Materialism and mysteries

Prof. James Anderson responds to Bart Ehrman's (I guess one could call it) mysterian materialism in his post "Materialism and Mysteries".

The Dark Side of Political Philosophy, and How it Led to the Growth and Development of Today’s “Political Left” Movement

(Updated August 30, 2020): On the topic of why I think that the Roman Catholic Church is a problem with respect to the “wokism” situation we see today, it is not simply that I think things like “the Mass”, the priesthood, the saints, had anything (or much) to do with it. Roman Catholicism is NOT just its religious trappings. It is not just its history. It is not just “the evils that it has done in history”. It is also a thought system of its own. It has adopted “philosophies” over time. It is in fact a collection of these things. More, as well, it was a “cause” against certain “effects” reacted. Today we see some “effects” in the form of the so-called “academic subject” called “intersectionalism” that reacts against “White European Males”. There is so much more.

In this article, originally dated February 2019, I began to make the philosophical connection.

I’ve been asked many times, “why do you think it’s the intellectuals who convert to Roman Catholicism, while many of those who don’t approach the topic from a so-called intellectual viewpoint tend in large measure to convert the other way, from Roman Catholicism to evangelicalism?”

It seems to me that the “intellectuals” (or those who would think of themselves in that way) are more philosophically savvy, and they tend toward logical and ordered systems such as Aristotelianism (and derivatively, Thomism). That is a definite draw.

However, I think that is wrong-headed in several important ways. To take just one example, in his “Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction”, Edward Feser outlines Kant’s “naturalist” assumptions and decides simply to ignore all of Kant (and what followed). He says (and I’ve added paragraph breaks to enhance readability):

The metaphysics of race

I haven't had the time to read Reformed philosopher Jeremy Pierce's ongoing series on the metaphysics of race (yet). It looks quite interesting. Here's the first post:

"Metaphysics of Race: Introduction"

The argument for God from logic

https://www.proginosko.com/tag/argument-for-god-from-logic/

Do the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ?

I recently read a high-level exchange about the metaphysics of transubstantiation. On one side was a Protestant philosophy prof. (Kyle Blanchette). I mention that because his argument is the stimulus for this post. I'm not trying to develop his argument. Perhaps the argument in this post is different from how he'd understand his own argument. That's not the purpose of my post. My objective isn't to reproduce his argument. It simply gave me an idea to think about and run with. But I wish to credit the stimulus. 

Transubstantiation is often challenged on philosophical grounds. Philosophy isn't for everyone, but this isn't just an academic issue. Transubstantiation is Catholic dogma. If a single Catholic dogma is false, that falsifies Catholicism at one stroke. 

According to Trent, by the consecration of the bread and of the wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood; which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation.

And the catechism says 1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. 

So the dogma of transubstantiation seems to require that the bread and wine turn into or change into the body and blood of Christ. The unconsecrated communion elements become the body and blood of Christ. That, however, raises the issue of what's required for one thing to become something else. 

Suppose on Monday I see a mouse. Suppose on Tuesday I see a Porsche. Suppose you tell me that the Porsche used to be the mouse. The mouse turned into a Porsche.

A problem with that claim is that, at the level of a mouse and a Porsche, they have nothing in common. They have some constitutive elements in common, like atoms and molecules, but in no respect is a mouse a Porsche. There's complete discontinuity at that higher level. A difference in kind, not degree. 

The Catholic position is actually more radical than my illustration. On the Catholic position, the two substances don't even share any constitutive elements in common (see below). 

Put another way, it's consistent that a Porsche was never a mouse. It was always a Porsche. It didn't originate as a mouse. Consistent for each to have separate origins. 

What really happened is that the mouse ceased to exist, and (let's say) a Porsche suddenly sprang into existence. The mouse didn't become a Porsche. Rather, the mouse existed, then it ceased to exist. The Porsche didn't exist, then a day later it came into being. There's succession but no continuity. No continuum between what was the case on Monday and what was the case on Tuesday. 

