Current Paper

Abstract
I want to argue that a reductive physicalist approach to mind and consciousness will be unable to sufficiently answer such difficulties as first-person subjective experience and feeling, viz., why we have experience along with our cognitive and neurological functions at all. My position is not an appeal to the limited understanding of the brain, but that consciousness is simply not the kind of thing we ought to expect empirical science to be able to give an account of, that is, if it is not reducible to anything physical, then it must be taken as altogether separate from the physical. I hope to show that reductive physicalist approaches cannot account for subjective experiences,or that which is involved in the formation of concepts, thoughts, beliefs and ideas. Charges have been made that such a position is an appeal to mystery or some sort of God-of-the-gaps fallacy in the lack of a better explanation, but I will show that no such motivation need lie behind the argument. What is evident will be not a failure of any specific empirical science but a phenomenon which merely lies beyond what investigation into the natural world will reveal. Such a thing should hardly be surprising or inflammatory, and only a dogmatic and unwarranted faith in physical science would rule out a non-physical explanation a priori.

Process and Movement in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

October 7, 2009

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is, among other things, the explanation of and argument for, a process. That is, the true aim of the project is knowledge of the Absolute, but the means is a form of movement where the end is not simply a moment or object, but a culmination of the means themselves. Several passages will show, at least in part, that the essence of the Phenomenology is the Spirit’s movement toward knowledge and the thing that is gained, the Absolute itself.

Hegel tells us that, “The True is the whole,” which is “the essence consummating itself though its development” (§20). It is clear, then, that what is paramount is the whole, the consummating, and the development. What is the True is not, as it may sometimes be thought to be, some sort of abstract object or thing in the world to be either discovered or sought, insofar as it might be thought to exist external to any other considerations. Certainly for some the True, or the Absolute is understood as a thing (whether Descartes’ God or Spinoza’s One Substance) which can be known and shown to exist by some proofs or conjectures which would point to such an entity. But for Hegel, this misunderstanding is of both the means and the end, for the means is the process and the end the result. Indeed he tells us that, “[The Absolute] is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is,” and that its nature is “the spontaneous becoming of itself” (§20). It is not being, but becoming, which is the nature of the Absolute. But if this movement is toward the understanding, toward the Absolute, what is is from? Where does the movement begin, and what makes it necessary to progress?

One reason is given to us in §37, what Hegel calls the “disparity” of the distinction “between the ‘I’ and the substance which is its object... the negative in general.” This distinction is not unlike the perceived separation between the subject and object that Kant and and others dealt with. That is, what is the relationship between the subject and object, and what, then, can we know about either? If, for example, there is an absolute hard distinction between the two, then perhaps the subject can have no access to the object. Or, if the distinction is not so defined, then perhaps some some knowledge is possible. But for Hegel, it is the “defect of both” which draws them together and creates the movement described earlier. So, it is for the subject to know and for the object to be known that is the ultimate relationship drawing subject and object together, such that a negation of the very distinction solves the problem of each to the other. Certainly a great deal more could be said about this movement, but it must be sufficient for now to understand simply that the disparity moves from its opposing sides to sublation, a necessary move toward the desired end result.

And so it is, then, that what Hegel describes in his Phenomenology is just that overcoming of the “immediate Spirit... the non-spiritual, i.e. sense-consciousness” (§27). What is not enough is the sense-consciousness of the immediate relationship between a consciousness and the object. But because the Absolute is the result, each step is a part of the process. So even where we begin with consciousness of an object, we must overcome the distance between the ‘I’ and the thing we are conscious of. That initial consciousness Hegel says is “Knowledge in the first phase” (§27), which we remember is neither sufficient nor trivial. It is a part of the process; a necessary stage of development the negation of which will lead to a better understanding and closer approximation to the Absolute, the sublation and overcoming of the subject and object distinction which troubles the consciousness toward self-movement and Spirit.

On Kant's Copernican Revolution

To imply that one’s contribution to a given field is in some way analogous to the one made by Copernicus is to feel that one has truly challenged and undone the received notions of the day, given the scope and meaning of the revolution in comparison. But what Copernicus did on scientific and cosmological grounds for the heliocentric model of the universe, Kant hoped to do on epistemic and metaphysical grounds for philosophy itself. His hope was to see the world in a way that, even if not commonsense, found encouragement from the fact that Copernicus faced the same sort of odds in proposing as he did his heliocentric model. However, a proper understanding of Kant’s revolution will establish the reference to Copernicus without overstating Kant’s contribution; without crediting more than is warranted. Kant’s revolution was leveled against the skeptics and dogmatists of his day, and specifically against the boldness of metaphysics, which often oversold its use of reason and ignored its speculative nature. Kant’s central move was one of skepticism, but not the philosophical skepticism of the day. Rather, it was one of skepticism about the ability of human reason to justify the claims of metaphysics a priori, splitting the horns of the dilemma between skepticism about necessary truth and dogmatic claims about the possession thereof.

Before Kant, there was of course Aristotle’s contribution to logic which stood untouched by either empirical evidence or human reason. But what it gave were primarily things true by definition, i.e., the laws of contradiction, of identity, of excluded middle and so on. Despite the truth of these laws, they gave little truth about the world, in much the same way as mathematics. On the contrary, however, were a mere list of contingent truths, things that could have been otherwise, things that merely happened to have happened, and therefore gave no necessary truth. This was where metaphysics hoped to step in, using pure reason to gain a priori the truth of propositions that had meaning in the world (propositions concerning, for example, God, immortality, and freedom of the will). The problem, according to Kant, was that this metaphysical dream was unjustified and did not answer the task of modern philosophy in establishing what could be known a priori with certainty. Furthermore, metaphysics could not use its own principles to justify itself, and hence the commonsense view held by many that human reason allowed for the objective look into such questions was rather like the view that the earth was the center of the universe. As intuitively obvious as it seemed, it took a totally new shift to see how it was that metaphysics was the wrong approach.

What Kant did was effectively switch the obvious notion that things are as we see them because we have that sort of epistemic access to them. This is of course a philosophical assumption which has to be taken as axiomatic or properly basic in order to proceed with metaphysics (at least as they were at the time). Kant, however, reversed the assumption and began with human cognition as the reason things seemed they way they did. In this way, we do not see the world as it is; rather, we make the world appear as we see it, given the structure of our minds and our reason. In order to have any knowledge a priori, Kant held that experience would first be necessary. If this is so, then the very notion of a priority is fundamentally a non-starter if it denies that experience is necessary in our formation of concepts. Kant did not necessarily overturn a position the way Copernicus did per se, but he sufficiently exposed the presupposition of metaphysics such that a sort of ‘Copernican Revolution’ in metaphysics and epistemology took place that yet gives pause to those who hope reason and cognition a priori might answer questions it might not be justified in answering.

Be Thou My Vision

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart.
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my wisdom, Thou my true Word.
I ever with Thee and Thou with me Lord.
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son,
Thou in my dwelling, and I with Thee One.

Be Thou my battle shield, sword for my fight,
Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight.
Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower,
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always.
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joy, O bright heav'ns Son!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, Ruler of all.

Amen.

Substance, Material, and the Enduring Self

One of the most important ideas in A.N. Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World is the recognition of the limitations of scientific materialism. Critics have often held that materialism is self-defeating since it struggles to account for non-materialist events such as thoughts, ideas, consciousness and the self. However, what Whitehead offers is a different critique, mainly that what appears to be solid, material stuff is merely the enduring pattern of events. In this way Whitehead gives a more satisfactory explanation for ideas and, more importantly, the self. The challenge for the scientific materialist is considerable when it comes to providing an explanation for beliefs, ideas and subjective experiences. Alvin Plantinga makes this point in his Against Materialism, asking just what, exactly, a belief is for a materialist (here). For most materialists, all that exist are physical, material processes and interactions. On that view, a belief would have to be something material. In other words, there would have to be a spot in the brain, perhaps, wherein one finds the belief that, say, p is true. Whitehead’s claim is not entirely different, but deals with the very fundamental question at the heart of the distinction between science and philosophy.

The questions which science and philosophy seek to answer are often the same, but the very nature of the two approaches limits and directs the way in which the questions are answered. Whitehead explains that one’s answer to the subject-object distinction is central to one’s ability to account for ultimate reality (Whitehead, 145-148). In this way Descartes’ rationalism proved untenable since it reduced all material things (objects) to essentially mental constructs of the subject. The problem for philosophers of this persuasion was explaining the uniformity of mental constructs once they had undermined the reality of the objects. The empiricists, of course, upheld the reality of the object by means of the experience with those objects by individuals. This epistemological debate is well-known, but Whitehead’s point is that neither side can adequately ground their position since rationalism ignores the regularity of experience and empiricism undermines reason and rationality.

Part of the reason that the debate no longer runs on the quite the same lines is because of the merging of science and philosophy. One of the most troubling questions for both camps was the recognition of the self. How a purely mechanical being could experience self-awareness or how a purely rational mind could believe in the questionable existence of a body and a self situated in the world needed answering. Whitehead’s explanation of the body can be understood at least partially as the detection of the chemistry and biology working together to express a totality and report to the being as a single being (Whitehead, 148). The body, he says, is not the mere collection of its parts, it is an entity all its own. It is also not separate from the universe of events which Whitehead elaborates upon elsewhere. Crucially, the body is able to reference itself in relation to the world because “it knows the world as a system of mutual relevance, and thus sees itself mirrored in other things” (Whitehead, 148-149).

