Showing posts with label Existence of God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Existence of God. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2020
Thursday, June 04, 2020
A formulation of the fine-tuning argument
A new paper from physicist Luke Barnes:
AbstractA new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable.
"A Reasonable Little Question: A Formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument"
Thursday, April 02, 2020
Approaching the ontological argument
Anselm proposed a famous, fascinating, controversial theistic proof. Some scholars contend that he presented two different versions of the ontological argument or two different ontological arguments. Other thinkers like Scotus, Descartes, Leibniz, Gödel, and Plantinga proposed their own versions.
I don't have an opinion about whether or not Anselm's argument, as it stands, is successful. That's because I don't know what he means, and interpretation is prior to evaluation. I can't assess it before I understand it.
I doubt even he knows what it means. His argument is intuitive and compressed. He had a flash of insight which he labors to sharpen. He may be onto something, but he's fumbling to articulate his insight.
Here's one thing I will say about his argument. It raises the question: is our imagination greater or lesser than reality? Does reality exceed imagination or imagination exceed reality?
For Anselm, God is the greatest conceivable being, and that's a good definition. For Anselm, the idea of a greatest conceivable being must have a counterpart in reality.
Human intelligence is quite limited. A paradox of human intelligence is that we're just smart enough to be aware of our intellectual limitations. Even the very smartest human beings hit a wall, and the distance between their understanding and wall of reality is very short. The distance between a human with Down Syndrome and the smartest man who ever lived is incomparably shorter than the distance between the smartest man who ever lived and reality.
It's quite counterintuitive to suppose our imagination is greater than reality. To the contrary, not only is reality the equal of anything we can imagine, but infinitely beyond what we can imagine.
Therein lines the truth of the ontological argument. Is reality greater or lesser than what we can conceive? Surely reality is much bigger than the human mind.
I'd add a caveat. Not everything conceivable is possible because an isolated idea needn't be consistent with every necessity and truth. We imagine little pieces of things that might not be possible or realistic if developed to their logical conclusion.
But so long as the idea of God, as the greatest conceivable being, is coherent, then the basel insight of the ontological argument must be true, however successful or unsuccessful the precise formulations.
It might be objected that we're talking about a human idea of God. Yes, Anselm has a limited grasp of what it means to be the greatest conceivable being. But in that respect, the reality is inconceivably greater than our idea of a greatest conceivable being.
So it comes down to the question of whether human imagination surpasses reality or reality surpasses human imagination. I think the only reasonable position to take is that human imagination is just a sample of an illimitable, superhuman reality that exceeds the reach of the human mind in all directions.
Friday, May 26, 2017
A response to Cowen's "Why I don’t believe in God"
Sanct asks:
Off-topic, I apologize, but any chance one of you Tbloggers could comment on this? http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/05/dont-believe-god.htmlCowen doesn't have formal training in philosophy to my knowledge, but is a widely celebrated public intellectual.
First off, I'd like to say I appreciate Prof. Cowen's sincere and inquiring spirit in his post. It's in this sincere and inquiring spirit that I'd like to respond as well. Also, he would probably eschew the label, but it sounds like he's more an agnostic than anything else.
FWIW, if anything, here's my response:
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm
"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8)
"Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, 'These are the conditions, now what happens next?'" (Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law)
- We often hear jokes about how the weather forecast is wrong. That's mainly because accurately predicting the weather is notoriously difficult if not impossible.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Sense & sensibility
Former Christian turned atheist Byron said:
2. As an aside, we have more than five senses. For instance, there's proprioception, nociception, thermoception, and equilibrioception (which is technically more than one sense), among others.
3. Just because we can't sense God with our normal senses doesn't mean we can never sense God.
a. For one thing, God could bypass our senses and communicate directly with our minds.
b. Also, we can sense God through sensing other things with our senses. For example, we cannot directly sense time with our senses. There is no physical organ responsible for sensing time itself in the same way there are physical organs responsible for sight, smell, taste, etc. However, we can still sense the passage of time through what we see and hear, from whence we can infer its existence.