But this generates a contradiction between what transubstantiation claims and what it implies. The claim is that the bread and wine turn into the body and blood. But the implication of the dogma is that the body and blood replace the bread and wine. The bread and wine cease to exist. Something else takes their place. So there's no continuity between the two things. 

Given the claim, there's no reason a priest has to start with bread and wine to get the same result. Since the end-result replaces the bread and wine, you could, in principle, have the replacement directly, without the bread and wine as a starting-point, just as you don't to start with a mouse to produce a Porsche. There's no essential relationship between the bread and wine and the replacement. It isn't necessary for a Porsche to be the end-product of a mouse. Indeed, that would be very strange way to create a Porsche.

At this point a Catholic might object that they do share something in common: the secondary properties of bread and wine. The phenomenal/sensory properties of bread and wine.

But that won't do. According to the metaphysics of transubstantiation, those are accidental properties. But at the substantive level, the body and blood share nothing in common with the bread and wine. One substance didn't become or change into another substance. Rather, one substance replaces another substance, but it has the same accidental properties. So the fundamental dichotomy remains. 

Does math point to God?

Today there was a brainiac debate between Graham Oppy and William Lane Craig:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WE1y00bwCU

I may or may not comment on other parts of the debate in a future post, but of now I'd like to zero in on a dilemma posed by Oppy:

Could God have freely chosen to make a physical world in which it was not the case that mathematical theories apply to the physical world because the structure of the physical world is an instantiation of mathematical structures described by those mathematical theories? There are two options: if not, then it seems that what you're going to end up saying is that it's necessary, that if there's a physical world, mathematical theories apply–which means you just end up with what the naturalist says. That will be the explanation. On the other hand, if it's as though it's just a brute contingency that mathematical theories apply to the physical world…because it's brutally contingent that God chose to make this world rather that other worlds that he could have made instead. When you get to free choice and you think why this rather than that, there's no explanation to be given why you ended up with one rather than the other. So it looks as though either you're going to accept the necessity or you're going to end up with ultimately it's a brute contingency. 

The answer depends on how we answer either either one of two prior questions:

i) Are mathematical structures grounded in the structure/substructure of God's mind? Does the existence of mathematical structures depend on God's existence?

ii) Is there a naturalistic mechanism to explain how the physical structure of the universe is an instantiation of mathematical structures?

What is presuppositionalism getting at?

There are different aspects to the evidentialist/presuppositionalist debate. Some of these are tedious and superficial. 

One question is the role of transcendental arguments in Christian apologetics. Do these make a necessary contribution to Christian apologetics? I'd say they do.

Should they be the centerpiece of Christian apologetics? Here I'd demure. I think inductive arguments for the Resurrection, the canon of scripture, the argument from prophecy, the biographical accuracy of the Gospels, and the reliability of the Greek/Hebrew text of Scripture are more directly germane to the Christian faith than most transcendental arguments for God, so in that respect I think inductive arguments should be front and center. 

But to some extent this is a matter of expertise. In the age of modern logic, with modal logic, Bayesian probability theory and other suchlike, formulating philosophically rigorous arguments for Christianity becomes a very technical exercise, and so you have philosophers who specialize on particular kinds of arguments (e.g. Pruss on the contingency argument, Collins on the fine-turning argument, Maydole on ontological arguments). 

That said, presuppositionalism isn't primarily about apologetic methodology or even transcendental arguments. It runs much deeper than that. It's about the nature of God, reality, and God's relation to the world. What kinds of things rely on God for their existence? Is it confined to truths of fact and contingent entities, or does it include necessary truths, abstract objects, and moral realism? Are logic, numbers, and possible worlds independent of God or do they have their grounding in God? A God who's the source of these things is a more fundamental being than a God who is not. A greater being. So this is ultimately about theology. 

Has presuppositionalism evolved?

