the MarioKart argument.

Imagine (although this has actually happened to me once) that you’re playing Mariokart for Nintendo Gamecube with a few friends. The light turns green and you start racing, and the buggy you think you are controlling does all the things you have to do via your controller input; your character speeds up, rounds corners, shoots the occasional shell, as well as takes the secret short cut you intend on taking. Imagine further that the character you thought was yours (the buggy with the Princess and Mario) is actually someone else’s (Judah Dorn’s) (yours is actually the one with Wario and Boo) and it just so happened Judah Dorn did everything you thought you were doing, but of course it was Judah who did what you thought you were doing, and not you (your buggy with Wario and Boo are a few turns behind everyone else in the race slamming into a wall because, as we have already seen and established, your controller was controlling Wario and Boo’s buggy and not the Princess and Mario’s, and there was actually a few things that Judah did with his buggy that you didn’t do with yours (unbeknownst to yourself at the time), and so on. Now what can be said about such a scenario? The following facts are worthy of reflection:

(1) You didn’t do what you thought you were doing, which is to say you didn’t cause anything to happen in the way you thought you did.

(2) Despite the fact of (1), since it was the case you thought you were doing something, you were able to

(3) Identify with what you thought you were doing in such a way that you would have taken responsibility for what Judah’s buggy was doing even though you had nothing to do with it.

These are the facts of the story, and we need to take one more step to make it extremely pertinent to a certain discussion. Could you, if facts (1)-(3) obtain, take responsibility for the actions of Judah’s buggy even if you knew after the fact that it wasn’t you who did it? In the very least you would have to concede that you intended the events that actually took place, and so were responsible in at least that sense (is this enough for responsibility? Perhaps it is). But never mind what you would accept or not, I know that when this situation actually happened to me I asked myself if I were willing to take responsibility for my actions even thought I didn’t actually do anything I thought I did at the time, and I told myself I would be willing to take responsibility. But how could I take responsibility for something I didn’t actually do? Well, quite simply, I willingly intended everything I thought I was doing, and so am responsible in a significant sense; and this is true despite the facts of the matter!

So, let’s abstract these phenomenon a bit. Say the world and its causal order is such that the future is closed and nothing that is, was, or is going to happen could happen otherwise than how it is, was, and is going to happen (determinism is true!). Well, does this mitigate against responsibility, that is, could the possible truth of determinism remove the possibility of responsibility of agents? Given my video game experience and what I learned from it, it seems I must say that responsibility and determinism are compossible in so far as the agents identify with what they think they’re doing even if they aren’t doing what they think they are.

A slight caveat: I think this example is indifferent to whatever is the source any determinism in any possible world, which is to say it matters not which things are the source or cause of determinism whether it be the laws of the universe or God or mad scientists. The question of the compossibility of responsibility is narrow enough to ignore such a discussion. Nevertheless if we were to change topics and ask if other things besides humans are responsible in the worlds where both determinism and responsibility cohabitate, the following seems to be true.

In the worlds where there is just physical laws, matter, minds capable of deliberation, determinism and responsibility, then minds are the only things could be responsible (in the moral sense), for they are the things that have good and bad intentions, and so on.

In the worlds where everything is as just described with the addition of a (theistic) God, then it seems there are now two types of things which can be called responsible, man and God- for God is also such that he can deliberate and have good intentions (although he can’t have evil ones, according to Classical Theism). Notice that in the worlds where a deistic God exists he wouldn’t be morally responsible, but just causally responsible, since, in order for him to be morally responsible he would have to have intentions of sorts, and deistic Gods don’t have intentions, they would be more like physical laws (if the existed) since they do things unconsciously. But in the worlds where the theistic God exists, then it is the case that what he causes to exist in any possible world are not just things he thinks he’s causing, or else He wouldn’t be God, but something else would. So in the worlds where a theistic God exists he would be in fact causing everything you think you are doing but nevertheless identify with, and in such worlds where there is evil done through agents who think they do it, it would be God who is doing it, which means that in such worlds God would be responsible for evil, which is impossible. Therefore if theism is true and there is evil in the world then compatibilism is false.

But back to what we were saying. How might a libertarian (someone who thinks determinism and responsibility are not compossible) respond to all of this? Well, L S* has an argument, and I’d like to paraphrase him here: So what if I identified with something that something else caused; that’s not even the question, and so these sorts of Frankfurt-style counterexamples to alternate possibility requirements for responsibility simply beg questions. Even if it is the case that everything I intended to do took place in ways I identified with, I could have intended to do other than which I thought I did. Since it is me who has the power and control of intending to do otherwise, and not Judah Dorn, this is what grounds the possibility of me identifying with anything whatever. To have the power to intend otherwise is having the power to engage an alternate possibility other than that which has happened, and so alternate possibilities are still required for responsibility ascriptions. So much for poo-poo compatibilism!

The meta-compatibilist response: Look, imagine that Judah Dorn’s controller can not only be hooked up to a Gamecube but your mind as well. Assuming that is conceivable (if not, why not, and remember that all things are possible through Christ who…etc.), then Judah could cause you to intend whatever you intend when every you do, and so long you as you in fact identify with what you think you’re intending but are in fact not, you could just as easily and in the same way be responsible. So much for the poo-poo need for alternate possibilities!

So, any thoughts?





* Unpublished voice mail left on my phone, 02/24/07.

Spiritual Gifting, Not Spiritual Gifts

For years, I have wrestled (internally) with my views on “spiritual gifts.” My ecclesiastical tradition has had much to say on the matter (especially in recent days).

So the long and short of my answer is this…Believers do not have spiritual gifts.