4. On a related note, how do we know you're a person, Byron? Perhaps you're a cleverly designed android which perfectly mimics a human being. Far better than the mechas in A.I., the replicants in Blade Runner, Cameron in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, or the skin job cylons in the new BSG. We can sense your corporeal properties, but we can't directly sense your mind or consciousness. Since we can't sense such hallmarks of personhood, could we therefore justifiably assert you are not a person?
5. You say you don't believe in God because you can't sense him. But this argument is a double-edged sword. Some people say they do believe in God because they can sense him. As such, the arguments would seem to cancel one another out.
That said, the fact that you can't sense God isn't epistemically on equal footing with the fact that someone else can sense God since sensing God is a positive form of evidence for his existence while the inability to sense God is neutral on the existence or nonexistence of God.
All we have to determine truth about the external world in a naturalistic perspective are the five physical senses and our ability to reason. Our five senses along with our reason cannot operate perfectly, or without limitation, yet this does not invalidate their use in ordinary life, and for the pursuit of science. And this is where group accountability comes in, because on more important matters, we make reference not only to our own ability to gather and analyze data, but also to others collectively, whose agreement in oversight lends our own views some additional authority. It is not a mistake, therefore to ask for some material proof or evidence to consider objectively, especially such as can be reviewed analytically and critiqued by multiple observers.1. If it's true our senses are normally too unreliable (e.g. if Plantinga's EAAN is true), then I don't see how it will help if we have a group of individuals in a concerted effort to find the truth with their likewise faulty senses. I don't see how you justify the leap. It'd be like the blind leading the blind, wouldn't it?
Because God is by the definition I learned omniscient and omnipotent, God is also fully knowledgeable and capable of presenting sufficient and overwhelming evidence to convince all those He targets to do so, at least in the material world. It is not an unreasonable expectation, at least in the context of naturalism, to expect such a divine response if God truly wishes for one to believe. Although God is also by definition supernatural, then the reasonable expectation of believers is that God would prefer supernatural as opposed to natural means to reveal Himself.
If God operates in the supernatural realm alone, then I cannot place any limits or bound His operation by any desires I have, especially in seeking revelation of Himself. So unless God chooses to reveal Himself supernaturally or naturally (I suspect you could say the Scriptural revelations are combinations of both) to the believer, then God cannot be known. I also cannot deny the charge of Romans 1 if that is the case, because God has left behind some evidence in nature of His supernatural existence and operation. But the problem with that is, I cannot be shown by the material senses and reason that a supernatural realm even exists in the first place, let alone constitutes a superior reality as a frame of reference. So I feel that any accusation of moral failure for failing to perceive such is ultimately unjustified.
2. As an aside, we have more than five senses. For instance, there's proprioception, nociception, thermoception, and equilibrioception (which is technically more than one sense), among others.
3. Just because we can't sense God with our normal senses doesn't mean we can never sense God.
a. For one thing, God could bypass our senses and communicate directly with our minds.
b. Also, we can sense God through sensing other things with our senses. For example, we cannot directly sense time with our senses. There is no physical organ responsible for sensing time itself in the same way there are physical organs responsible for sight, smell, taste, etc. However, we can still sense the passage of time through what we see and hear, from whence we can infer its existence.
4. On a related note, how do we know you're a person, Byron? Perhaps you're a cleverly designed android which perfectly mimics a human being. Far better than the mechas in A.I., the replicants in Blade Runner, Cameron in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, or the skin job cylons in the new BSG. We can sense your corporeal properties, but we can't directly sense your mind or consciousness. Since we can't sense such hallmarks of personhood, could we therefore justifiably assert you are not a person?
5. You say you don't believe in God because you can't sense him. But this argument is a double-edged sword. Some people say they do believe in God because they can sense him. As such, the arguments would seem to cancel one another out.