Has presuppositionalism evolved? By presuppositionalism I mean the Van Tilian tradition, not the Clarkian tradition–which is a different animal.

Van Til championed the transcendental argument. And think that's due in large part do his eccentric view of divine incomprehensibility (which builds paradox into his definition of divine incomprehensibility). If God is incomprehensible in Van Til's sense, then you can't argue directly for his existence. Rather, you argue that God's existence is a necessary condition for everything else. Van Til's view is similar in that respect to transcendental Thomism. 

So Van Til's argument was essentially an epistemological argument for God's existence. Transcendental arguments are epistemological arguments, to refute skepticism.

However, in the hands of Greg Welty and James Anderson, the argument has shifted to modal metaphysics. So there's been some evolution and reorientation in the argument. 

It may be the case that Kant's argument is more epistemological, in part because he doesn't have a robust theology to ground it. Kant might even be a closet atheist. And he's skeptical regarding our knowledge of the external world. So he can't say much of anything to back it up in terms of bedrock ontology. 

Although Van Til's version is partly epistemological, he tries to ground it in the metaphysics of Reformed theism. Greg Welty and James Anderson develop that neglected potential in more detail. This is also because there's been a lot of work done on modal metaphysics which wasn't on the horizon in Van Til's time. In addition, Welty was never a champion of theological paradox. And that's conspicuously missing from Bahnsen as well. 

Theistic conceptual realism update

For those of you who take an interest in modal metaphysics:

Philosophia Christi

Vol 21 Num. 2 - Winter 2019

The Winter 2019 issue features a lead discussion centered on William Lane Craig's argument in God Over All, with contributions from Greg Welty, Peter van Inwagen, and a response by Craig. The discussion addresses issues of "divine conceptualism" and abstract objects and their implications for the nominalism-realism debate.

Greg Welty is slated to publish an updated version of  “The Conceptualist Argument,” in Colin Ruloff (ed.), Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology (Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming). 

He had to cut it down to meet the word count, so he will publish the outtakes in journal articles. 

Philosophical survey

Questions from a survey of philosophers:

https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

I'll give my own answers. I don't have considered opinions on every question. I'm not equally interested in every philosophical issue. I find metaphysics more interesting than epistemology, while theology is my paramount interest. 

The value of fiction

1. Human beings have an insatiable appetite for fictional stories. That includes short stories, novels, plays, and epic poems. More recently, that includes movies and TV dramas, as well as interactive video game stories. 

2. Is there any Christian justification for the consumption of fictional stories, especially in such massive quantities? No doubt many people have a skewed sense of priorities. They consume too much fiction to the neglect of Bible study, apologetics, and the practice of the Christian faith. That said:

3. Human beings are prone to boredom. Cultivating the life of the imagination is a form of intellectual playtime and recreation. 

4. Fiction takes us to other times and places. Before we were born. Where we never lived. Fiction exposes us to the imagination of other human beings. So it vastly broadens our mental horizon. We're not confined to our personal, firsthand experience of the world. It creates a collective imagination (not in the Jungian sense). 

5. Fiction is a vehicle Christians can use to filter their own experience. To provide a theological interpretation of their own life and the world round them. A fictional setting is more flexible than individual reality. A way to illustratively think through the practical implications of a Christian worldview. 

6. From the standpoint of Christian metaphysics, there's the question of whether one man's fictional story may be another man's lived reality. When we write a story, God thought of that story before we did. Every story originates in God's imagination. Our fictional stories are just a tiny finite sample drawn from the infinite library of God's illimitable imagination.

7. Between divine omniscience and divine omnipotence, it's possible that some of our fictional stories are true stories. They are fictional in relation to the world history of our particular universe, but from what I can tell, there's no presumption that God only created one timeline. If I write a fictional story, I may unwittingly write about real people in a real time and place. It's fictional in relation to the world history of the universe God put me in, but it may have a realistic counterpart in parallel universe with an alternate world history.