Whitehead clarifies further that there is a distinction to be made between what he calls bodily patterns and bodily events (Whitehead, 149). The event is simply that which is expressed or uniquely existing, but is a part of the pattern which endures. This is essentially his explanation for a person’s being able to understand the self and for the self to endure from one moment to another, which is a requisite for meaningful experience. In other words, on the materialist view, bodies are made of material, and that material is unthinking and does not endure. However, experience tells us that we comprehend our bodies and maintain our notion of self, even as it relates to different space-time scenarios.

In Plantinga’s paper, he deals with the idea of having specific body parts, or organs, or cells replaced, while experiencing the enduring self no less. A prosthetic leg, or a even a new heart, it seems, does not change who a person is, or how the person endures. It is logically possible, then, that every cell could be replaced in a sufficiently fast manner so as to not lose functionality, and yet the self should endure. On Whitehead’s account, this is no surprise. Fundamental particles are events, which adapt as they become parts of patters, so that an electron may behave one way in one scenario, and another in a different scenario. That is, at the particle level, there is not a sense of specificity until the particles or events are attached or joined to a pattern, where they then enter into the pattern and become part of the enduring pattern, even as they are an event unto themselves.

What Whitehead is able to do is show the inadequacy of the materialist view from a position of process, where Plantinga and others have done so from a position of immaterialism. The disagreements therein are beyond the scope of discussion here, but it is important to see where Whitehead’s ideas fit into the notion of ideas, the mind and the enduring self. Although Whitehead does not here elaborate on the implications for consciousness, subjective mental states, qualia or the soul, one can employ the process ideas in filling the explanatory gaps left by a materialist position which leads to both the untenable rationalism and naive empiricism of modern philosophy and science. The interaction between parts and whole, events and patterns is, even if found wanting in other areas of analogy, particularly apt in addressing the problems of material, substance and the enduring self.

On the possiblity of an actual infinite

[S]ome have argued that it may be impossible to count to infinity, but it is possible to count down from infinity. But this objection seems patently absurd. For one thing, the number of members in both series is the same. Why would one be easier to cross than the other? Second, assume that someone had been counting toward zero from negative infinity from eternity past. If a person goes back in time form the present moment, he will never reach a point when he is finishing his count or even engaging in the count itself. This is because at every point, he will have already had an infinity to conduct the count.

J.P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, p. 31

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Epistemology

One often finds epistemological questions that can be best answered with common sense. In other words, it seems common sense to most people that it is sight which tells us that, say, the sun is shining, that it is day rather than night, that we are inside instead of out, and so on. In Death by Black Hole, Neil DeGrasse Tyson generally acknowledges such experience as giving us a type of knowledge about the world. But for him, it is not just our senses which give us most of our knowledge, but our senses in conjunction with advanced scientific hardware and mathematics that tells us what the world is really like.

Seen this way, Tyson’s epistemology is essentially classical empiricism updated to acknowledge those mechanisms which expand our senses and clarify what our senses see vaguely (or not at all). One thinks of bacteria, sound waves, the light spectrum, and so on. However, even without denying that microscopes and telescopes give us knowledge about the world around us not accessible by our senses, one might wonder if Tyson has left something vital out of the equation. That is, the epistemological statement that knowledge is gained only by the senses is self-defeating, since that very claim to truth is not known by the senses. Tyson fails to mention the role of reason in answering how we know what we know, but his admission that we use mathematics presupposes reason, given the nature of mathematics. Historically those who believe mathematics gives us truth about the world have been divided, and this is where Tyson’s epistemology stands or falls. A look at the nature of mathematics and reason will help clarify Tyson’s epistemological claims.

Attacks against the empiricist position have traditionally turned on the claim that our senses are misleading and do not give us an accurate representation of what the world is really like. Examples such as Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Descartes ball of wax illuminate this position. The claim is that our senses tell us something about the world, but that they are mistaken quite often. We can think of Berkeley’s example of a person who sticks a warm hand and a cold hand into the same tub of water. The person will judge the temperature of the water in two different ways, but surely the water is not actually two different temperatures. Likewise, Tyson explains that the history of science is full of examples of reality being quite different than our observation of it. Our errors about the size, shape and rotation of Earth, its place in the universe, and the movement of stars and other celestial bodies have all been based on empirical observations (for example Tyson, chapter 3).

This is the reason Tyson has amended his epistemology to include “the direct application of sense-transcendent mathematics and hardware” (Tyson, 29). The hardware, then, is what tells us the chemical makeup of substances, the empirically verifiable nature of the universe and so on. The really interesting part of his claim is the part about “sense-transcendent mathematics.” How do we know mathematics gives us truth about the world? The answer is far from obvious, and is of course hotly debated by philosophers and mathematicians. But for an empiricist such as David Hume, mathematics gives us truth, but that truth is vacuous. It is only true by definition because we make up the rules. For him, there was no transcendent or abstract realm where mathematical truths existed, and therefore math gave us no real truth about the world.

While Tyson does not directly address the ontology of numbers and mathematical concepts, his work as an astrophysicist is a testimony to the usefulness of mathematics, and he does, in fact, include them in his epistemology. Without entering into the highly technical discussion of the philosophy of mathematics, it is sufficient to note that if one holds that mathematics gives us truth about the universe, what is really being affirmed is the usefulness and applicability of human reason. For example, if one understands the concepts of “2”, “4”, “addition”, and “equals”, the sum of 2 and 2 being 4 is unavoidable. Likewise, our ability to understand mathematical concepts from geometry, like the sum of the interior angles always being 180 degrees is not discovered by measuring every triangle in existence, but only by our use of reason. In this way, our knowledge of triangles is not from our senses, but from our reason.

For one to use mathematics on the level of an astrophysicist one must have a certain level of faith in the reliability of numbers. The launch of a space-shuttle is planned using mathematics that are known here on the earth and elsewhere in the universe. Physical constants such as gravity and the speed of light, as well as the laws of conservation can all be expressed mathematically, but what this shows is that, regardless of the ontological status of mathematical concepts, we use our reason to understand mathematics. That is just the type of thing mathematics is. And this is ultimately what Tyson has failed to include in his claim about how we know what we know.

The presupposition of human reason is made, but the implicitness of the claim is rather suspicious. To include “sense-transcendent mathematics” without including reason would be like including the sense-expanding hardware without including the senses. Indeed, microscopes work, but they are only useful to one with good vision. Likewise, mathematics work, but only to one with the ability to use reason. So what is the problem with the explicit omission of reason if it is understood?

When one accepts human reason as an avenue for knowledge, as one must to allow for our understanding of mathematics, one must also allow for truths known a priori. In other words, there are things we can know without the need of experience at all. They are know prior to our experiences. We can make claims about triangles we have never seen. We can know things about parts of the universe we have never visited. These are truths known a priori. Even if a claim arises from some previous experience, it can be known without a specific experience. For example, what we know about one star might arise from what we know about other stars, but it need not be from our experience of that specific star. In this way, the definition of knowledge changes from simply those things we know from science and mathematics to something like justified true belief. In other words, the claim that we can only know things available to our senses with the help of hardware and mathematics remains self-defeating because the claim itself cannot be verified by its own standards of senses, hardware or mathematics.

We can supply numerous other examples of truth claims for which we do not have empirical data, but which are nonetheless reasonable to hold. It is important for any epistemology to admit that there are things we can know that are outside of what Tyson has given us. The important distinction might be that, for things we know scientifically we may have more rigid standards. Because science is a methodology, such methodological constraints may be necessary, but even the acceptance of mathematics betrays the need for reason and truth known a priori. Tyson is not always clear about what we can know, strictly speaking, since he says that “after the laws of physics, everything else is opinion” (Tyson, 37). Of course Tyson believes we can and do have truth; it is likely that he is being clear to hedge his bets in light of the great number of claims that have been shown to be false throughout the history of science. But nevertheless, human reason and its use in our apprehension of truth in the universe cannot logically or consistently be denied, as Tyson himself implicitly affirms, omissions notwithstanding.

Green Cars

My thoughts exactly, from a hilarious review of the new Honda Insight:

"Of course, I am well aware that there are a great many people in the world who believe that the burning of fossil fuels will one day kill all the Dutch and that something must be done.

...

But what about the eco-cost of building the car in the first place?

...

The nickel for the battery has to come from somewhere. Canada, usually. It has to be shipped to Japan, not on a sailing boat, I presume. And then it must be converted, not in a tree house, into a battery, and then that battery must be transported, not on an ox cart, to the Insight production plant in Suzuka. And then the finished car has to be shipped, not by Thor Heyerdahl, to Britain, where it can be transported, not by wind, to the home of a man with a beard who thinks he’s doing the world a favour.

Why doesn’t he just buy a Range Rover, which is made from local components, just down the road? No, really — weird-beards buy locally produced meat and vegetables for eco-reasons. So why not apply the same logic to cars?"