That said, the fact that you can't sense God isn't epistemically on equal footing with the fact that someone else can sense God since sensing God is a positive form of evidence for his existence while the inability to sense God is neutral on the existence or nonexistence of God.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
William Lane Craig Interviewed About Stephen Hawking
Greg Koukl just interviewed William Lane Craig regarding Stephen Hawking's latest book. The entire radio program should be posted at the Stand To Reason web site later this week. The interview with Craig was in the third hour. And Craig has addressed Hawking's claims (and some similar claims made by Lawrence Krauss) more briefly in some of his recent audio blog entries found here. Near the end of his interview with Koukl, Craig said that he's written an article responding to Hawking, which should be posted at the Reasonable Faith web site soon.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Red pill-poppers and blue pill-poppers
Various SF films and TV shows (i.e. Harsh Realm, Total Recall, The Matrix) deal with the theme of characters that are trapped inside a virtual world.
Some characters have no awareness of the simulation. For them, virtual reality is reality. Other characters discern a larger reality behind the simulation.
So you have to types of characters: red pill-poppers and blue pill-poppers.
Blue pill-poppers deny the existence of a computer programmer. They point to “reality” and ask, “Show me the programmer? We can’t see him. We can’t find him.”
Red pill-poppers say that question misses the point. If the programmer exists, then he exists outside the program. In that sense, he’s absent from the program he designed. At most, he could write himself into the program as a virtual character.
But in another sense, the programmer is a ubiquitous. He designed the simulation. Activated the simulation. Although the programmer is intangible, your every tangible experience is the end-result of his design.
So he’s both absent from the program and omnipresent. Even if you never see him, he’s “there” in the sense that his program is there. He’s behind every simulated detail of the program you inhabit.
Some characters have no awareness of the simulation. For them, virtual reality is reality. Other characters discern a larger reality behind the simulation.
So you have to types of characters: red pill-poppers and blue pill-poppers.
Blue pill-poppers deny the existence of a computer programmer. They point to “reality” and ask, “Show me the programmer? We can’t see him. We can’t find him.”
Red pill-poppers say that question misses the point. If the programmer exists, then he exists outside the program. In that sense, he’s absent from the program he designed. At most, he could write himself into the program as a virtual character.
But in another sense, the programmer is a ubiquitous. He designed the simulation. Activated the simulation. Although the programmer is intangible, your every tangible experience is the end-result of his design.
So he’s both absent from the program and omnipresent. Even if you never see him, he’s “there” in the sense that his program is there. He’s behind every simulated detail of the program you inhabit.
Empirical evidence for God
I was asked to the following question: "If you were in a debate with an atheist and he asked you to give empirical evidence for God, what would you say?"
To which I answered:
I’d make a couple of preliminary observations before I tried to answer that question:
1.We need to clarify our expectations, and have reasonable expectations. It might obvious to some that if God exists, then his existence should be easy to prove. After all, if he exists, then shouldn’t that be fairly evident or conspicuous? He’s the source of everything else. The biggest fact of all.
However, there’s a paradox in proving God’s existence. Normally, when we try to prove that something exists, we use one thing to prove another. We take for granted the existence of something else, something related, and use that as a launch pad.
For example, we use time and consciousness as background conditions to prove other things. If, however, you were asked to prove the existence of time or consciousness itself, you might be stumped. It’s hard to come up with a non-circular argument for the existence of a background condition. Precisely because time and consciousness are so fundamental, they are resistant to direct demonstration. It’s hard to get “behind” them.
Because we see with our eyes, we never see our eyes. Not directly.
2.The answer to your question also turns, in part, on the precise form of the question or the implied audience. Is the question what empirical evidence would you cite to undergird your own belief in God? Or is it what empirical evidence would you cite for the benefit of someone who is not already a believer?
If, for example, you’re speaking for yourself, then depending the specifics of your religious experience, certain empirical evidence might dovetail with the argument from religious experience. For example, the argument from miracles could also count as empirical evidence in case you or someone you trusted had had a fairly unmistakable experience of God’s miraculous involvement in your life or his.
