Saturday, May 12, 2018

"Why you can't use logic to prove God"

I'm going to comment on this post:


There is much talk about logic today. It is obviously used significantly in discussions with philosophers and mathematicians. It has also been a tool of some (particularly presuppositional) apologists to argue for God. They insist that atheists cannot account for logic since it is immaterial and universal. Since logic undeniably exists, then something else immaterial and “universal” must also exist to account for it, namely God. 

There's a lot more to the argument than: since universal, immaterial logic undeniably exists, then something else immaterial and “universal” must also exist to account for it, namely God. 

This understanding of logic is taught as if it is some ephemeral abstract notion or set of principles of reason that “exists” only in the mind with no basis in physical reality. 

The position is that logic primarily or fundamentally subsists in the infinite and timeless mind of God. God's mind is the exemplar. Logic has its "basis" in God's mind. However, math and logic are exemplified in time and space. 

That is, according to this argumentation physical reality cannot account for the principles of logic. Nothing could be further from the truth. The principles of logic, such as the principles of identity, excluded middle, and non-contradiction are not just principles of rationality. They are principles of being. Let’s look to see what they are and why they must be grounded in reality and not thought.

It's important to distinguish between divine and human thought. The position is not that logic is reducible to human psychology. It's not intuitionism (e.g. Brouwer). God's thought and God's being are conterminous. 

Yes, you could say logic is grounded in "being", but not just any kind of being will do. Physical existence won't suffice. 

The law of identity states that something is identical with itself. If a thing is “A” then it is “A”. If something is a tree, then it is a tree. This seems rather mundane and uninformative; however, try imagining reality if this were not the case. The principle of excluded middle says that something is either “A” or “non-A”. It is either a tree or a non-tree. There is no middle ground (the middle ground is excluded). The law of non-contradiction says something can’t both be “A” and “not-A” at the same time in the same sense. That is, it can’t be a tree and a non-tree simultaneously.

That confuses logic with concrete exemplifications (or property instances) of abstract objects. A tree approximates the law of identity. Ideally, logical and mathematical truths map onto static, timeless relations or objects with discrete boundaries. 

But physical objects undergo continuous incremental change. Physical objects have fuzzy boundaries in space and time. They have degrees of solidity. They exchange atoms with the surrounding environment. They blend into each other. So that comparison is counterproductive. There's never an exact match between a tree and the law of identity. 

We get our understanding of these principles from the world around us. They are not just principles of thought, but of being. The law of non-contradiction is not just that a statement can’t be both true and false. The law of non-contradiction is that something in existence can’t be and not be simultaneously in the same way. In other words, a tree can’t be a tree and not a tree at the same time in the same sense. These laws are thus grounded in being and abstracted via our knowing process. We have experience of reality and then induce said principles of being and know that they apply to all thought and experience…While these laws are undeniable and are self-evident, the source of our knowledge of them is still physical reality. 

He operates with an epistemology according to which all knowledge of universals is based on a psychological process of abstraction from particulars. 

Now, I have no problem with sense knowledge or induction. Yes, we often generalize on the basis of samples. Fine. 

But that can't be the basis of knowledge all the way down. You can't derive a concept of numbers from observing physical objects, for unless you already have numerical concepts to work with, you can't group physical objects numerically. Numbering objects requires a numerical preconception. 

You can't bootstrap logical or mathematical knowledge from sensory perception. You can't group five apples by number unless you recognize that they comprise five apples, and you're not going to arrive at that classification by staring at some apples with a blank slate mind. 

It takes knowledge to learn. It takes some prior knowledge to acquire additional knowledge. An initially empty mind has no frame of reference to evaluate sensory input. The mind of the percipient must have a logical structure which enables it to organize or reorganize sensory input. An inbuilt classification-system. 

Another way we know the laws of logic is that they are undeniable. One cannot deny something like the law of non-contradiction without using it. If one attempted to do this, he would be forced into saying that his position is true and not false, and that the opposite opinion would be false and not true. We don’t argue from more foundational principles to arrive at these principles of logic. They are first principles of thought and being. The are first because they are foundational and self-evident. They can’t be denied. Further, they don’t require, nor could they require, antecedent proof. Such proof would have to use the laws of logic.

But necessary truths of logic can't derive from contingent truths of the physical world. In many respects, the physical world might have been different. Causation is a weaker principle than logical entailment.  

Physical reality is known directly and is evident to our senses. 

Actually, physical reality is known indirectly. Physical reality is mediated to the mind via sensory perception. A process of encoded and decoded information. 

Note I said “evident” not “self-evident.” Propositions are self-evident when we know their meaning. “Bachelors are unmarried men” is a self-evident proposition because as soon as we know the meaning of the terms and the proposition as a whole, we know it is true. 

But that's different from logic. That's stipulative. True by definition. 