Death of a Bicycle

A brief change of topic is in order to mourn the loss...

Winning the War on Terror

There is this idea--this justification--that after 9/11, everything changes. That is, with regard to the War in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq, and the greater global War on Terror and its efforts at home, the events of September 11, 2001 must effectively restructure our way of life. And furthermore that the ways in which we have previously understood rights and both justice of war and justice in war are now subject to new rules and a radically different conception of what is and is not permissible. For the Bush administration this has meant justified expansion of the use of security forces and the armed services both at home and abroad; for Benjamin Netanyahu it means curtailing some civil liberties and basic rights to assume “an active posture against terror”; for Howard Zinn it means retooling America’s foreign policy to end the military superpower status and reinvent ourselves as the global humanitarian superpower.

Still for others it may be a nonsensical idea in a time when, after 9/11, everything ought to stay the same, with respect to the inalienable rights that lie at the foundation of the Constitution, and out of respect for the fact that, while quite large in scale and totally unjust, terrorism should not be seen as a new threat or as suddenly a more worthy foe now that America has been attacked. In other words, terrorism has long been a tool of fanatics, well known to the US government, and has cost many thousands of lives elsewhere, and should be addressed as such, if there is to be a “war on terror”. Asserting that everything now changes has been perhaps so easy for America to do in part because of what the world granted immediately after the attack in terms of sympathy for the American people and authority in bringing justice to the attackers. That the hijacking of planes was inexcusable was proclaimed virtually across the international board, and in some ways may have led to the posture of the US that it had free reign over the war and was justified on a unlimited basis because of the grotesqueness of the attack. However, once the war began, and the effort extended to the entire notion of terrorism instead of a more narrowly defined goal of only justice against the perpetrators the obvious inconsistency arose whereby the United States had to define terrorism in ways that exempted its own actions that could have fallen under most definitions of terrorism.

Eqbal Ahmad, in an address given in October, 1998 at the University of Colorado at Boulder, pointed out at length this fact that terrorism has not been adequately or officially defined by the United States. He outlined what he called the “official approach” to terrorism, and one of those points is the fact that “the official approach to terrorism is a posture of inconsistency”. Terrorism is approached not intellectually, he contends, but emotionally, where “officials don’t define terrorism because definitions involve a commitment to analysis, comprehension, and adherence to some norms of consistency”. The reasons for this are obvious enough, as public support for military response and might are not aroused by intelligent discourse but by emotional outrage. Not to mention that since the US has at times supported terrorists in Central America and the Middle East against governments, it becomes clear that a strict definition of terrorism would not serve well in a war that is supposed to be about the very eradication of the thing itself.

The other reason for the US avoidance of specific definitions of terrorism is that terrorists change. And not the terrorists, really, at least not always. More specifically, their respective strategic positions with respect to the United States is what is known to change. Where the Zionists in Gaza were terrorists, they became freedom fighters, and where Osama bin Laden was a US ally and became its foremost enemy. This inconsistency is facilitated by the whimsical and shifting notion of what makes a terrorist a terrorist. Indeed, the US has supported any number of objectively terrorist regimes in the name of the lesser of two evils or national self interest all over the world, as Ahmad explains in great detail.

What Ahmad aims at is the idea that if terrorism is to be confronted or defeated it must be understood, not simply hated. His position is that terrorism absolutely has causes, and that the US has historically ignored causes or justifications of any sort and instead shouted down the very idea to say that terrorism is blind, without cause or reason, that terrorists do not have a legitimate position and that the only goal of terrorism is barbarism. Ahmad certainly does not seek to justify terrorism as a legitimate means of communication or resistance, but it is still the case that understanding the motives of the terrorists must be understood if war is to be won against the very option of terror itself. Certainly there is an element of Islamic fundamentalist terror that can be understood as hatred of the West, but to dismiss every action and idea as causeless is to exacerbate the hatred such groups would have for America. The official response to terrorism that Ahmad discussed was given before the September 11 attacks, and deals largely with the historic approach taken by the US government toward terrorism. The fact that it was delivered before the attacks means, of course, that it does not speak to the notion that now everything changes, but perhaps addresses the fact that there remains an overarching issue long ignored and now realized that terrorism as a tool must never be acceptable.

But given that the terrorist attack on 9/11 happened, and with such incredible means and results, a new discussion has begun to take place. While of course ignoring other examples of terrorism, the discussion has been scaled down to specifically Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. What Benjamin Netanyahu has called for is “an active posture against terror” by the United States. What this means, among other things, is that the U.S. ought to seek out terrorists with increased security measures, increased interrogation, limited freedoms for its citizens, and a different set of ideals--one that emphasizes the responsibility to confront terror by means of “overwhelming technological and logistical advantages” over and above any imagined absoluteness of rights and liberties. It means government intelligence watching for terrorist activity day and night, monitoring fringe groups and “employing preemptive surveillance, search and seizure, interrogations, detentions, and prosecutions” whereupon there is evidence of terrorist activity.

This position has been taken by a great number of those on the political right, as well as the Bush administration with the likes of the U.S.A. Patriot Act which, although complicated, allows for many such measures to be employed at the discretion of the government and its information-gathering agencies. It seems like a common sense position at times, and in some respects is--curbing our security forces unnecessarily would certainly be inadmissible. But what seems striking is that the same people who generally do not support government intervention into things like the markets because of the government’s patent inefficiency and bureaucratic, cumbersome nature suddenly give full faith and credit to the same government as if those issues will cease to be. That somehow the government will be effective and precise in this department--and in it alone--is obviously flawed. This becomes even more so when the intelligence is part of Homeland Security, which is often just local authorities without proper training and the wholesale firestorm against any idea which seems to be out-of-bounds, whether it is a terrorist group or not. Simply pointing to behaviors in which terrorists might engage (even pamphleteering or indoctrination) does not expose terrorists necessarily.

Netanyahu properly points out that we have never had absolute free speech, and may have some reasonable restrictions placed upon it. For him, this extends to any number of other rights, and their being stunted by the government in the fight against terrorism is necessary. He claims that to not limit these freedoms and risk not defeating terrorism is to also deny basic human rights; those that are under attack when terrorism strikes. So it becomes in this sense a trade-off. Either rights are monitored during security concerns or terrorists may have an easier path to terror, which will also limit freedom. This argument is not without merit, but seems problematic for the very reason that those who have access to security and intelligence will inform the public about what the dangers are, and the public will be forced to believe the government, handing in its claims on rights, therefore leaning squarely on the government for what they previously held claim to not because the government granted it to them, but because God did. Those rights that the Constitution exclaimed could never be taken away are now doled out by the government only when it is safe to do so, effectively silencing the public during times of war. Duty and subordination are simply sold to the public because of a terrifying and eminent threat--emotion over intellect--and limited social institutions like religion and the press will have a difficult time holding accountable those at the top.

Netanyahu believes that anti-terror measures and limited rights for a time are successful ways to combat the evil of terrorism, and he points out the various countries around the world who have done so. Britain, Germany, Italy and France, he says, have all established anti-terror guidelines and systems that many would see as a denial of civil liberties. They all had a moment of clarity that forced their hands, so to speak, and although this particular argument was made prior to 9/11, Netanyahu would presumably conclude that we should now have reached America’s moment; that after 9/11, everything changes.

Professor Howard Zinn has proposed a vastly different approach to the whole notion of fighting terrorism. Writing early on in the War in Afghanistan, and even before the War in Iraq or the greater War on Terrorism, he saw in the fight a just cause, but a patently unjust war. Our techniques and methods of bombing cities was tantamount to terrorism itself, killing innocent civilians and displacing entire cities at a time. Without entering the messy business of what justice in war truly means, it is sufficient to note that the U.S. has, at times, engaged in the killing of civilians that, even if necessary or unavoidable for some cause or another would be regarded as a terrorist activity by many around the world. Zinn’s conclusion is that our military presence and tactics have incited much of the anger toward us, and a committed policy of humanitarianism over militarism would quell many of the angers and hostilities of the world. We stop fighting evil, perhaps, with the goal of removing some of its fuel and take an absolute stance on the moral high ground in not engaging the terrorist.

Both strategies seem to fly in the face of what America’s foreign and domestic policies have hoped to achieve. We have typically fought evil abroad (if reluctantly), and protected rights at home (except, of course, for Japanese Americans in WWII and other isolated but unacceptable moments of thievery of rights). And while both seem to distinguish themselves from the norm in unsavory ways, they both also hold an appeal to most people. Many have granted the government the power to do what needs to be done and given away certain freedoms. Many others are sympathetic to the idea that we could use defense spending on humanitarian aid and more positively affect the world. That this would do anything to stop the hatred of terrorist organizations though is, of course, debatable. One strategy has the proven techniques of anti-terrorist campaigns in its corner, the other the high-flown hopes of changing the terrorist mindset and removing American forces from areas which could be perhaps better served food than bombs.

