This is the Euthypro dilemna, and it applies wherever the buck stops, with us or with your God.”
This is what Loftus always does, which is to repeat an objection ad nauseum which we’ve repeatedly answered.
We’ve been over this ground with you many times before, John. As usual, you’re unable to address the counterargument.
“That's why Wielenberg talks about eternal Platonic values.”
Two problems:
i) Platonism is dualistic whereas Wielenberg’s outlook is monistic (as a card-carrying materialist). So he wants the cash-value of Platonism without the ontological price-tag.
ii) Even if Platonism were true, obligation is interpersonal, whereas the Platonic archetypes are impersonal. So it would fail to ground morality.
That’s quite different from Christian personalism, where we are duty-bound to a person who created us and endowed us with a specific nature, from which, in turn, flow our other social obligations.
“For if the word ‘good’ applied to God means anything at all, it means he's conforming to standards we think are good.”
An obvious non-sequitur. And, no, divine goodness is not defined by what an Aztec thinks is good.
“He can command anything and call it ‘good’ simply because he commands it.”
A straw man argument, John. You’ve been corrected on this mischaracterization many times before.
There’s a relationship between creation and command, between the kind of creatures that God has made us, and our social obligations.
Steve, the only reason you think your God is "good" if you do, is because that's how you interpret the Bible, and you think the Bible says it, and describes what it means for God to be good.
ReplyDeleteBut the bottom line is that you cannot say God is "good" without comparing him to a standard that is outside of himself, otherwise all you can say is that God is, well, God, and that's it. The characteristic of goodness is meaningless to God. God does what he does and calls it "good." A person can calling anything by a word if one defines the word. For all you know God has done evil in the past, or presently does evil, or will do evil in the future and simply call what he does "good." At that point we have no clue as the precise definition of the term as ascribed to God except to see how he in fact behaves. So, the fact that you believe God doesn't lie because he says so, doesn't mean he cannot lie, since whatever he does is by definition "good." You have no basis for believing what he says...none. God is, well, God, and that's it.
And to think you complain because I don't have an ultimate standard for morality. No one does, not even your God.
But you've gone over this before, right? Then I presume you've answered it. But how? Where?
John W. Loftus said:
ReplyDelete"But the bottom line is that you cannot say God is 'good' without comparing him to a standard that is outside of himself, otherwise all you can say is that God is, well, God, and that's it."
1. Even if that were true, you're confusing ontology with epistemology. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that my "knowledge" of the good is independent of God. That doesn't mean that goodness is metaphysically independent of God.
2. Notice that Loftus is trying to change the subject instead of interacting with what I actually said.
3.He also punts to the Christian. But remember that I was answering him on his own grounds. He has posted an overheated diatribe on how the evils of slavery disprove the existence of God.
So, yes, John, for your argument to have any traction, you need an ultimate standard of morality.
To say we're both in the same boat, even if true, does nothing to prevent your boat from taking on water.
Even if that were true, you're confusing ontology with epistemology.
ReplyDeleteNope. God is supposedly ontologically "good," and if that's the case it doesn't matter how I might come to know this. By ontological definition, God is "good." But that tells us nothing about how he acts. By definition anything your God does is "good" by definition, since difines the word, and so that word means nothing at all unless there is an ontological source of goodness outside of God, regardless of whether we know it or not.
To say we're both in the same boat, even if true, does nothing to prevent your boat from taking on water.
No. If we're in the same boat, when it sinks, we both have to tread water or sink with it, silly. And it is true.
So don't go pontificating to me anymore about how atheists have no reason to commit murder and mayhem if you cannot exonorate your God from doing likewise. What reason, for instance, does your God have for being good? That's my point. There is no ultimate anything, for anyone. You only claim the high ground because you haven't been fully consistent or forthright about what it means to say a person (whether God or us) has an ultimate moral foundation for being good.
None of us do, or all of us do (located in eternal metaphysical moral truths). It's that simple.
John, here is one place where Steve and Peter (CalvinDude), among others, have responded to you.