However, things are evident to our senses. I do not need an argument that there is a tree outside of my window. I simply see it. Thus, things are evident and the laws of logic are self-evident and undeniable. (I realize I am skipping over a veritable wonderland of skepticism and rationalism which I have no desire to deal with here. I simply don’t think I need to “justify” the existence of something I just ran my car into. If someone honestly doubts the existence of external reality, I would submit that his problem is not philosophical but psychological and he needs to seek medical treatment immediately.)

That confounds the metaphysics of math and logic with the psychology of sensory perception. 

Of course, such principles can be applied to thoughts and propositions that don’t say things about reality. Logic can be applied to fictitious beings and propositions that say something like, “All monsters live in London.” However, such fictitious beings and propositions are still based in being—that is, things that exist extra-mentally. While a fictitious being doesn’t exist in reality (by definition), we get the concepts of things like monsters from reality. In other words, following the great empirical maxim, “All knowledge is grounded in reality,” we don’t have any new ideas, even of fictitious monsters, that are not tethered to or grounded in reality.

i) Fictions, hypotheticals, and counterfactuals have their source in God's power and imagination. Something is ultimately possible because God can enact that scenario. And God's infinite imagination is the repository of all concepts. God has created rational agents with some knowledge and power. 

ii) I'd add that fictions are ideas, and therefore have a discrete identity lacking in physical objections. 

This is why the presuppositional argument for the existence of God from logic fails. A common argument from them is that atheists cannot account for logic. Logic is immaterial and universal, they say, and as such, atheists can’t account for anything that is immaterial and universal. But if what I am arguing for is true, the presuppositionalist’s argument is not successful. This is because atheists can account for logic, because logic is grounded in reality and being. Yes, God is being as such, and as “being” the laws of logic are tethered to God. (God is God, God cannot be non-God, etc.) That is, in a sense they are antecedently grounded in God because they would be the case even if the physical realm did not exist.

But that means an atheist can't account for the laws of logic inasmuch as these are essentially independent of the physical world. To be sure, some atheists are Platonic realists, but that's different from Brian's paradigm. Moreover, Platonic realism is arguably ad hoc. 

Another important note is that the laws of logic are not really immaterial. Sure the abstracted propositional form of being such as “A tree can’t be a tree and not a tree simultaneously” can be immaterial. But if logic is not merely a rational enterprise and is a second order based on the first order of physical reality, then the basis for logic is not immaterial. 

God's rationality is not a second-order exercise based on God's first-order being. That's a false dichotomy. God's mind and God's being are both first-order realities, which underlie physical reality. 

Our abstractions of the principles are mental, such as numbers, but many, if not most, philosophers do not think that numbers are real. 

That's an illicit argument from authority. Moreover, it's not coincidental that mathematicians like Quine, Gödel, and Penrose subscribe to mathematical realism. 

They like logical principles are abstracted from the real world. The number 2 does not exist. But I can say there are two trees. The two-ness is simply the addition of one more tree than the first. Math then is like logic in that the numbers are abstracted from the material world and then one can perform mental operations. But these numbers do not exist (unless one holds an extreme Platonic view). And as such, the atheist can account for logic by its foundation in sensible objects—just like he can account for numbers. Thus, the presuppositional argument for logic is going to reduce to some cosmological argument that says the universe needs a grounding in something other than itself.

If Big Ben strikes three o'clock, what do I actually hear? Do I hear three tones? No. I only hear a succession of discrete tones. I hear one tone, followed by another tone, followed by another tone. My mind apprehends three tones. That's not given in the raw stimulus, but requires an act of intellectual recognition. The mind isn't just a passive recipient of auditory input, but makes a contribution by its ability to classify the auditory input using innate mathematical categories. 

Compare a human percipient to a canine percipient. Both hear the same sounds, but only the human has the additional understanding to discern the numerical significance of the tonal sequence. A dog doesn't register "three o'clock". It lacks the intelligence to group particulars. There must be something prior in the mind to interpret what was heard as three of something.   

33 comments:

  1. If I understand correctly, the author is a Christian who plays the atheist to show why we can't use the laws of logic to argue for God.

    His abstractions to the laws of logic and numbers come close to reifying them. Something which presuppositionalists shouldn't cede to atheists.

    They are principles of being. Let’s look to see what they are and why they must be grounded in reality and not thought.

    To make that claim he [the hypothetical atheist] must assumes the uniformity of physical nature. But he cannot induce that from particular experiences. He doesn't have universal inductive experience. Even if he did, that doesn't tell us what nature *must* be like. At most, the laws of nature to an atheist are not prescriptive or necessary, but merely descriptive. For all the atheist knows, the laws and properties of nature (the fabric of his reality) may change [or are constantly changing] from "gold" to "wood". In fact, the most persistent empirical experience is that the world is contingent and changing.