Richard Falk wrote just days after the 9/11 attack that the military would need to exercise restraint and diligence in defeating terrorism because its nature means that it is “a war without military solutions... a war in which the pursuit of the traditional military goal of ‘victory’ is almost certain to intensify the challenge and spread the violence.” Falk is identifying the same type of issue as Ahmad in the need for America to seriously entertain the notion of causation in terrorist threats and attacks. He also lobbied for the type of multilateralism that would embrace sympathy from the world instead of the type of unilateralism that would undoubtedly turn the tide of support to anger and resentment. What happened is what Falk feared, a sort of military overreaction.

In addition to multilateralism and United Nations Security Council authorization, Falk argues that “if retaliatory action fails to abide by [international law and the just war tradition]...then it will be seen by most as replicating the fundamental evil of terrorism...as violence directed against those who are innocent and against civilian society.” This is of course a similar argument to the one made earlier by Howard Zinn, that our just cause becomes an unjust war when it displaces and disregards communities and makes casualties of innocent civilians. Even the most staunch of those against the UN and against the need of a world community for self defense should find attractive the notion that America would continue to uphold those things it aims to stand for, that make it worth defending in the first place. World support both militarily and monetarily would likely stem from America upholding the sanctity of innocent life and justice in war. Certainly the Bush Administration called upon the world for support against the terrorist regimes, and Falk further suggests that “a struggle against global terrorism even in its narrowest sense would require the most intense forms of intergovernmental cooperation ever experienced in the history of international relations.” Reducing the sole burden from America of defender of Western values like secularism and pluralism, freedom and democracy would be advisable and welcomed, but would require a different approach with regard to how Washington viewed the world beforehand.

Winning the War on Terrorism has become so vague and complicated a notion that its justification for continuance is as shady as ever. Winning the war might mean becoming less militarized and more humanitarian; it may mean limiting freedoms for a time to militarily strike the ability of terrorist cells to operate. Or it may, on the other hand, mean entirely reconfiguring the way the US views terrorism. It might mean that we no longer respond unilaterally to terrorism and that we consider it something to be understood, not as a viable means but as the reaction to something in the world, valid or otherwise. It might mean the assured destruction of all known terrorist camps and supporters, but that meaning would perpetually struggle with the simple fact that ideas do not often die with people, and the underlying contempt would almost certainly persist.

That terrorism is unacceptable has been well established by all reasonable parties in the discourse on justice and war. Without a doubt, the United States was justified in wanting justice and action against its attackers. But not all agree on what exactly should be the appropriate path toward such justice, and now, seven years after the attack the notion that after 9/11, everything changes may be at the end of its road. Although clearly an attack so large means that some things will change. The world has seen terrorism, however loosely and incoherently defined, brought to the forefront of international discourse. Although, for many in the world it was already the case, now America has simply tuned in. Decent people all over the world have hated terrorism and terrorist organizations in the Middle East and elsewhere for many years, but now that America has acted militarily is ways so similar to them they may have invited the same reaction to its shores as against the terrorists themselves.

Richard Falk succinctly summarized that the US could not itself seem to be a terrorist group, or in any way appear to fall in line with state terrorism, while at the same time condemning the terrorist organizations. “Such a double standard,” he wrote, “will damage the indispensable effort to draw a credible distinction between the criminality of the attack and the legitimacy of the retaliation.” We have seen this to be the case, and we shall continue to so long as the flag is permitted to fly that says, after 9/11, everything changes.

The proper response may take parts from all those previously mentioned--curtailed rights, humanitarianism, an understanding of terrorism--but they must all be subordinate to the very idea that, regardless of what is done to the United States--if it is what we have always said it is--that some things ought to change and some things ought not to. There must be a change in the US understanding of the need for world support and there must be some definitions on what winning the war really means. But there must not be a change with respect to how the US approaches justice and there must not be a change in the manner in which its citizens are dealt with. Overbearing security measures and a redefining of freedom in the name of defeating an unknown enemy will never be the means by which a war should be fought or won. To say that now things must change because of the magnitude of that terrible day is to bring into question what the principles this country rests upon are really worth, and to defiantly supersede what the world already knows in terms of terrorism and war. It is possible and desirable that the United States should cling to its vociferously proclaimed standards and ideals and resist the urge to militarily dominate this enemy, thereby winning the war for any and all who hope to continually celebrate upon those lofty and hard-fought mountaintops of liberty and justice for all.

(written in December, 2008)

See also:

Benjamin Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism. “The Question of Civil Liberties" 1995. Pgs. 27-50.

Howard Zinn, "A Just Cause, Not a Just War" December, 2001, The Progressive.

Eqbal Ahmad, Terrorism: Theirs and Ours. Seven Stories Press, New York, 2001.

Mathematical Truth and Philosophy

Curtis J. Metcalfe
April 24, 2009

There lies at the heart of mathematics an assumed premise that it provides truth. We are taught
that the truth of mathematics is real, absolute, and indubitable. Mathematics, to the dismay of so many students, has right and wrong answers. It has explicit values and formulas. It is true and works at all times and for all people. It is eternal. Isnʼt it?

Math homework has been handed back covered in red ink that proclaims, “Yes!” But how can we
know that the truths of mathematics are, in fact, true? And even if they are, how do we have access to them? And do they give us truth about the world outside of mathematics, or is it merely a closed system, true but vacuous? By exploring first logic and the use of language, as well as the history of philosophy of mathematics, we can move toward the understanding of more complex systems of symbols and probabilities and can see how, in logic and philosophy, we attempt to derive truth from our language in much the same way we derive truth from mathematics and, indeed, vice versa.

RULES OF LOGIC
To the uninitiated it may seem strange that the most basic element of reason is actually an
argument. But in this way we are not arguing (in the usual sense) so much as arguing for a
conclusion.1 Properly understood, an argument is a defense of a particular position where we use one or more premise(s) to justify our arrival at a conclusion. We can take the following argument for example:
1. All human beings are born, not hatched.
2. I am a human being.
3. Therefore, I was born, not hatched.
So then, (1) and (2) are the premises and (3) is the conclusion. We see that if both of the premises are correct, the conclusion must be correct. It is utterly unavoidable. However, we do not have quite the truth we are looking for yet, since arguments are only (in this sense) defined by their form, not their content. An argument with false premises and a false conclusion, in proper form, is still valid. In this way, an argument cannot be said to be true or false, only valid or invalid. Only statements can be true or false.

This is a fundamental truth of symbolic logic. So to get sentences into a form manageable by a
system of formal logic, we use variables and symbols, whereby a sentence that reads, “either I am awake or I am asleep,” can be represented by, “p or q,” where p represents “I am awake,” and q represents “I am asleep.” Or, written in symbolic form, p∨q, where ∨ is the connective “or.”
Further, if p is true and q is true, then p∨q is true; if either p or q is false, p ∨ q remains true; if
both p and q are false, p ∨ q is false. We will return to the use of symbols later on.

We can set up such universal scenarios as these with truth tables for many other argument forms
and rules of inference, but it is sufficient for our purposes to understand that we can, on at least the level shown so far, use declaratory statements in simple forms, universally replaced by variables and computed in a way that shows the validity of our argument. Nevertheless, we must mind our propositions and carefully examine how we set up our arguments. For example, the argument form if p, then q; and p, therefore q is obviously valid. It is also valid for us to say, if p, then q; and ~q, therefore ~p. However, to conclude either ~p therefore ~q or q therefore p are invalid.2 But, one might wonder, what have we really shown to be true? At most, we have come up with some statements that under some circumstance may be true and at other times may not be. These statements surely are not necessary but contingent on some other set of facts, which is not the way we generally take mathematics to work. Logic, though it can be written in a mathematical form (as we will see with more complexity later), is only superficially related to mathematics in most instances. Clearly we do not place mathematics and language in the same discipline, so there must be differences.

RULES OF MATHEMATICS
Humanist philosopher and mathematician Reuben Hersch calls the method of mathematics
“conjecture and proof.”3 In this sense it is traditionally only mathematics that can claim to have a “proof” of anything, where a mathematical statement is shown to be true, necessarily. We say that 2+2=4 necessarily, and anyone who understand the terms “2” “+” and “4” as (1+1)+(1+1)
cannot deny the fact. But explaining exactly what a proof is can be a difficult if not impossible task, outside of understanding that it is, at least, how one convinces another of a theorem or conclusion.4 So it is this type of proof we are hoping to be able to apply to other areas, where we can show our conclusions in such a way that they are unavoidable, beyond doubt.

HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS AND PHILOSOPHY
The history of mathematics and philosophy, (philosophy of mathematics) is a lesson far too complex to address here. However, a few thinkers in particular can be seen as points on our line worth stopping to consider. The giants in both ancient and modern philosophy have sought to incorporate mathematics into their ideas. Platoʼs idea of mathematical objects existing immaterially in the perfect world of the Forms where the ideal version of everything exists is largely the framework by which mathematicians still work, aware of it or not. The absolute truths of mathematics exist, thought Plato, in the same way the perfect form of every abstract idea does. When one thinks of the color blue, it isnʼt some certain blue, but the very form of blue. Likewise, the idea of table must exist perfectly and immaterially in the realm of the forms in order that we recognize every individual, different table as having those categories essential for tableness. Or, when one has the idea of tiger it is surely not just one individual tiger, so that an actual tiger would cease to be recognizable because of its deviation from that one tiger in our mind. Somehow, we must have a notion, Plato thought, of tigerness, and it must be in the immaterial world of the Forms. Other philosophers like Descartes attempted to arrive at things in life so certain and indubitable, so clear and distinct, as the truths of mathematics, and Spinoza modeled his Ethics in a Euclidian fashion of axioms and theorems. David Hume accepted the truths of math only insofar as they gave vacuous truth, mere tautologies. The truth of 7+5=12 may hold, but gives us no truth about the universe. Math is like a game that we invented with arbitrary rules, so while even if it is true, it is contingent.