If, on the other hand, the answer is directed at outsiders, you might appeal to something more public.
3.Depending on how you define empirical evidence:
i) Among formal theistic proofs, I think the teleological argument has the most general appeal. And, as you know, there are different versions.
ii) If you regard testimonial evidence as an oblique form of empirical evidence (i.e. testimony to an empirical event), then the argument from miracles is also in play (although it needs to be carefully qualified).
iii) The argument from religious experience can also have a lot of popular appeal.
To which I answered:
I’d make a couple of preliminary observations before I tried to answer that question:
1.We need to clarify our expectations, and have reasonable expectations. It might obvious to some that if God exists, then his existence should be easy to prove. After all, if he exists, then shouldn’t that be fairly evident or conspicuous? He’s the source of everything else. The biggest fact of all.
However, there’s a paradox in proving God’s existence. Normally, when we try to prove that something exists, we use one thing to prove another. We take for granted the existence of something else, something related, and use that as a launch pad.
For example, we use time and consciousness as background conditions to prove other things. If, however, you were asked to prove the existence of time or consciousness itself, you might be stumped. It’s hard to come up with a non-circular argument for the existence of a background condition. Precisely because time and consciousness are so fundamental, they are resistant to direct demonstration. It’s hard to get “behind” them.
Because we see with our eyes, we never see our eyes. Not directly.
2.The answer to your question also turns, in part, on the precise form of the question or the implied audience. Is the question what empirical evidence would you cite to undergird your own belief in God? Or is it what empirical evidence would you cite for the benefit of someone who is not already a believer?
If, for example, you’re speaking for yourself, then depending the specifics of your religious experience, certain empirical evidence might dovetail with the argument from religious experience. For example, the argument from miracles could also count as empirical evidence in case you or someone you trusted had had a fairly unmistakable experience of God’s miraculous involvement in your life or his.
If, on the other hand, the answer is directed at outsiders, you might appeal to something more public.
3.Depending on how you define empirical evidence:
i) Among formal theistic proofs, I think the teleological argument has the most general appeal. And, as you know, there are different versions.
ii) If you regard testimonial evidence as an oblique form of empirical evidence (i.e. testimony to an empirical event), then the argument from miracles is also in play (although it needs to be carefully qualified).
iii) The argument from religious experience can also have a lot of popular appeal.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
"Why I Believe in God"
From John Mark Reynolds:
In one comment thread on this blog, someone asked why I believe. Here is a short answer.
It is an odd thing to be called on to defend something you think you know. It is disturbing at first, because it makes you simultaneously wonder about your own mental clarity and that of your questioner. Why would he ask such a question? Isn’t the truth of the matter obvious?
Unfortunately, there are few things we believe that some other person, seemingly rational, cannot doubt. After a bit of reflection, the doubts of others about my beliefs are less disturbing, because it is a chance to exercise wonder. Not surprisingly it is wonderful to wonder and a chance to wonder why I think God exists has proven an excellent opportunity for healthy Socratic doubt leading to a sense of His presence.
I am thankful for the process.
God exists, but what God? I mean the God that is all-powerful, all knowing, the God who is the Creator of the cosmos. By definition if such a God exists, there is only one God, because only one being could logically be omnipotent.
Some of my atheist friends assert that since I don’t believe in many gods, I am just an atheist who has refused to go all the way. After all, having given up on the worship of Zeus why do I cling to the worship of the God of the Bible?
My friends are mistaken, however. I don’t reject Zeus, because he does not exist, but because he is evil. The Zeus revealed to me in Homer is not worthy of worship, because he uses his power for evil. Now my friends who are atheists might immediately reply that the God of the Old Testament also commands or does things that appear evil to us, but this is different. The God of the Old Testament is presented as good and some of His reported actions are difficult to square with that goodness. At the worst a believer need only doubt the report, but the gods of the Greeks are presented as intentionally acting for our harm.