    Steve wrote: "Yes, you could say logic is grounded in "being", but not just any kind of being will do. Physical existence won't suffice." Exactly. Given induction, the atheist can only really conclude that the world is contingent. In which case, he has no reason to disallow the possibility that uncaused events might take place which violate what he considers the "laws of nature". For example, a gorilla the size of the moon popping into existence (uncaused) and swallowing the larger sun and planets. Atheism cannot consistently say that freak and strange things don't happen in the world since atheism ontologically allows for contingent chance to swallow up and afffect all of reality. There is no providential God to control the physical world. ABSOLUTELY anything can spring from the womb of Chance.

    Whirl/Vortex is King, having driven out Zeus- Aristophanes

    Once your worldview allows for, or doesn't rule out ontological contingency, all facts can be tossed in to the bottomless pit of Chance, and so cease to be facts from which one can argue (cf. Van Til's classic dialogue between Mr. Black, Mr. White, Mr. Grey).

    Atheism has no right to presuppose naturalism and the uniformity of nature (and therefore predictability), since atheism is consistent with radical ontological contingency. The atheist only wishes that the world is law-like and predictable. He doesn't, [IN FACT cannot] know it to be the case (either via induction, deduction, reduction, abduction etc.). If an atheist is going to be a naturalist and/or materialist, he's got to argue for that.

    CONT.

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    1. Steve wrote: "But physical objects undergo continuous incremental change. Physical objects have fuzzy boundaries in space and time. They have degrees of solidity. They exchange atoms with the surrounding environment."

      Exactly! When an atheist holds and apple, where does the apple end and the atheist begin? Especially if the atheist eats the apple and its molecules are absorbed into him. It's all just atoms in motion. So much for his use of the Law of Identity since an apple *can* "become" a non-apple. OR, if the atheist has a monistic predilection, then (like Parmenides and Zeno) there are no distinctions, no change nor time because reality is one unchanging static frozen undifferentiated block. Or if he wants to go back to a Heraclitean view of pluralism, particulars and change, then the atheist has to overcome mereological nihilism. In which case, there are not parts to a whole, and he's back to molecules (or subatomic particles) in motion. [BTW, Huffling states he's been influenced by Geisler. Geisler noted that even Heraclitus, with his famous philosophy of flux believed in an unchanging logos. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to tell/discern that the world was in fact constantly changing, since there'd be no background in which to contrast it with.]

      Besides that, the categories of "apple" and "human" and "atheist" are immaterial. In which case, the atheist cannot even predicate about himself holding an apple. There is no "I" for the atheist if he cannot make sense of personal identity through time. Consciousness is merely bundle of sensations. In fact, given eliminative materialism (which is atheistic), there may no such thing as human consciousness, thoughts, desires, beliefs, feelings, deliberations, decisions, intentionality, ratiocinations and acts of will. They may all be illusions.

      In other words, a tree can’t be a tree and not a tree at the same time in the same sense.

      The atheist cannot explain how a tree can become a chair. Both in terms of the law of Identity, or the immaterial universals of "tree-ness" and "chair-ness".

      We have experience of reality and then induce said principles of being and know that they apply to all thought and experience...

      No. Actually, the atheist only has *his* limited inductive experience. Until he can account for his belief in other external minds, he's stuck with solipsism. Even if he were granted the experience of other humans, Vulcans, Klingons (etc.), that doesn't amount to universal inductive experience. And as noted above, the laws of nature might be changing in unnoticeable ways just as the people within time travel movies don't realise the timeline has changed (cf. Timecop).

      However, things are evident to our senses. I do not need an argument that there is a tree outside of my window. I simply see it.

      Here the atheist must begs the question on the general reliability of sense perception and our cognitive faculties. But evolutionary reliabilism has major problems.
      The Circularity of Evolutionary Reliabilism by James Sage
      The Evolutionary Basis of Self-Deception by James Sage
      CONT.

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    2. This is because atheists can account for logic, because logic is grounded in reality and being.

      Again, the atheist has epistemological problems which cannot get him to reality and being (i.e. metaphysics). So, he can't base his views of logic on metaphysics via epistemology. He cannot consistently make use of either the laws of logic or of nature. Or come to know about one through the other.

      And as such, the atheist can account for logic by its foundation in sensible objects—just like he can account for numbers.
      Thus, the presuppositional argument for logic is going to reduce to some cosmological argument that says the universe needs a grounding in something other than itself.


      The presuppositional argument for/from logic shouldn't be separated from other presuppositional arguments which are parts of a more comprehensive overarching presuppositional approach. They are like spokes in a wheel which support and strengthen one another.

      I simply don’t think I need to “justify” the existence of something I just ran my car into. If someone honestly doubts the existence of external reality, I would submit that his problem is not philosophical but psychological and he needs to seek medical treatment immediately.