Of course, that's speculation, but it's no less speculative to deny it. Given all the interesting, worthwhile ways in which things might turn out differently, it seems like an arbitrary coin toss if there's only one world history–to the neglect of so many other significant forks in the road. I can't prove that conjecture, so it's not a point of Christian orthodoxy, but conjecture is unavoidable on both sides of the question. 

The argument from beauty and the argument from numbers

Among other things, Pruss sketches two arguments for God's existence: the argument from beauty and the argument from math:

http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2020/01/wilde-lectures-now-online.html

The argument from logic

https://www.proginosko.com/2020/01/a-conversation-with-tom-jump/

Theistic conceptual realism

Recently, Greg Welty debated Peter van Inwagen and William Lane Craig on abstract objects. That will be published in the Winter issue of Philosophia Christi. Here is Welty's title and abstract:

Title: “Do Divine Conceptualist Accounts Fail? A Response to Chapter 5 of God Over All”.

Abstract: "William Lane Craig’s God Over All argues against the kind of ‘divine conceptualism’ about abstract objects which I defend. In this conference presentation I note several points of agreement with and appreciation for Craig’s important work. I then turn to five points of critique and response pertaining to: the sovereignty-aseity intuition, the reality of false propositions, God’s having ‘inappropriate’ thoughts, propositions being purely private and incommunicable, and a consistent view of God’s own ontological commitments. I conclude by summarizing our two key differences, indicating that we may have much more in common than first appears (both theologically and metaphysically)."

In the final footnote, Welty mentions five more criticisms that weren't read out. 

In addition, Dr. Welty will be updating his arguments in Colin Ruloff (ed.), Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology (Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming).

If you could make your mother sinless...

One Catholic "argument" Mike Winger mentions in his demolition of Marian typology is: "If you could make your mother sinless, wouldn't you?"

Winger doesn't respond to that directly, in part because his focus is exegetical, and because he thinks that's bad theological method. I agree, but it's still good to address it head-on:

1. Ironically, it's a proof for the Immaculate Conception which, if sound, disproves the Immaculate Conception. If the Immaculate Conception is true, then Jesus wasn't the agent of the Immaculate Conception. For one thing, Jesus didn't exist prior to his own conception. Jesus is a product of the Incarnation. 

Of course, the Son is eternally preexistent, so that in principle, the Son could be the agent of the Immaculate Conception, but the Catholic prooftexts single out the Holy Spirit as the agent of the Immaculate Conception. So the argument, even on its own grounds, is self-refuting. 

2. Then there's the argument from analogy: 

i) How could a human son makes his mother sinless before he was conceived?

ii) As a preliminary step, a Catholic apologist would have to demonstrate that retrocausation is possible. That's a very tall order.  

iii) But even if (ex hypothesi), he could retroactively make his mother sinless, at her own conception, yet in that event he wouldn't exist in the first place since his mother would have a different future if she was sinless from the moment of conception. He wouldn't exist in that future. He only exists in the future where his mother isn't sinless. So the attempted parallel, using merely human sons and mothers as a basis of comparison, is incoherent on yet another ground. It's like the Grandfather paradox. If the time-traveler succeeds, he erases the future he came from. So he never existed! 

iv) In Catholic theology, Jesus and Mary are both sinless. Yet in the comparison with merely human mothers and sons, the mother would be sinless but the son would not be. That, however, would be a very strange mother/son relationship. How exactly is that supposed to work?

v) Everyone who dies in the faith will be sinless. So what's the hurry? I don't need to make my mother sinless. That will happen in due time. There's a reason why God doesn't make humans sinless in this life. Faith is waiting. 

Can God be wrong?

1. The Bible says God cannot lie. Suppose an atheist challenges you: how do you know that's not a lie? How do you know God isn't lying when he says he can't tell a lie?

Likewise, God makes promises to his people: forgiveness and eternal bliss. But the atheist challenges you: how do you know that isn't a lie?