We can quite easily, perhaps, feel like Plato might have had a critical idea, but the idea of an
immaterial world presents some problems. How do we interact with it? How do immaterial and
material coincide? Does it not seem just as plausible that we abstract the general idea from the
specific experience? How can we have an idea of a tiger with no specific qualities, yet still call it a
tiger? Even if every mathematical truth is existent somewhere, somehow, how could we ever know it? It seems like there are problems, to be sure. But is the alternative better? Is math only a
game? We could imagine this being so in light of the use of language that is so necessary in
mathematics, but we also realize that mathematics just simply works too well, too often, and
(especially in physics and cosmology) too far away. But let us, for now, consider more deeply how mathematics applies to truth and philosophy and place the former questions on hold.

APPLICATION
So although there is considerable debate about the nature of mathematics and the absoluteness
thereof, we may consider certain axioms and rules in our language as they are used in areas such
as symbolic logic and probability calculus. By using symbols in a system of sentential, deductive
logic, we see a system very reminiscent of algebra. Indeed, “mathematics uses deductive logic to
get its results.”5 What follows will be several examples of each, as well as the mathematic
principles that help make them so.

SYMBOLIC LOGIC
Sentential logic deals with translating sentences with a truth-value into symbols.6 We symbolize
words like and, or, then, not and therefore.7 We can use the variables p and q to represent generic sentences, and constants (A,B,C, etc.) to represent specific sentences. Consider the sentence, “Alfred and Bill are funny.” We could say it differently, that, “Alfred is funny and Bill is funny,” or (A⋅B). If we say “Alfred is funny and Bill is not funny,” (A⋅¬B). Or, “Alfred is not funny and Bill is not funny,” (¬A⋅¬B) or (¬A⋅B). So the sentence “Alfred is funny or Bill is funny” is symbolized as (A∨B) and “Either Alfred is funny or Bill is funny, but not both is {(A∨B)⋅¬(A⋅B)}. Here one will notice the use of brackets and parentheses just as in an equation in algebra, and for the same sort of purposes. For example, (6× 2)÷3 ≠ 6×(2÷3). In the same way, (A⋅ B)∨C≠ A⋅(B∨C). To see what this looks like in predicate logic (where a property is ascribed to some individual entity), we can use the following argument.8

1.A temporal world exists. Te
2.God is omniscient. Og
3.If a temporal world exists, then if God is omniscient, God knows tensed facts. Te⊃(Og⊃Kg)
4.If God is timeless, He does not know tensed facts. (Tg⊃¬Kg)
¬(¬Kg)
5.Therefore, God is not timeless.
∴¬Tg

By assuming the truth of the statements, we can test for the validity of the argument. So, for
example, in (3) we see that if Og, then Kg, and since we established the truth of Og in (2) and the
first half in (1), then (3) is valid. In (4) we have if Tg then not Kg, but since we established in (3)
the truth of Kg, we can deduce (5), not not Kg, and therefore (6) not Tg.
Notice we have not determined the truth or falsity of the argument, only the validity. The validity of an argument is shown “if and only if it is not possible for all of its premises to be true and its conclusion false. If all premises of a valid argument are true, then its conclusion must be true also.”9 The conclusion is inescapable. So even though the truth of each premise may be dubitable, as long as it follows this form and these rules and the conclusion follows logically, it is valid. We can show one more example, also from an argument in Dr. Craigʼs “Timelessness and
Omnitemporality” where t represents any time prior to creation and n some finite interval of time:

1.If the past in infinite, then at t God delayed creating until t+n. Ip⊃Dg
2.If at t God delayed creating until t+n, then He must have had a good reason for doing so.
Dg⊃Rg
3. Ip⊃Rg
4.If the past in infinite, God cannot have had a good reason for delaying at t creating until t+n.
Ip⊃¬Rg
5. (Ip⊃Rg⋅ Ip⊃¬Rg)
6.Therefore, if the past in infinite, God must have had a good reason for delaying at t and God
cannot have had a good reason for delaying at t. Ip⊃(Rg⋅¬Rg)
7.Therefore, the past is not infinite. ∴¬Ip

(3)is not found in the argument explicitly, but is established by Hypothetical Syllogism from (1) and (2), where, if Ip then Dg and if Dg then Rg therefore (3) if Ip then Rg. And similarly, (5) is the addition of (3) and (4). In this way we could say symbolic logic looks like algebra. But could we say it has anything to do with numbers, or is it actually only a superficial similarity? To see a system of logic and philosophy that deals with mathematics in a more numerical way, we turn to probability.

PROBABILITY CALCULUS
Properly understood, a probability is the likeliness of something happening or not. In mathematics and philosophy we use probability calculations to determine how sound a belief is or how likely some outcome or another is. A probability will have a value between 0 and 1, with 0 being impossible and 1 being certain. What probability calculations give us, then, is a quantity with which to asses truth. Perhaps this is what we are looking for. First, consider the probability that two dependent events will have a certain outcome. We can write it in the following way to say that the probability of B given A equals the probability of B and A over the probability of A.
Prob (B| A)=Prob(B∩A)/Prob (A)

There are some general rules to consider 10:
1. Restricted Conjunction Rule
Prob (A⋅B)=Prob (A)×Prob (B)

2. General Conjunction Rule
Prob (A⋅B)=Prob (A)×Prob (B| A)

3. Restricted Disjunction Rule
Prob (A∨B)=Prob (A)+Prob (B)

4. General Disjunction Rule
Prob (A∨B)=Prob (A)+Prob (B)−Prob (A⋅B)

5. Prob (A⋅¬A)=0

6. Prob (A∨¬A)=1

7. Prob (¬A)=1−Prob(A)

But a more complicated probability is the inverse probability of Bayesʼ Theorem, which, in itʼs
general form is

Prob (q| p)= Prob (q)×Prob (p|q) / [Prob (q1)×Prob (p|q1)+…+ Prob (qn)×Prob (p|qn)]

But what does all of this probability calculus amount to? What does it give us? In their argument
against the claim that the fine-tuning of the universe can be used as evidence for an intelligent
designer, Michael Ikeda and Bill Jefferys have given the following argument in the form of
probability 11:

Prob (F&L&¬N)=Prob (L| F&¬N)Prob (F|¬N)Prob(¬N)<<1

What this says is that the probability of the conditions in the universe being life-Friendly, and the universe existing and containing Life and that the universe is not governed solely by Naturalistic laws equals the probability of the universe containing Life given that the universe is life-Friendly and not governed solely by Naturalistic laws times the probability of the universe being life-Friendly given that the universe is not governed solely by Naturalistic laws times the probability that the universe is not governed solely by Naturalistic laws is all less than 1. That the sentence is complex and far from our task at hand is obvious, but what must also be true is that, given all the multiplication of the probabilities, for it to be less than 1, at least one of Prob (L| F&¬N), Prob (F|¬N), or Prob (¬N) is quite small.12 In other words, some of the values (such as L) have a known value (in this case, 1). The entire argument is in fact conditioned against that value. With this argument Ikeda and Jeffereys hope to show that in any case the Prob (¬N) is very small, or that Prob (F) is also small. Whether they are correct (or on which count) is of course debatable (we are dealing in probabilities here), but it is clear that they are using the inverse probability to show their position.

CONCLUSION
All of these equations and calculuses are examples of the way we can use the form and method of
mathematics in our use of language and philosophy. But what have we learned? Is there anything that can be set in stone? Is anything indubitable? Whether the truths of mathematics are true at all times for all people in all places, (another galaxy?) or whether they are contingently true given some constants such as the gravitational pull or the laws of motion or a certain set of axioms, they seem to at least give us the ability to establish truth if only in limited ways. But does the fact that 2+2 might have a different sum in another possible world qualify it for the scrap heap of subjective judgements? It certainly seems not. So what nearly every philosopher and mathematician has assumed can be held given the fact that we can have such interdisciplinary application of formula and equation. Perhaps, then, it is not the case that mathematical truths must be eternal, but do we have need of such certainty? The conversation tends to drift away from the mathematician on the possibilities of a dualism which does not seem to arise from material causes or the ontological status of abstract and mathematical
objects, even if it is a hidden assumption of the working mathematician. That the mathematician or empirical scientist does not like the conclusion does not, of course, render it untrue, but it may present difficulties that need to be addressed. And indeed, the incredibly specialized and complex mathematics behind these assumptions may be outside the comfort of most philosophers, but one can confidently proceed on both fronts having established that mathematics and logic work in tandem to give us some analytic tools necessary to deduce truths about the workings of the world around us.