There is no giving Zeus the benefit of the doubt, because he and his worshipers do not ask for it!
Of course, in any case Christians do not deny that Zeus might exist as a spirit, though he clearly does not (at present) physically dwell on the top of Mount Olympus! We do not claim to know every supernatural being that exists and for all I know the supernatural world is very complex place indeed. I have it on good authority that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in Richard Dawkins and my philosophy.
So why do I know God exists?
Given the limits of a short essay, I will only be able to point in the direction of my favorite reasons, but there are many books that provide deeper justification and further explication of these reasons. On a popular level favorite books that were helpful to me include J.P. Moreland's Scaling the Secular City and A.E. Taylor's Does God Exist? Readers looking for something more difficult would do well to check out the work of Richard Swinburne of Oxford University.
Of course, I don’t believe in God at first because I sat and thought about Him. I believe in God, because I encountered Him. I prayed and had an experience of Him from a very early age. He has answered my prayers and forced me to change my behavior. This every day direct mental experience of His existence is fundamentally why I know God is real.
If I did not have it, I would have little motivation to wonder about Him, but I sought Him and I found Him . . . or better He found me! Of course, despite my apparent sanity (from my own biased point of view!), I might be mad or deceived. God might be an illusion in my head, despite the sense that there is a different mental texture to what His voice is saying.
Once challenged in his beliefs by reasonable questions, only a fool or a saint would be sure that he was not deluding himself. I know I am no saint and I hope not to be a fool, so I had to ask if my experiences were real and if I had correctly interpreted them.
It is important, therefore, that I have every day indirect experience of His existence. The community of believers around me matters. I am not alone in thinking God is real or speaks to people. This does not prove that God exist, but the billions of people over long periods of time who have believed in God does suggest that at the very least I am not the victim of some private delusion!
So I speak to God and He speaks to me and millions of living and otherwise rational human beings share this experience. It is what I would anticipate if God is out there. Why do some people fail to share that experience?
I don’t know, but absence of evidence in a few does not suggest the problem is in those who believe.
Third, there are philosophical arguments that suggest the existence of God is either necessary or reasonable. For example, the existence and nature of the cosmos suggests the existence of a rational God. The universe appears to have order and design and I am not persuaded that merely naturalistic processes can account for this order and design. Whatever the process God used to create, and only the arrogant believe they have this all worked out, the fundamental nature of that creation suggests a plan.
Fourth, morality persuades me that God exists. The long trajectory of human history demonstrates a common morality behind the blind spots of any particular culture. There is a common way that most people in most places and most times have followed. This law suggests a lawgiver.
Fifth, the existence of gratuitous beauty convinces me God exists. When I traveled above the clouds for the first time with my oldest son, he told me that it was beautiful and neither of us was surprised. Wherever we looked, we saw beauty and this was not a beauty that could have been hardwired into us by any natural process. Wherever we look as humans even to the furthest reaches of the cosmos beauty is there waiting for us.
Sixth, the world of Ideas points in the direction of the existence of the Mind of God. As a Platonist, I am convinced that numbers and ideas are real. There is a metaphysical world that cannot be reduced to the material. This does not prove God exists, but makes His existence more plausible to me.
Finally, love suggests to me that God is real. As Plato points out in his masterful dialogue Symposium love is surely of something. Humanity possesses a love for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful that demands a proper object. Only God is great enough to be a sufficient end for all the longing in the human heart. It might be that the universe is perverse and has given us this great longing without any means of fulfilling it, but there is no good reason to take this withering view. The sensible, indeed the hopeful response, is to assume that like hunger or thirst this longing too can find satisfaction in reality.
My friends who don’t believe in God might claim that I believe in God, partly, because I want to do so. This is true. The existence of a good God is such an awesome, exciting, and hopeful idea that I am rooting for it. There is nothing irrational with giving good news the benefit of the doubt, if you don’t sacrifice your mind to do so.
You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.
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