2. This has its pedigree in the Cartesian demon, as well as Steven Law's recent Evil God knockoff. Suppose Christians can't prove it? Suppose we don't know in advance if God is telling the truth? So what? We'll find out. If it's true, then we had everything to gain and nothing to lose. And if it's false, then there's no advantage in being an atheist. An evil God won't reward an atheist. If you're a dutiful devil-worshiper, that doesn't mean the devil will reciprocate your loyalty. 

3. However, let's take this a step further. The Cartesian demon knows the difference between truth and falsehood. Although he's a deceiver, he isn't self-deceived. 

But is it possible for God to be self-deceived? Is it possible for God to be confused? 

This isn't just hypothetical. In open theism, God entertains false beliefs about the future. If you take open theist prooftexts seriously, God has false expectations about the future. Sometimes things turn out contrary to what he anticipated. That's because the God of open theism is dependent on world events for his knowledge of world events. 

4. However, when we push the question to the limit, it raises the issue of what makes something true or false. What is the source and standard for truth and falsehood? Is that independent of God or dependent on God?

There are different kinds of truth: contingent, logical, counterfactual, mathematical, and modal (i.e. possibility, necessity, impossibility) truths. In Calvinism, these can all be grounded in God. Contingent facts refer back to predestination. Counterfactual truths refer back to God's ability to instantiate alternate possibilities. Logical, mathematical, and modal truths inhere in God's mind, aseity, omnipotence, and omniscience. 

Unless truths and truthmakers can exist apart from God, then even if (ex hypothesi) God deludes others, God cannot be self-deluded. So that establishes a floor for skepticism. It can't go all the way down. 

5. Taking it up a level, the question of whether God can deceive may depend on whether divine deception (if that's even possible) is motivated by malice or benevolence. In other words, inseparable from the question of divine goodness. 

And that, in turn, raises a parallel with (4). What makes something good? What is the source and standard of goodness? If good is dependent on God, then there can't be an evil God–unless goodness is an illusion. And it's unclear how goodness could be an illusion. How could evil be the ultimate reality if evil is asymmetrically dependent on good to provide the necessary point of contrast?

There are debates about whether lying is intrinsically wrong. If you think it's intrinsically wrong, then it's impossible for God ever to lie. If you don't think lying is intrinsically wrong, if there are circumstances under which lying is justifiable, then, in principle, God might sometimes lie, but never maliciously. 

Even if you think lying is sometimes justifiable for humans, there's the question of whether the considerations which make it justifiable for humans extend to God, since God is not under the same constraints as humans. But in any case, God cannot lie about his promises to his people because that would be the act of an evil God, a malicious deity. 

Admittedly, all I've done in this little post is to block out the issues and outline some argumentative strategies. It takes a lot of spadework to turn those into philosophically rigorous arguments. That's a research program for Christian philosophers. I will say that Greg Welty and James Anderson are doing yeoman work in this field, with special reference to modal metaphysics. 

The doorway

I think one of the most enduring literary symbols is the doorway into another world. The doorway represents an exit from our world and an entrance into a better world.

Body and soul

The hard problem of consciousness is the best-known philosophical argument for substance dualism, but here's another argument by the eminent American philosopher Roderick Chisholm:

In metaphysics, he held the view that ordinary objects (tables, chairs, etc.) are ‘logical fictions’, and that what exists “in the strict and philosophical sense” are parcels of matter. Parcels of matter cannot lose parts and continue to exist as the same things, according to Chisholm. But what we think of as ordinary objects are gaining and losing parts all the time, he noted. Some molecules that once composed the table in front of me no longer do so. They have been chipped off, and the table worn away with time. The same holds for human bodies. They gain and lose parts all the time, and thus for Chisholm, human bodies don’t persist through time “in the strict and philosophical sense.” But persons – whatever they are – do persist through changes in the matter that composes a body. Therefore, he concluded, persons are not identical with their bodies, nor with any part of the body that can undergo change.  

https://philosophynow.org/issues/75/On_Roderick_Chisholm

The transmission of original sin

1. Original sin has two sides: (i) the condemnation of Adam's sin and (ii) moral corruption/spiritual inability. (i) seems unfair. I've discussed that on multiple occasions. In this post I'd like to focus in (ii).