      Fair enough. Since atheists [hypothetical or real] shouldn't have argue for everything they believe in each and every dialogue with a theist. However, eventually the atheist has to address the epistemological issues a presuppositionalist will bring up about sensible objections. It doesn't necessarily follow from "I see a red car in the parking lot" to there actually being a red car in the parking lot. I'm a Van Tillian not a Clarkian or Cheungian Presuppositionalist. Nevertheless some of the arguments Clarkians/Cheungians use against atheistic empiricism are devastating. I'm reminded of the opening pages of Cheung's Presuppositional Confrontations.

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  2. Also, in the past Steve has posted the link to The Lord of Non-Contradiction: An Argument for God from Logic by James N. Anderson and Greg Welty

    People have interacted with the argument HERE. Maybe Huffling might want to contribute.

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  3. Impersonal facts and laws cannot be ultimate, precisely because they are not personal. They cannot account for rationality, for moral value, the causal order of the universe, or for the universal applicability of logic. (Frame)

    About the idea of freedom or contingency pure and simple, nothing can be said. It is the idea of pure, bare, Brute, or mute factuality.
    It is the idea of existence without Essence, the idea of being without meaning. (Van Til)

    He wants ultimate irrational chance to be the foundation for rationality. But there is no rationality in it. Only a created and controlled universe back of it will give a foundation for it. Only the Reformed God will do.

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  4. Hi Steve! Excellent post!

    It's obvious that you subscribe to a Divine Conceptualist view. I wonder of you're aware of critiques of that view from Alex Malpass here(https://useofreason.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/a-new-problem-for-divine-conceptualism/)?

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    1. "Thus, when considering apprehensions, although non-divine conceptualism is not suited to play the job, neither is divine conceptualism. The problem is just that apprehensions are private"

      Biblical revelation is God's 'thoughts' for us. So it is not private, not all of it.

      "It seems like the only reason God’s apprehension is linked in any way to the Pythagorean theorem is that it has the theorem as its content. If that is right, then we need to have the proposition itself in the picture for God’s apprehension to be in any way relevant."

      The point is more foundational. The question is not whether we need to have the proposition or whether it is chronologically before God being brought in. He is the basis for it, without him there we be no rationality, it would have no rational mind underwriting it, we would be the first ones on the scene rationalizing the irrational.

      "And if we ask what role God’s apprehension plays here it seems that the answer is that it is just a middle man in between my apprehension and the theorem. It seems to be doing nothing."

      This assumes the object of knowledge is already rational and has order in it. As though a creator with a plan back of it all was nothing. Rather, his thought is the foundation for our thoughts, so that it is not being from irrational chance facts about the irrational unstructured chaos.





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    2. I believe Welty and Anderson intend to respond to all their major critics.

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    3. Hays is correct. Anderson did say he will speak to Welty about setting time aside this year to respond to critics.

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  5. It's strange Huffling attempts to ground logic and math in "being" and "reality" while at the same time say "atheists can account for logic, because logic is grounded in reality and being". After all, Christians and atheists differ significantly about what constitutes fundamental reality and being.

    Actually, we don't even have to go that far. Many atheists themselves differ significantly about what constitutes fundamental reality and being!

    I guess at best Huffling could say some atheists believe we live in a virtual reality or simulation, for then it'd be all 0s and 1s at bottom. Or take Max Tegmark's position about the mathematical universe hypothesis. However, this only pushes the question back a step: Who or what designed the virtual simulation in which we live? How do logic and math have creative capabilities?

    In short, it seems to me saying logic and math are grounded in "being" and "reality" only invites more questions, not less. It's hardly a sufficient answer to the question "Why you can't use logic to prove God".

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  6. I thankfully ditched presuppositionalism (15 years of it!) for the baptized Kantianism that it is. Dr. Huffling is correct: you can't use the laws of logic as "immaterial abstract entities" to prove God exists. You can use knowledge of sensible being, however. Thomas was right all along.

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    1. chris van allsburg

      "I thankfully ditched presuppositionalism (15 years of it!) for the baptized Kantianism that it is. Dr. Huffling is correct: you can't use the laws of logic as "immaterial abstract entities" to prove God exists. You can use knowledge of sensible being, however. Thomas was right all along."

      Quite apart from the correctness or incorrectness of your statements, what's interesting is what you've said in a handful of words already reflects more apparent philosophical astuteness than what Huffling has said in his entire post.

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    2. "you can't use the laws of logic as "immaterial abstract entities" to prove God exists."