ReplyDeleteJohn said: So don't go pontificating to me anymore about how atheists have no reason to commit murder and mayhem if you cannot exonorate your God from doing likewise.
ReplyDeleteActually, even if we "cannot exonorate [sic] [our] God from doing likewise," it does not then mean that "atheists have no reason to commit murder and mayhem." It could be that atheistic arguments for ethical behavior are lacking in reason in and of themselves -- irrespective of other worldviews or philosophies.
John W. Loftus said:
ReplyDelete"So don't go pontificating to me anymore about how atheists have no reason to commit murder and mayhem if you cannot exonorate your God from doing likewise."
"Pontificating"? Benedict XVI and about a billion Catholics would deeply resent your imputation. Are you insinuating that I'm the true successor to Peter, and Benedict XVI is an anti-Pope? If so, then I need to evict that Bavarian squatter from the papal apartments to that I can move in and begin to enjoy all the Renaissance art and Italian cuisine.
I'm still wondering how materialists believe in immaterial moral imperatives. Materialists need to figure out whether they can consistently use abstractions and concepts in general. Let alone morality.
ReplyDeleteJOHN W. LOFTUS SAID:
ReplyDelete“Nope. God is supposedly ontologically "good," and if that's the case it doesn't matter how I might come to know this.”
Loftus continues to confound the order of knowing with the order of being. He originally said, “But the bottom line is that you cannot say God is ‘good’ without comparing him to a standard that is outside of himself [epistemology]…God does what he does and calls it ‘good’ [ontology]… For all you know God has done evil in the past, or presently does evil, or will do evil in the future and simply call what he does ‘good’ [ontology].
So, once again, even if our *knowledge* of God’s goodness were independent of God, it doesn’t follow that God’s goodness is independent of God. He continues to confuse the source of knowledge (epistemology) with the object of knowledge (metaphysics).
BTW, I’m not the one who’s claiming that our knowledge of God’s goodness must be independent of God. I’m simply commenting on Loftus’ illogical argument.
“By definition anything your God does is ‘good’ by definition.”
A deceptive formulation. Although God is good by definition, this doesn’t mean, according to Scripture, that God could or would do anything.
“So that word means nothing at all unless there is an ontological source of goodness outside of God, regardless of whether we know it or not.”
What sort of argument is that? Should we also say the word “silver” means nothing at all unless there’s an ontological source of silver outside of silver?
“No. If we're in the same boat, when it sinks, we both have to tread water or sink with it, silly. And it is true.”
I realize that Loftus isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he should be able to follow his own argument. He recently posted two things on how the evil of slavery disproves the existence of God.
This assumes that slavery is evil. If, however, his secular outlook cannot underwrite moral valuations, then even if we’re both in the same sinking boat, his argument from evil will sink to the bottom of the sea.
Once again, I was answering him on his own terms. His attempt to perform a tu quoque, even if successful, would do nothing to salvage his original argument.
“So don't go pontificating to me anymore about how atheists have no reason to commit murder and mayhem if you cannot exonorate your God from doing likewise.”
Once again, notice how emotional and irrational he becomes. Even if Christian ethics were a failure, that doesn’t make secular ethics a success.
“What reason, for instance, does your God have for being good? That's my point. There is no ultimate anything, for anyone. You only claim the high ground because you haven't been fully consistent or forthright about what it means to say a person (whether God or us) has an ultimate moral foundation for being good.”
What an ultimate explanation means is to explain something contingent on the basis of something necessary.
Don't many metaphysicists, be they theists or not, use properties and relations as the "rock-bottom" of metaphysics? One subset of properties are moral properties, which are those which pertain to "ought" actions and behaviors. This is the order of being.
ReplyDeleteThe order of knowing is our perception of these properties, defining them and developing a moral theory concerning them. Let's say we fail in this latter pursuit. It doesn't render the existence of these moral facts false.
That's not inconsistent with anything, atheism or theism.
Materialists may talk about properties and relations, but they are still immaterial conceptions. Materialists are just being inconsistent with their materialism.
ReplyDeleteGeoff,
ReplyDeleteI agree that those things are immaterial. Indeed, matter and energy are not, themselves, properties of properties...now are they?