2. One question is whether the Bible teaches original sin. Considered in isolation, Gen 3 doesn't seem to teach original sin. However, that's followed by a drastic escalation in evil, leading up to the flood. And it continues after the flood. OT history is a record of pervasive depravity, both in pagan cultures as well as Israel. The extent and intensity of human evil is hard to explain unless there's a predisposition to evil.

In the NT, two classic passages are Rom 5:12-21 & 1 Cor 15:21-22. The text in 1 Cor 15 is about death, while the text in Rom 5 is about condemnation as well as death. 

Over and above that are Pauline texts about the moral and spiritual blindness, hardness, and deadness of the lost. About their captivity to raw destructive passions. Again, it's hard to explain that if humans are born moral blank slates. 

Finally, a theme of John's Gospel and 1 John is how the mission of Christ exposes the preexisting animus towards God and good. That dovetails with the Pauline picture.

3. A difficult issue in Christian theology is the transmission of original sin. In terms of guilt and condemnation for Adam's sin, that gave rise to debates over immediate and immediate imputation in Reformed theology. I think proponents of immediate imputation have the better of the argument. Again, that raises questions of fairness, but I've addressed that elsewhere.

4. But what about the transmission of moral corruption? What's the metaphysics or mechanics of original sin in that respect? That's something else theologians struggle with. Different models are proposed. 

Let's take a comparison: from what I've read, feral children are psychological inhuman. For normal psychological maturation to occur, humans require socialization during their formative years. There's a narrow window of opportunity that closes. If humans don't receive the necessary socialization during that period, no amount of remedial socialization will fix the deficit. The tragedy of feral children is the fact that they already passed the threshold where it's possible for them to develop a normal psychological makeup. No matter how much affection and attention they receive, it's too late for them to become psychologically human. It would take a miracle (which God may provide in the afterlife.)

Nothing was done to them that directly caused that deficient. They weren't physically, verbally, and psychologically abused. Rather, their condition is the result of severe neglect.  Humans aren't like Jem'Hadar babies programed to automatically mature psychologically as soon as they pop out of the incubation chambers. Our psychological makeup isn't purely internal and self-contained, waiting to unfold like clockwork. To be psychologically complete and mature requires something from the outside.  

By analogy, the transmission of original sin needn't be caused by some positive factor or determinant, but by the absence of some external factor that's necessary to complete our moral formation. Something lost in the Fall. 

"God made the integers; all else is the work of man"

A short exchange I had with a philosophical theologian:

Josh 

Maybe "The Advancement Theory". That captures this idea of the mathematical landscape advancing in God's mind, and then also the advancement of the world, along lines without end.

Hays  

I don't see how that's supposed to work. Don't mathematical truths involve interlocking systems of entailment relations? If so, all the elements must be in place for the mathematical truth, object, or structure (however we wish to put it) to obtain. Mathematical truths can't be waiting for the coin to drop. Rather, they must exist as a unit or not at all.

Josh 

Some perhaps. But there may be basic structures that provide a foundation for iterations.

Hays

Let's put it another way, do you agree that mathematical truths are paradigm-cases of necessary truths? If so, mathematical truths can't become true. Mathematical truths can't evolve. Of course, if one's a naturalist, then one may try to reduce math to human psychology, in which case it does evolve. But that's bad theology.

Josh

A very good question. I'm toying with the idea that only basic mathematical truths are necessary (in the strongest sense).

Hays 

So you agree with Leopold Kronecker that "God made the integers; all else is the work of man".