      Did you read the article that Steve Hays wrote? What is your counterargument to the article? Steve argued the case by Dr. James Anderson and Dr. Greg Welty for Divine Conceptualism. That would mean if Divine thoughts are abstract objects and logic must exist(necessarily I might add) then a necessary Divine mind must exists. The article is scatter shot. Is he saying logic doesn't need a justification because they are foundational beliefs or are they justified empirically by abstraction? If someone takes laws of logic without a justification, then the Christian worldview is superior to that of the alternative because it can ground it's claims in a metaphysic. If you say the latter, then you are back to Dr. Bahnsen's question arises. Why suppose you can get a universal from particular experiences? Aren't you just seeing particular instances of things? We aren't all in the Aristotelian camp. I think the obvious issue is that we presuppose laws of logic before we experience things. I am not sure it means anything to experience an actual contradiction. Dr. Bahnsen would point out the laws lose their universality and necessity on an empiricist view. You could only say the laws apply in the limited experiences you've had, but on what basis do you infer that they would apply in future experiences? Third, the article ambiguously states that laws of logic are grounded in "being". That is interesting thesis but doesn't grasp the issue that nobody in history agrees about what constitutes 'being'.

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    3. Many good questions here, of course. (Like I said - I'm aware of the presuppositionalist literature. I'm best friends with a man who used to teach alongside of Van Til himself, and who taught Bahnsen and Frame. I'm friends with John Frame, too (in an email kind of way). Be that as it may....

      If we presuppose the laws of logic prior to experience as you say, then what about children? Think epistemic verities in the child: does the child presuppose in a conscious way, the principle of causality etc? Now, when we become adults and contemplate metaphysical and epistemological questions, we discover *first principles* - and the laws of logic would be some of those. If the laws of logic are abstract immaterial entities as Bahnsen was so fond of saying, then that's Platonism, Patrick (don't go stabbing anybody in the face).
      Whether the laws of logic are necessary or contingent is moot if they are not understood as principles of being. We must rid ourselves of the idea that they are entities. They are not. And neither are they woven in to the fabric of the universe, as it were (which would be a strange sort of pantheism). As principles of being, they are cognitively apprehended.

      Concerning the divine exemplars, it is an intriguing question (per my comment given at 9:13am): my own view is that of moderate realism, whereby universals do not "exist" as immaterial abstract entities, but are abstracted by the intellect from the form of the thing considered (see the Philosophia Christi volume on God and Abstract Objects with Craig, van Inwagen, and J.T. Bridges. There's also a video of the debate on the website of Southern Evangelical Seminary where Dr. Huffling teaches. Totes worth two hours - pack a pipe and some IPA).

      The question about the exemplars becomes, How is God a simple being while having abstract entities categorized in his mind? My own view is that if God had not created, there would be no laws of logic. God does not have to "obey" anything inside of himself (thus the Euthyphro dilemma escapes us). If God is simple, this follows necessarily.

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    4. As I alluded to earlier (above), it sounds like either you're attempting to shore up Huffling's weaker case with your own case or you're offering your own case which is distinct from Huffling's case. Of course, nothing wrong with doing that. But I think it's necessary to point this out in part because it arguably reflects the weakness of Huffling's own case in his original post.

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    5. chris van allsburg

      "Many good questions here, of course. (Like I said - I'm aware of the presuppositionalist literature. I'm best friends with a man who used to teach alongside of Van Til himself, and who taught Bahnsen and Frame. I'm friends with John Frame, too (in an email kind of way). Be that as it may...."

      I guess if we're name-dropping: Steve Hays was John Frame's former teaching assistant. Likewise Greg Welty. And James Anderson teaches at the same seminary (RTS) as John Frame, though a different branch (Charlotte vs. Orlando).

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    6. 1. I don't know who Brian shadowboxing with. Is it Welty/Anderson, SyeTenB, or the Stein/Bahnsen debate?.

      Bahnsen is passe. The relevant formulations and supporting arguments are provided by Welty and Anderson, subject to further revision. That's more detailed and state-of-the-art.

      2. Cognitive development in children depends on your anthropology. If you're a Cartesian dualist, you might say the soul has innate or instinctual tacit knowledge, but it requires brain development as well as empirical knowledge of the sensible world for that to kick in. The brain mediates the mind. Likewise, we have a lot to learn.

      3. There are three several distinct issues that Brian conflates:

      i) Metaphysics of logic

      ii) Psychology of logic

      iii) Justification of logic

      4. It's a useful convention to say laws of logic are abstract objects. Timeless and multiple-instantiable.

      But the position of Welty/Anderson is more specific and Augustinian: laws of logic are constituted by God's mind. That's different from Platonism.

      5. Human rationality is a property-instance of logical laws.

      6. I don't subscribe to Thomistic simplicity.

      7. If logic is created, then "God" is consistent with anything and its contrary or contradictory.

      8. There are better ways to finesse the Euthyphro dilemma. Take a natural law approach rather than divine command theory.

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    7. No one should be a Cartesian dualist. He believed the pineal gland connected the mind and the body, for crying out loud. Brian hardly conflates these subjects you mention (3: I, ii, iii).
      How is human rationality a property-instance of logical laws? Are you saying that human rationality i.e. the human ability to reason as a function is instantiated by means of these laws working through it, so that the laws serve as a generator and human rationality is a medium? I hate my profile pic.