FOOTNOTES
1
Alan Hausman, Howard Kahane, Paul Tidman, Logic and Philosophy, (Thomson Wadsworth)
2007, p. 1
2
Antony Flew, How to Think Straight, (Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York) 1998, pp. 35-36.
3
Reuben Hersch,What is Mathematics, Really? (Oxford University Press) 1997, p. 5
4
For a more in depth look at the problems with proof and certainty see Hersh, chapter 4, and for the nature of mathematics see chapter 1. His argument is that mathematics are essentially social
constructs and do not transcend their own limitations and that numbers in our language operate
both as verbs and nouns and cannot have the sort of reliability we normally assign to them in any metaphysical or transcendent sense. The sum of the interior angles of a triangle are only 180
degrees exactly on a perfect triangle, and only on a Euclidian plane. Outside of Euclidian Geometry such a claim becomes dubitable. “Euclidʼs Fifth” axiom, if it is false, changes the very claim about triangles and their interior angles. However, he does not buy David Humeʼs contention that mathematics is “only a game” for various reasons, also external to our discussion. For our study, we will work inside the axioms traditionally set up, leaving the arbitrariness thereof for other discussions.
5
Hausman, et al., p. 21
6
Ibid., p. 22
7
We might, for example, see the following symbols and connectors: and ⋅; or ∨; if/then ⊃; if and
only if ≡; not ¬; therefore ∴
8
William Lane Craig, “Timelessness and Omnitemporality” Philosophia Christi, Series 2, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2000, pp. 29-33. His arguments are found only in the original sentence form, not in symbols, which have been added to show how these symbols work in argument and form.
9
Hausman, et al., p. 17.
10
Ibid., pp. 400-401.
11
Michael Ikeda & Bill Jefferys, “The Anthropic Principle Does Not Support Supernaturalism”, http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html, 2006. The paper is quite long and uses many different probabilistic arguments, only one of which is shown here as a use of the calculus with respect to an argument from philosophy.
12
Each of these gives a different scenario, such that the traditional concept of a deity is undermined with respect to the Anthropic Argument. None of them are particularly important to our discussion, as we are only attempting to show how the calculus applies, bridging the gap between the disciplines.

Kierkegaard On Preaching and Eloquence

from For Self-Examination, p. 3;

He who is going to preach ought to live in the Christian thoughts and concepts--they ought to be his daily life. If that is the case--and it is the intention of Christianity--you also will have eloquence enough and that very thing which is required when you give an impromptu talk. On the other hand, the power of eloquence is fallacious if anyone without otherwise occupying himself with these thoughts, without living into them, now and then sits and laboriously gathers such thoughts together, perhaps in the fields of literature, and thereupon works them together into a well-prepared speech which is then well memorized and excellently delivered both in respect to voice and diction and gesticulation. No, just as one in a well-equipped house needs not go downstairs to get water but has it on tap--one merely turns on the faucet--so that one is a genuine Christian speaker who has the power of eloquence every moment, has the real, true power of eloquence present, right at hand--because the Christ-like is his life.

A.N. Wilson's Return to Belief

Read the very excellent entire piece here.

Excerpts from "Why I believe again"
A N Wilson

Published 02 April 2009, New Statesman

But religion, once the glow of conversion had worn off, was not a matter of argument alone. It involves the whole person. Therefore I was drawn, over and over again, to the disconcerting recognition that so very many of the people I had most admired and loved, either in life or in books, had been believers. Reading Louis Fischer’s Life of Mahatma Gandhi, and following it up with Gandhi’s own autobiography, The Story of My Experiments With Truth, I found it impossible not to realise that all life, all being, derives from God, as Gandhi gave his life to demonstrate. Of course, there are arguments that might make you doubt the love of God. But a life like Gandhi’s, which was focused on God so deeply, reminded me of all the human qualities that have to be denied if you embrace the bleak, muddled creed of a materialist atheist. It is a bit like trying to assert that music is an aberration, and that although Bach and Beethoven are very impressive, one is better off without a musical sense. Attractive and amusing as David Hume was, did he confront the complexities of human existence as deeply as his contemporary Samuel Johnson, and did I really find him as interesting?

...

Do materialists really think that language just “evolved”, like finches’ beaks, or have they simply never thought about the matter rationally? Where’s the evidence? How could it come about that human beings all agreed that particular grunts carried particular connotations? How could it have come about that groups of anthropoid apes developed the amazing morphological complexity of a single sentence, let alone the whole grammatical mystery which has engaged Chomsky and others in our lifetime and linguists for time out of mind? No, the existence of language is one of the many phenomena – of which love and music are the two strongest – which suggest that human beings are very much more than collections of meat. They convince me that we are spiritual beings, and that the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true. As a working blueprint for life, as a template against which to measure experience, it fits.

...

For a few years, I resisted the admission that my atheist-conversion experience had been a bit of middle-aged madness. I do not find it easy to articulate thoughts about religion. I remain the sort of person who turns off Thought for the Day when it comes on the radio. I am shy to admit that I have followed the advice given all those years ago by a wise archbishop to a bewildered young man: that moments of unbelief “don’t matter”, that if you return to a practice of the faith, faith will return.

When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love. It is not that (as they believe) they have rumbled the tremendous fraud of religion – prophets do that in every generation. Rather, these unbelievers are simply missing out on something that is not difficult to grasp. Perhaps it is too obvious to understand; obvious, as lovers feel it was obvious that they should have come together, or obvious as the final resolution of a fugue.

...

I haven’t mentioned morality, but one thing that finally put the tin hat on any aspirations to be an unbeliever was writing a book about the Wagner family and Nazi Germany, and realising how utterly incoherent were Hitler’s neo-Darwinian ravings, and how potent was the opposition, much of it from Christians; paid for, not with clear intellectual victory, but in blood. Read Pastor Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics, and ask yourself what sort of mad world is created by those who think that ethics are a purely human construct. Think of Bonhoeffer’s serenity before he was hanged, even though he was in love and had everything to look forward to.

My departure from the Faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. My return was slow, hesitant, doubting. So it will always be; but I know I shall never make the same mistake again. Gilbert Ryle, with donnish absurdity, called God “a category mistake”. Yet the real category mistake made by atheists is not about God, but about human beings. Turn to the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge – “Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice and you will be convinced at once . . . ‘The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’.” And then Coleridge adds: “‘And man became a living soul.’ Materialism will never explain those last words.”

This piece is so excellent. I don't care about scoring points by noting which atheists have changed their minds. Rather, I am taken aback by the deeply emotional and honest depiction of a man who, learned and serious, has met intellectual issues with the devastating sting of what it means to be human. That God is difficult to comprehend is a given; that His love seems sometimes distant or gone is admitted; that He still provides and manifests Himself so perfectly to all who are willing to hear is the most wonderful and glorious truth of all. I aim constantly for a better understanding of God, His existence, His attributes, His nature, His truth, and do not generally look down upon science or the natural explanations given thereby. But perhaps there is a part of life itself, that part pricked by Wilson, which exposes so majestically the near-infinitely narrow scope of human understanding. Indeed, "we are spiritual beings, and...the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true."

Amen.

[All italics mine]

Rainy Days

5 superb rainy day records:

Unwed Sailor, The Faithful Anchor
The World on Higher Downs, Land Patterns
Mono & World's End Girlfriend, Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain
Bitcrush, Epilogue in Waves
Yndi Halda, Enjoy Eternal Bliss

Maybe someday I can live where the rain and fog never dry or clear.

Vox Day on the Problem of Evil

The answer of evil
Posted: April 13, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

© 2009

For more than 2,000 years, men have wrestled with the so-called problem of evil. Presumed to have first been formulated by the Greek philosopher Epicurus and also known as the Epicurean Paradox, the problem concerns balancing the obvious existence of evil with belief in the existence of God. How, Epicurus wondered, could evil and an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God exist simultaneously? Centuries later, the problem was addressed by the Scottish historian and philosopher David Hume, who considered the matter in his "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion." Hume wrote:

Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

The most obvious flaws in these proposed problems lies not so much with their logic, as with their improper definitions and misapplications to specific religions. For example, it is clear that the omnibenevolence queried by Epicurus does not fit the description of the biblical God, due to the way the biblical God's curse on various individuals and nations is chronicled throughout the Bible. It's worth noting, however, that Epicurus is not believed to have ever applied his paradox to the biblical God for the very good reason that he died in 270 B.C. Hume, on the other hand, does not have the benefit of the same excuse, and indeed, the error in his formulation verges on intellectual dishonesty. For no competent philosopher could possibly describe an unwillingness to prevent evil as requiring malevolence. While it would be reasonable to describe one who causes evil as malevolent, the worst accusation that can be reasonably hurled at one who merely fails to prevent evil is one of indifference. This may explain why Epicurus formulated his paradox as a justification for a philosophy of indifferent stoicism, not as a logical argument against the existence of God.

However, the main reason that the problem of evil has no reasonable application to Christianity is that the entire basis of the Christian religion is predicated on the existence of evil. Without evil, Christianity makes no sense. It has no purpose, its Savior has accomplished nothing, and Christians are, in the words of the Apostle Paul, "of all people most to be pitied." Christianity absolutely requires the observable existence of evil, for both logical and documentary reasons.