So, does this matter? An atheist (like me) can simply avoid such strict materialism and still be rational and consistent. Necessary metaphysical entities and substances are not themselves physical, but all contingent entities and substances are. It's pretty simple.
To start to talk about ethical issues, it is often helpful to begin by sorting out the following questions:
ReplyDelete1) What is good? or, What ought we in fact do?
2) How do I know what is good? or, What do you/I believe we ought to do?
3) Why should I do what is good? or, What motivates us to act morally?
What I find, in my own young and admittedly imperfect mind, is that these questions have proposed answers that divide theists from atheists in accepting them. However, there are answers to these questions which are completely independent of god(s)' existence. Maybe it would be better to hone in on the Christian response to 1-3, since they claim things like:
Pretty much every major problem I studied as a philosophy student (universals, identity of self, induction, etc.) was a problem because atheism was assumed.
If you want to argue this, you've place a rather large burden on yourself to support it, but let's just hone in on the ethics part -- if one cannot "account for" (as they love to say in presuppositionalist circles) ethics as an atheist, how do you answer questions 1-3 above?
What I find is that it is always easy for Christians to give stock objections and answers like, "God is good" -- but when we start to pin down what this means, then some of what John said actually makes a great deal of sense.
Steve said:
What an ultimate explanation means is to explain something contingent on the basis of something necessary.
If goodness is metaphysically contingent upon God, then it isn't a "rock-bottom" property, and John is right, in a qualified, serious way. Goodness is just a higher-order function or property of God, and so it is really no more special than God's (supposed) power or knowledge or size or color...
If goodness is contingent upon God in that sense, then applying it in a meaningful way towards God is somewhat trivial, circular and silly.
flow said:
ReplyDelete"An atheist (like me) can simply avoid such strict materialism and still be rational and consistent."
i)You can try to make that move if you sincerely believe it, and are not simply floating this as a hypothetical blocking maneuver.
ii)But you would then need to defend something like Platonic realism/dualism.
iii)And this gets you uncomfortably close to theism.
iv)Finally, even if you could successfully pull off (ii), there is more at issue than abstract objects.
In what sense are human beings duty-bound to abstract objects?
There's an obvious sense in which human beings would be duty-bound to their Creator and to one another according to the way in which they were designed by their Creator. Social morality is interpersonal. Obligations between peers, superiors, and/or subordinates.
But in what sense would we be duty-bound to an impersonal archetype?
flow said...
ReplyDelete"Goodness is just a higher-order function or property of God, and so it is really no more special than God's (supposed) power or knowledge or size or color..."
God has no size or color. And why do you think it's a problem to say that God's goodness is "no more special" than his other attributes?
"If goodness is contingent upon God in that sense, then applying it in a meaningful way towards God is somewhat trivial, circular and silly."
Loftus is attempting to deflect the original question because he can't answer it. So he's trying to shift the discussion from how human beings should behave in a certain way to why God should behave is a certain way, as if we can't answer one question unless we can answer the other, and as if both questions demand the same answer.
But there are asymmetries between God and man. God doesn't have to do anything he doesn't promise to do, and he doesn't have to promise anything. There are, however, certain things that God is *not* at liberty to do, given his wisdom.
By contrast, human beings have things they are both obligated to do and refrain from doing. And some of the things they're obligated to do are not self-imposed. So that's one difference.
And as I also pointed out, human morality, in Scripture, is preadapted the way that God has constituted our contingent nature. So that's another difference (between the creature as God, as a necessary being).
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou ask good questions and raise valid points, deserving of a serious exchange of ideas. I'm not sure I can commit the time and effort such an exchange would require.
I would say, though, that I am indeed honest about my philosophical inquiries. Self-deception is not one of my interests.
Perhaps John will tell us why he does not apply the outsider test to belief in the existence of moral obligations and particularly to the platonic values Welenberg refers to. John should be adopting as default the position of the moral skeptic and demanding Welenberg offer some kind of scientific proof that moral values exist.
ReplyDeleteOh thats write Eric is an athiest so the test suddenly doesn't count.