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    8. Cartesian dualism isn't based on incidental features of Descartes's formulation. Rather, it's the view that mind and body are different kinds of substances that influence each other. The body has physical properties while the mind has mental properties.

      When humans think rationally, they exemplify logical principles of inference.

      Yes, Brian conflates those subjects.

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    9. Chris,

      "If we presuppose the laws of logic prior to experience as you say, then what about children? Think epistemic verities in the child: does the child presuppose in a conscious way, the principle of causality etc?"

      I think Hays was correct in pointing out that you are confusing the issues of logic in discussion. In the context of Dr. Greg Bahnsen was the justification of logic. Hays was discussing the ontology of logic and you seem to be discussing when we become aware that we are presupposing it. I think that the issues are interrelated of course. I would be willing to plant my flag in either issue about logic(it's justification or ontology) Hays also pointed out in the original post why being born "blanks slates" is a rather problematic notion. So, it could be that innate or some other sort of "built-in" knowledge we possess and categorize the world by. I don't think that means we have to have children have to be conscious of the act. I'm not sure a lot of adults are conscious of their epistemic commitments. That may make my account sound implausible to you, but your view is equally implausible to me. Take the idea we abstract universals from our experience. If we were to apply that to a similar area that was brought up in both articles of mathematics. From what experiences did we abstract about Cantorian Sets? I doubt we have experienced any infinite sets.

      "If the laws of logic are abstract immaterial entities as Bahnsen was so fond of saying, then that's Platonism"
      Unless they are divine thoughts.

      "Whether the laws of logic are necessary or contingent is moot if they are not understood as principles of being. We must rid ourselves of the idea that they are entities. They are not."

      I disagree, if they are necessary then we know they are not grounded in contingent facts. Such as the universe( That I suppose is debatable if you're a necessitarian).

      "Concerning the divine exemplars, it is an intriguing question (per my comment given at 9:13am): my own view is that of moderate realism, whereby universals do not "exist" as immaterial abstract entities, but are abstracted by the intellect from the form of the thing considered"

      This just seems to be a Thomistic view of abstract objects. This may be my incompetence, but I don't understand the Aristotelian realist. You seem to be a nominalist in your prior paragraph, but you say you affirm a sort of realism that seems indistinguishable from just saying laws of logic are just human thoughts( the other conceptualism). The issue I see is that laws of logic have incompatible properties with the properties of human minds. Laws of thought are universal, invariant, abstract laws of thought. Humans minds are local, changing, contingent things.

      "The question about the exemplars becomes, How is God a simple being while having abstract entities categorized in his mind? My own view is that if God had not created, there would be no laws of logic."

      I'm not sure how to understand this. You wouldn't even add that the laws are necessary outflows of God's nature( I think Dr. Poythress would take that view)? I have some questions about the relationship of Divine Simplicity and Divine conceptualism. I would refer to what Dr. Anderson and Dr. Welty have written in defense of their view:

      http://www.proginosko.com/2012/07/god-and-propositions-the-saga-continues/

      http://blog.epsociety.org/2013/09/responses-to-argument-for-god-from-logic.html

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  7. If divine thoughts are abstract objects per divine conceptualism, then the simplicity of God is in jeopardy. Divine simplicity i.e. that God is not composed of parts is integral to classical theism, including Calvin himself. Of course, the exemplars, if they have ontological status, is Christian Platonism. I'm no expert on what is "in" the mind of God or not - I'm still contemplating that. So much to study, so little time. And then there's the fact that we have jobs.

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    1. I don't subscribe to Thomistic simplicity, where each divine attribute is identical to every other attribute. I do subscribe to mereological simplicity in the sense that God has no spatiotemporal subdivisions.

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  8. Steve,

    I appreciate your thoughts on Descartes. My point of disagreement with substance dualism is that it creates the so-called "mind-body problem" in philosophy. It also creates an epistemological problem: the "critical" problem in knowledge, which is, How does the mind connect to extra mental reality? On substance dualism, it can't. This is why Kant proposed the transcendentals, and this is why Van Tillian presuppositionalism borrows from Kant in order to solve the alleged problem. But the problem doesn't exist on a hylemorphic view of human nature.

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    1. Hylomorphism is a type of physicalism, where the "soul is the form of the body" in the sense of structured matter. But many Thomists admit that anthropology has no room for the intermediate state. Physicalism has problems far worse than substance dualism (e.g. the hard problem of consciousness).

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    2. Unclear what you mean by "connect"? You mean direct physical contact?