The Bible is very clear on the existence of evil. It even goes so far as to explain, in part, the immutable evil of human nature. The Old Testament is full of one party or another doing "evil in the eyes of the Lord"; the phrase resounds like an ominous drumbeat leading toward the ultimate fall of the kingdom of Israel. The New Testament, for its part, repeatedly describes the world as an evil place ruled by an evil spirit, the customs of which the believer is to avoid. In fact, there is no science more readily falsifiable than Christianity, as finding a single individual, just one single man or woman, entirely free from sin will suffice to dismiss Christian theology once and for all time.

If evil did not exist, then man would not be condemned by God. If man were not condemned by God, there would have been no reason for Jesus Christ to incarnate, to die and to rise again to pay the price of man's redemption. Therefore, while one may use the problem of evil to argue against the existence of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God, only an irrational fool would attempt to use the problem of evil as the basis of an argument against the existence of the Christian God or the tenets of the Christian faith.

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.

– John 7:7

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, Christians celebrate a risen Lord Jesus Christ. We celebrate him because we know the evil of the world, we know the evil of our hearts and we know he has defeated them. Christus resurrexit! Resurrexit vere!

The Problem of Evil, Final

So I didn't really post many of my thoughts as I went, because it's time consuming. But here is the anti-climactic paper. It's so short I really can't get much into it, especially since in this context I have to talk about Descartes and his "solution" even though he is really addressing a pretty limited and narrow scope, as it pertained to his Meditation. Anyways... here it is:



"God either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or he is able and unwilling; or he is neither willing nor able, or he is both willing and able. If he is willing and is unable, he is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if he is able and unwilling, he is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if he is neither willing nor able he is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if he is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? or why does he not remove them?”1

Neither a new problem before the 1st Century, nor a forgotten one in the 21st, the problem of evil seems to be almost obviously understood. As Epicurus asked, how can evil and God be reconciled? That is, if we suppose there is a God who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving, how can we account for the presence of evil in the world? What we typically mean by the problem of evil is that we see evil both moral and natural all around, and so to suppose that a wholly good and powerful God exists is to present a logical contradiction. If God can rid the world of evil (is omnipotent), and if God desires to get rid of evil (is omnibenevolent), how can it be that evil exists, other than to conclude that God does not?

Descartes understood the problem when it arose in his Fourth Meditation. As he sought to find that which was clear and distinct, he had to account for error. In other words, if some things were clearly not clear, it must be because he is finite and limited. But, since he had a clear and distinct idea of God, he found it necessary to explain how his imperfections could come from a perfect Being. Establishing that error was a defect, a privation, it could not be blamed on God. And God, of course, cannot deceive or cause us to err if he is God at all.2

Descartes saw that God is necessarily perfect, infinite and complete, and that he himself is not. If the opposite of God is nothingness, then he finds himself caught somewhere in between this nothingness and the totality of God, and is therefore sufficiently convinced that error is due to the finite nature of his knowledge and will. And, moreover, that he wills further than he understands, which is the ultimate cause of his own error. Because he wills what he does not understand, he loses sight of what is clear and distinct, abandoning that which God has given him the ability to know and therefore deceives himself and falls into sin.3

For Descartes, there is now a clear and distinct idea of why it is that he commits errors. God is not to blame, and it is not merely that he chooses to do wrong. It is the case that his intellect and will, and the freedom in which they operate, are not sufficiently in sync.4 But it is not clear how this explains the assumed contradiction between God’s goodness and evil in the world. Even if Descartes can explain his finite intellect and will, he has not properly answered for God’s allowing evil to persist in any other form.

But given that perhaps Descartes never set out to solve such a problem in the context of his Meditations, which were purely to find out what he could know “indubitably”. We can carry on this discussion in the way it has traditionally been framed: that if God were God, he would end the evil and suffering in the world because He would desire to and be able to. To properly understand this argument, a proper form may be illuminating. That is, (1) There is a God who is all-powerful and all-loving, and (2) Evil exists. This is a problem initially of logic, although it has never been shown how this provides an actual, explicit logical contradiction.5 Typically there are at least 2 hidden assumptions within this argument. First, that if God is all-powerful, He can prevent evil and second, that if God is all-good, He would prevent it. These assumptions hold that God could create beings who always freely choose what is good, and that God could end all natural evil.

But, this argument, on these assumptions, is purely speculative, and if it is even possible that humans have free will, our first and second assumptions are not necessarily true. Again, that both an all-good and all-powerful God exist and that evil exists is no contradiction. So the most basic of claims to the contrary is defeated. The problem in sum may not be, but holding this set of assertions is.

J.L. Mackie brings about a second problem, however, which is the question of egregious, gratuitous evil, and especially nature evil that does not hinge on human free will.6 That is, that there is an inconsistency between the God of love and the vastness of evil. But again, there are hidden assumptions here to reckon with.

First, we assume that there is more evil than there ought to be in the world. That is, we assume God could have still allowed some evil (especially of the moral sort) but less natural evil. But it is possible that God could not have created a world with less evil and kept the same amount of good. It is possible that God has allowed the current amount of evil because it brings about the most possible good for humankind. It is further possible that with the total eradication of evil there would not be good at all, which would be contrary to the attributes the theistic God is generally thought to have.

Truly, the assumption in terms of how we view the quantity of evil really betrays the position that we believe we have any ground to stand on in judging God’s moral decisions. It is completely possible that if God has sufficient moral reasons for allowing any evil (e.g., hardship causes us to grow and mature), then God could have morally sufficient reasons to allow all evil. To argue to the contrary is pure speculation.

Furthermore, as finite, limited beings, we are not capable of establishing where God is justified and where he is not. We must admit that there are a vast amount of evils or difficulties or sufferings in which we cannot immediately see a reason, but which later may make sense or be capable of being explained in a larger, historical or even personal context. The God who is all-powerful is also outside of space and time and transcends the limitations which are often to blame for our anger or misunderstanding of evil. It is simply unreasonable to assume that if God had morally sufficient reasons for allowing some evil that we would know what those reasons are.

This all amounts, of course, not to an actual theodicy. In this context, what is primary is to establish a defense. That is to say, to show that the problem of evil is not the problem it seems to be, one must only show that it is not logically impossible or incompatible for God and evil to exist. To establish a theodicy, or reason for why, exactly, God allows evil, is perhaps important, but is a separate endeavor from our present one of a defense of the theistic God in terms of the evil present in the world.

So what Descartes saw as his finite ability to know as far as he wills, and the separation between himself and God can be helpful in this regard. We ought not throw up our hands in despair, nor do we let God off the hook because He is God and we just cannot know. We ought not appeal to mystery or ignorance, but we make careful our assumptions and think clearly about our response to problems. Taken in isolation, the problem of evil is problematic, but in sum it approaches nothing near a contradiction or crushing blow.

Citations

1. Epicurus (341-270 B.C.), quoted by Lactantuis (A.D. 260-340) in William Dyrness' Christian Apologetics in a World Community (Inter-Varsity Press, 1983), p. 153.

2. Rene Descartes Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, "Meditation Four" (Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 82-83.

3. Ibid, p. 85.

4. Ibid, p. 86-87.

5. See various speeches and writings of Dr. William Lane Craig and J.L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1982) pp. 154-155.

The Problem of Evil, Part 1

I have due in a week or so a paper on the Problem of Evil. The problem is well-traveled, and is indeed a problem. But, as we have seen, problems are not beyond what we can overcome, and may indeed have an answer. No need to through out the baby with the bathwater on this one.

I have a stack of books to go through, so I will be using this space to sort out their individual contributions, and perhaps also my final thoughts. To begin the process, a very brief introduction can be given by Alister McGrath in his Christian Theology.

The problem, he briefly states as: "How can the presence of evil or suffering be reconciled with the Christian affirmation of the goodness of the God who created the world?" (263) He begins with Irenaeus, who, like many Greeks of his time, saw humans as potential. It is the case for these thinkers that humans have the capacity and ability to develop, and have within them ultimately this potentiality. It is the view many hold today in some sense, in that it views the problem in terms of what God wants us to become; it is a form of "soul-making". If it is God's will that we learn humility and develop a sense of compassion, perhaps there is some merit. Francis Collins and Timothy Keller have both recently adopted something of this view, noting that some of the times humans grow and learn the most is in the presence of suffering, deserved or otherwise. It is in these times that we learn forgiveness, mercy, and grace, and where we most earnestly seek God. McGrath credits this view in part to John Hick, who holds that in order for humans to become what God desires for them, they must endure evil as they take part in a free world. Choosing good only has value in the event that one is not compelled to, and that choosing evil is at all times an option.

But there is a problem. Is this a picture of a God who allows suffering to teach us lessons? Where this might make sense on a personal level, what lessons are we to learn, individually or collectively from created tragedies like genocide or natural ones like tsunamis? This seems to come dangerously close to the view that people "deserve" natural disasters because God is angry, and does nothing but perpetrate the idea that God is out for blood. God will judge, to be sure, but the view that he is in the process of doing so constantly, and that we ought to mind our manners lest he smite us is anything but helpful, and certainly not Biblical. It also brings into question our duty to resist evil if God has purposed evil in the world. If evil is the maker of the soul, on what grounds should it be defeated or fought against?

He then mentions St. Augustine, who was combating the notion of the Gnostics that evil the world was because matter itself is evil, and that creation came to be by an evil being. Redemption would be by a different god, one who was different from the "demigod" of creation. Augustine understood that creation and redemption were necessarily both the work of God. And it is human freedom that introduces evil by way of the temptation by Satan and fall in the Garden of Eden. But, the problem here is that humans could only choose evil if God put it in the Garden, which was supposed to be perfect, where God and man mutually cohabited, for them to choose. Augustine explained that Satan fell from Heaven when he was tempted, but again, who tempted Satan? Was their sin and evil in Heaven? How can we account for the origin of rebellion against God? McGrath, and apparently Augustine have no answer at this point, and is one I think needs to be answered by the sovereignty of God. But we will have to return to this point later on.

McGrath, Alister E. Christian Theology: An Introduction, Second Edition Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and Regent College, Vancouver. Blackwell Publishers, 1997, Pgs 263-267.

An Update... and a Bible Difficulty

For anyone who might read this who otherwise might not know, I have a few things going on that are prohibiting me from spending as much time on this as I would like.

The first of those things is school. It isn't that I have too much to do, or that it's too difficult, but that, as per the nature of philosophy, my homework isn't limited to what has been explicitly assigned. And, as per the current nature of the University, philosophy courses regularly make jokes and invectives at the expense of believers in anything other than scientific naturalism (or whatever other view the professor happens to prefer, be it Jungian or Spinozist or whatever else). What this means is that I am constantly under fire for positions held, and spend more time better understanding and solidifying my positions than actually doing homework. It is both a blessing and a curse. I have been pushed to be able to defend myself, which I welcome and accept, but have had to deal with a good deal of unnecessary and childish ridicule. The real disappointment at the end of the day isn't my feelings, but the resolve of those who are less committed to truth and more easily swayed by one-liners and philosophical quips. Professors deliberately tell half-truths on issues of high importance to score points in laughter like their tenure depended on it.

So, what I will do from now on, instead of trying to put together groups of blogs about certain topics, is write about what it is that I'm doing at any given time. It should give me a chance to nail down some thoughts and collect my ideas, as well as open them to some criticism to whomever wishes to criticize.

That being said...

I have spent the last few days trying to find the best way to answer my Modern Philosophy teacher and skeptical classmates that the Bible is not wrong about the value of Pi. For those not in the know, 1 Kings 7:23 says the following:

"And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about." (KJV, italics mine)

Ok, so a molten sea is a great big vessel, which we see here is "ten cubits from the one brim to the other," has a height of five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about. And a cubit, we know, was approximately the distance between the elbow and the tip of the outstretched hand, or about 18 inches. So then, this molten sea had the following dimensions:

Height: 5 cubits, or 90 inches, or 7.5 feet
Diameter: 10 cubits, or 180 inches, or 15 feet
Circumference: 30 cubits, or 540 inches, or 45 feet

Problem? The ratio of the circumference and diameter of a circle is necessarily 3.141592... or "pi". Here it seems the Bible thinks pi=3 (30 cubits / 10 cubits). If you believe that is what the Bible says, then you are likely to see in this passage an error so basic that it renders the entire Bible unreliable.

So after a couple days trying to sort this out (it's more complicated than you might think), I have come to the following couple of conclusions.

First of all, it does matter. Second of all, it does not mean that God says pi is 3, and mathematicians are wrong. But what we can say is that, (1) Cubits are an inherently imprecise standard of measurement. Using a body part is clearly not standardized, and is therefore better suited to rough approximations, such as how we might make rough measurements of our own. When using cubits, the Bible does not use them with much precision. It measures things in half cubits, but not thirds or fourths. It just isn't reasonable to do so. With that in mind, it is easy to see how 30.4 cubits could become 30 cubits, and 9.68 cubits could become 10 cubits, which is an example of numbers with a ratio of 3.141592 between them. And 30.4 cubits would be about 45 feet, 7 inches, or 540 inches, plus 7 inches. Plus or minus 7 inches matters to a mathematician, but not to someone measuring in 18 inch segments of forearms. It is therefore an error--a category mistake--to assume that round numbers are certainly false.

If gas was $3.06 per gallon, it would not be incorrect to say that gas was $3 per gallon. Or if a room was 10'2" x 12'1", 10x12 would be a sufficient measurement.

Some have argued that the Bible doesn't explicitly say they are round numbers, so we cannot assume that. But we know for a fact that if it was a round vessel, then 10 and 30 were not the actual numbers, so assuming a round figure is logically sound. And in the examples of our speech today, one need not qualify the figures given as round numbers, because they suit our audience. If we are in court we may have to say exactly how much gas cost. If we are ordering carpet we may have to say exactly what the measurements are, but for a general measurement it would not be necessary.

Furthermore, in his book, The Joy of Pi, David Blatner includes the following:

"What is pi?

Mathematician: Pi is the number expressing the relationship between the
circumference of a circle and its diameter.
Physicist: Pi is 3.1415927 plus or minus 0.000000005.
Engineer: Pi is about 3."

(http://www.abarim-publications.com/Bible_Commentary/1Kings7v23.html)

That site offers that quote from Blatner, and goes on to offer several solutions to this problem by way of some advanced mathematical theories concerning the validity of using numbers at all, which are very interesting, but a bit off topic. But their conclusion is that the Biblical context for these numbers is more important than the actual values of numbers at all.

All of this is really the blown up way of saying that the Bible's inerrancy is not threatened by this problem. It is a difficulty for sure, but not an error. The bottom line for me is that this a contextual description of the vessel, not a blueprint for it. The writer may or may not have had the technical prowess to know the extended theoretical value of pi, but in either case is not wrong per se in his description.

And that is what I will attempt to persuade my Professor and his anti-Bible minions of in the morning.

The God Delusion, Pt. 1

I have been meaning to get around to reading completely and tackling the issues in Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion for quite some time. This has been done well in several places around the internet, but perhaps I can sum up some critiques and add some of my own for anyone who might have landed here. I will return to C.S. Lewis' Miracles after this...

First of all, this book represents a classic example of the sort of thing Christians who expect to engage modern culture on almost any level ought to familiarize themselves with. But not because it's good or convincing, but because people think it is. Of course every atheist or agnostic or God-hater I know thinks this book is tremendous, and at least one former Christian I know of read this book and went off the deep end, convinced his faith was a fraud. The former case is to be expected, but the latter is disappointing and unnecessary in the highest.

The arguments in this book are presented with unbridled arrogance and spotty logic, which makes it hard for the common reader to refute. (And apparently it makes it hard for the "intelligent" ones, too, given the several pages of praise offered at the beginning and back cover of the book.)

One final point before beginning with Chapter 1 is that the paperback version (which I have) has a Preface where Dawkins responds (sort of) to some of the alleged frequent responses to his book. I will deal with these at the end of the review.

Chapter 1 is called, "A Deeply Religious Non-Believer". It begins with Dawkins' usual praise for science and scientists, squeezing everything else out. He quotes Carl Sagan almost immediately, asking:

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. (32-33).

This is almost too easy. First of all, what Christian (which, by the way, is the main religion attacked throughout the book) has ever said such a thing as 'My god is a little god"? And which Christians do not proclaim the absolute majesty, grandness and scope of the Universe?

But what Dawkins wants is to make science the one who notices the wonder of the world, complaining about the "transcendent wonder that religion monopolized over the past centuries" (33). This opening chapter is at pains to explain to the reader than whatever Dawkins asserts, or believes, no matter what it is, is based in only science, not faith or religion. What this does for the uncritical reader is put Dawkins on one side (the high road; the intellectual road) and faith and religion on the other. It's a tactic he must establish because his position is absolute that the religious cannot take part in science. This type of exclusivity is par for Dawkins type, who uphold science as the only real arena for scholarly or serious discussion. The length at which he goes to avoid the possibility of God can be clearly seen when he says, "Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain" (34). He doesn't explain how this is possible, just that they do, and if you disagree, well, so much for your theory. If this isn't a faith-statement and a central tenet of the naturalist and Neo-Darwinian religions, I don't know what it is.

This discussion is closely tied to that of the Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism. To say that all thing emerge from nature is begging the question, assuming that naturalism must be true. But supernatualism is not a logical impossibility and to therefore assert that naturalism is true because nature is all there is is tantamount to saying, "I'm the boss because I make all the rules." (But why do you make the rules? Because I'm the boss...) Consider:

Premise 1: IF nature is all there is, THEN naturalism is true.
Premise 2: Nature is all there is.
Conclusion: Naturalism is true.

This is a logically valid argument, known in formal logic as Modus Ponens. (If A, then B. A, therefore B.) This rule of inference says that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. But what is not guaranteed is the truth of the premises, because formal logic is not concerned with truth values. However, it is not necessarily true that nature is all there is. This argument can be, and is, unsound, and to dismiss supernaturalism on these grounds is an unjustifiable position.

As a scientist Dawkins believes he must take this position because it is his job to always search for the natural explanations in the face of unanswered questions, but to simply assert that things "emerge" from a nature that is itself not self-existent is as bankrupt and unhelpful a position as any he seeks to attack.

To be continued...