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    3. "My point of disagreement with substance dualism is that it creates the so-called 'mind-body problem' in philosophy. It also creates an epistemological problem: the 'critical' problem in knowledge, which is, How does the mind connect to extra mental reality? On substance dualism, it can't."

      i) The alternative is what–physicalism? How does the brain connect with extramental reality? Via a complex chain of events from the distal stimulus through the proximal stimulus, sensory organs, nerves, neural pathways. That's quite convoluted. Why think the receiving end of that labyrinthine process corresponds to the distal stimulus?

      ii) Substance only creates a problem on the assumption causal trisections require a point of contact, which rules out action at a distance. But that rules out angelic interaction with the physical world. That rules out demonic possession. That rules out divine agency in nature.

      Not to mention well-documented examples of action at a distance (e.g. precognition, telepathy, telekinesis), in addition to poltergeists.

      iii) If you think causal transactions require a point of contact, then that commits you to the infinite divisibility of matter, since there must always be some intervening medium to convey the change from cause A to effect B. Conversely, if you reject the infinite divisibility of matter, then at some point causation must be direct rather than mediated.

      "This is why Kant proposed the transcendentals, and this is why Van Tillian presuppositionalism borrows from Kant in order to solve the alleged problem."

      That's not how I read Van Til. Rather, it was based on his theory of divine incomprehensibility. He thought many Christian doctrines are paradoxical. So that made God paradoxical. Yet he thought divine knowledge was the standard of comparison.

      How do we grasp a paradoxical God? How do we attain knowledge if reason is paradoxical? At best, indirectly based on the necessary preconditions of knowledge.

      Now, you can reject Van Til's rationale for TAG, but still find TAG a useful type of theistic argument.

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  9. Steve, I reckon you don't understand what hylemophism is.

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    1. Because you know better than Peter Geach, Elizabeth Anscombe, or the guys I asked at Reformed Thomism?

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    2. “It is a savage superstition to suppose that a man consists of two pieces, body and soul, which come apart at death; the superstition is not mended but rather aggravated by conceptual confusion, if the soul piece is supposed to be immaterial...In truth a man is a sort of body, not a body plus an immaterial somewhat; for a man is an animal, and an animal is one kind of living body; and thinking is a vital activity of a man, not of any part of him, material or immaterial. The only tenable conception of the soul is the Aristotelian conception of the soul as the form, or actual organization, of the living body; and thus you may say that a man thinks with his soul, if you mean positively that thinking is a vital activity of a living human being, and negatively that thinking is not performed by any bodily organ” Peter Geach, God and the Soul, 38.

      “There is a primary principle of the life of any kind of material thing...This primary principle I call its soul...The vegetative functions are performed in animal life too. But except for growth they are transposed to a new key. And similarly the remaining vegetative functions and the animal activities and powers are transposed in the life of man. For here there is something new: the intellective principle is the differentia of the human soul” “Has Mankind one Soul?” Elizabeth Anscombe, Human Life, Action and Ethics,18,22.

      “There is no reason whatever for believing in a temporal immortality of the soul apart from the resurrection; above all there is no ‘natural immortality of the soul’ that can be demonstrated by philosophy...I take the Christian doctrine of immortality to be the doctrine of an unending human life, happy or unhappy, after the resurrection and not the doctrine of an immortal sort of substance, the soul, to which is appended the doctrine of the resurrection because a disembodied soul is not a complete man, though I know that in apologetics the matter is often presented like that” Anscombe, “The Immortality of the Soul,” Faith in a Hard Ground, 77.

      “Well, he [Aquinas] investigated it [postmortem survival]. It was for him a serious problem precisely because he believed the Aristotelian principle – the soul is the form of the body...Probably he did [think this]. I would say to him it was a problem and it is not clear that he solved the problem, Anscombe, "The Existence of the Soul," 53f.

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    3. chris van allsburg

      "Steve, I reckon you don't understand what hylemophism [sic] is."

      You should give some sort of a reason why you think this. Not just offer your personal disapproval.

      It could just as well be that you don't understand what hylomorphism is. After all, you didn't even spell the term correctly.

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    4. Here's Catholic philosopher Ed Feser on hylomorphism (pp 219-223, The Philosophy of Mind):

      Another possibility lies in the conception of the material world in general and of the human body in particular that Descartes, along with his materialist contemporaries, rejected in favor of mechanism: the hylomorphism associated with Aristotle (384–322 BC), St.Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), and the schools of thought deriving from them.

      The term "hylomorphism" derives from the Greek words hyle, meaning "matter," and morphe, meaning "form," and the central idea of the view is that a concrete substance is a composite of matter and form, and cannot properly be understood except as such. The form of a substance is its organizational structure; the matter is that which is given organizational structure by the form. (If a chair has a round seat, for example, the roundness is an aspect of the chair's form, and the wood or plastic or whatever it is made of would constitute its matter.) Substantial form is that specific aspect of a substance's organizational structure by virtue of which it is the kind of substance it is. (A seat's roundness isn't part of the substantial form of a chair – a chair could have a square seat instead, for instance, and still be a chair – but having some kind of seat would be.) Form on this view is understood in a decidedly realist way: it is abstract and universal, irreducible either to any particular material thing or to some aspect of our classificatory practices. Form exists in some sense out there, independent of our minds. Hylomorphists are generally Aristotelian rather than Platonic realists, that is, their view is that form generally exists in the substances it informs (rather than subsisting in a kind of Platonic "third realm" of the sort briefly described in chapter 3). Because a piece of matter wouldn't be the particular thing it is without its specific form, however, hylomorphism entails that no material thing can be said to be "nothing but" a collection of particles (or whatever), after the fashion of materialistic reductionism. If form generally does not exist apart from matter, neither does matter exist without form; and thus, without grasping a material object's form, we cannot understand it.

      The fact that understanding a thing entails, in the hylomorphic view, understanding the form that makes it what it is indicates how different the view's concept of explanation is from those of contemporary materialism and Cartesian dualism. In the classical hylomorphism of Aristotle and Aquinas, a full explanation of a material substance involves identifying at least four irreducible causal components: its material cause, its formal cause, its final cause, and its efficient cause. A heart, for example, cannot be understood except as being an organ having a certain material constitution (its material cause), as possessing a certain form or principle of organization (its formal cause), as serving a certain function – to pump blood (its final cause) – and as having been brought about by antecedents such as the genetic programming inherent in certain cells that led them to develop into a heart rather than a kidney or liver (its efficient cause). Materialism and Cartesian dualism alike eliminate formal and final causes from the explanation of material things, replacing the classical hylomorphic conception of material substances as inherently purposive composites of matter and form with a conception of them as collections of particles or the like devoid of either intrinsic purpose or objective, irreducible form, and explicable entirely in terms of efficient causation.

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    5. Living things have form no less than chairs and the like, and the form of a living thing is precisely what a hylomorphist means by the soul. There is a sense in which plants and non-human animals have souls just as human beings do (though as we'll see, this by no means entails that they can think or continue to exist after death). The nutritive soul is the sort which informs the matter of which plants are composed, and imparts to them powers of nutrition, growth, and reproduction. The sensory soul is the kind of soul possessed by animals, and includes the powers of the nutritive soul as well as its own distinctive powers of perception, appetite, and locomotion or movement. Finally, the rational soul is the kind of soul possessed by human beings. Incorporating the powers included within the nutritive and sensory souls, it also imparts the further characteristics of intellect, will, and memory. The rational soul is the substantial form of the human body, in virtue of which human beings are what they are: rational animals. This is a very different concept of the soul from that of the Cartesian dualist, who regards it not as a substantial form – which is, in the hylomorphic view, only one aspect of a complete substance – but rather as a complete substance in its own right, devoid of material properties but nevertheless (somehow) capable of efficient causation.

      There is a tendency in Cartesian thinking – though Descartes himself, contrary to popular belief, did not take this view – to regard the Cartesian res cogitans as the person, with the body being an inessential excrescence. Materialists, by contrast, often identify a person with the body, or some aspect of the body. But in the hylomorphic view, just as the form of a chair is not a chair, neither is the soul of a person a person; and just as the matter of a chair is, apart from the form a chair, not a chair, neither is a person's body qua body a person. A person is, rather, essentially a composite of soul and body.

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    6. One consequence of this is that the disappearance of the person that seems entailed by Cartesian and reductionist accounts of personal identity is not entailed by hylomorphism. Since the soul is the substantial form of the body – of, that is, a certain material thing – there seems to be no difficulty in determining when a person's soul is present. Just as you know that a certain object has the form of a chair just by virtue of its being a chair at all, so too you know that a person's body is associated with the person's soul just by virtue of its being that person's body. The soul is present as long as the person's body is present,for that body just wouldn't be the body it is without the person's soul informing it. And, contrary to reductionist views, the person isn't reducible to some bundle of psychological or bodily characteristics. Contra Parfit in particular, there is indeed a "further fact," over and above one's having certain bodily and psychological traits, that constitutes being a person, just as there is a further fact over and above the existence of chair legs, a seat,and a back that constitutes a chair being a chair. It is that these various bodily and psychological traits are organized in just the way they are – that they involve a substantial form informing a certain kind of matter – that makes them a person, just as it is a chair's various components being organized in just the precise way they are that makes them into a chair.

      Another consequence of the hylomorphic view is, arguably, that there is no mystery about how soul and body get into causal contact with one another, for the soul-body relationship is just one instance of a more general relationship existing everywhere in the natural world, namely, the relationship between forms – the form of a chair, the form of a tree, the form of an animal – and the matter they organize. If this general relationship is not particularly mysterious, neither is the specific case of the relationship between soul and body. The mistake of Cartesian dualists and materialists alike, according to the hylomorphist, is to think of all causation as efficient causation. When it is allowed that there are other irreducible modes of explanation – in particular, explanation in terms of formal causation – the interaction problem disappears.

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