Allow me to continue. Our individualistic mindset has vastly distorted our concept of spiritual gifts. We, and by we I mean most evangelicals, see them as something believers have. Believing as such, we see it was an irrevocable gift from God. It is also commonplace to believe that having a spiritual gift is an indicator of how God has uniquely blessed us as individuals for his church. Perhaps we are far from the Biblical understanding of this subject.

A spiritual gift is a gifting of the Spirit in the lives of the elect for the benefit of the church.

Common Questions Answered:
1. When does some one receive their Spiritual Gift(s)?
One is given abilities in varying stages of life but these abilities are only “spiritual” when empowered by the Holy Spirit for the common edification of the local church.

2. Does everyone “have” a Spiritual Gift?
Everyone has gifts that are all given by God but the gifts, talents, and abilities are not always and at all times used by God.

3. Can I lose my gift?
God is the giver of every good gift and is certainly able to take these gifts or abilities away. Spiritual gifts are not possessions that believers own. When the gifts and abilites that God has given are used by the Spirit they become our spiritual gifting.

4. Are those gifts listed in Scripture (and those often mentioned in the OT) exhaustive lists?*
Definitely not! They are ways in which the Spirit of God was manifesting Himself through the people of God for a particular time.

5. What about the “cessation” of gifts? Are there gifts that are no longer present?
Yes and No. The Holy Spirit no longer manifests himself to believers in such a way to create “new prophecy.” However, we cannot deny that other “miraculous giftings” exist as the Spirit determines necessary.

6. Is this a consistent theology for the Old Testament?
The Holy Spirit was present in the lives of OT saints for a special anointing in which He worked for the good of His people. Often times the working of the Spirit was to bring His people to repentance. The Holy Spirit was also present using abilities of men and women for leadership and for even manual tasks such as constructing tabernacles, temples, and walls.

7. Are there “non-spiritual” gifts?
There are abilities that are God-given and other talents that are not from God. Certainly, God is able to use all human experiences to bless His people, but it is unreasonable to consider certain abilities, especially those pertaining to skillful sinning, to be in anyway spiritual in nature.

8. Is there one spiritual gift(ing) that all believers have? Do they have a responsibility to use that gift?
Yes! As I read 1 Corinthians, the one gift that we all have is love. Jesus, Himself, said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples….” The love of Christ is one thing the Holy Spirit gives ALL believers. This spiritual gift is and should always be present in the manifestations of the Spirit’s gifting of believers for service.

9. How can Christians discover their “spiritual gifts”?
As defined above, spiritual gifts are the ways in which the Spirit of God uses both supernatural and natural abilities to bring about His purposes. Therefore, the best way to discover how God uses someone is to ask others in the body how they have been recipients of God’s work through them.

10. So why make the distinction between spiritual gifts and spiritual gifting?
We must not loose site of the most important thing. It is not the gifts and abilities that we have that are spiritual; but, the use of those gifts by the Holy Spirit that make them spiritual. Our gifts are not ours to keep. God has gifted his children for giving themselves to the community of faith for the building up of others. When we give our gifts and the Spirit uses them—we are exercising our spiritual gifting.


**(1 Cor. 12:28, 1 Cor. 12:8-10, Eph. 4:11, Rom. 12:6-8, 1 Cor 7:7, 1 Peter 4:11)

A Brief Hiatus

Hey guys, I am going to stay off of Raw Atheology for the semester, as I am taking 23 units so that I can get denied my commencement by the elusive powers that be, so that I can move to Idaho and have my $150,000 piece of paper mailed to me.

When I first get to Idaho I will launch a 3-year reading campaign, in which I intend to read first about how to read. Then I will progress to reading about logic, the classics of interest to me that I haven't yet read, epistemology, philosophy of mind, pyschology, divine and human agency, cosmology (I hope to make this a major focus), arguments for and against the existence of God, arguments for and against Christianity, systematic theology, theology of the Kingdom, theology of mission, early church history, early church theology, the development of the canon,
predestination, and perhaps I will detour through existentialism at some point. I will be blogging about my findings and my musings.

I encourage the extant contributors to Raw Theology to post, and rest assured that I will read it. You can take this opportunity to critique all my crap, stack up posts in contrary to my views, and slander my name. I will be back to take you all down later. Peace.

Is Philosophy Progressive?

A guy named Mark Makin posted this link on Biola's intranet: http://www.philosophynow.org/issue59/59carey.htm. I found it interesting.

John 8:3-11

3. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4. they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" 6. This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." 8. And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10. Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11. She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."

Whether it's true, the conclusion is fallacious - whoops!

Whilst recognizing the complexity of some of the arguments a little closer to the axis of the conversation, it dawned on me tonight why I have never really cared for the qualm that Intelligent Design is merely dressed up Creationism: religious in nature.

It's called a genetic fallacy, guys. On my side of things, I don't care if Nietzsche, Sartre, Dawkins, Darwin, Satan, and Stalin travel in time to conspire to formulate an argument against the existence of God, or contra the fine tuning of the universe or the apparent design in biology. I care about the content of the argument.

What is Religion? And Dawkins isn't too bad a fellow - he does have some good stuff to say.

[Although it is often difficult for me to escape what may seem to be condescending or at least certain rhetoric, much of this blog has been a journey for me, and I hope at least some of my honest inquisitiveness is visible through the veil. For all actual condescension and wrongfully dogmatic or inflammatory language I apologize, whether I did it intentionally.]

Is religion the designation for a group of topics, one's opinions about which constitute his religion? This can't be it, because choosing to believe that there is a God makes a person religious. But according to this definition of religion, taking the opposite position, that there is no God, is also a religious belief. I doubt most atheists want to call themselves religious.

Is religion a set of traditions? If this is so, then going to Starbucks every day would be a religious activity. Celebrating birthdays doesn't seem to qualify as religious either. Let's try again.

Is religion a set of propositions that render a man religious upon affirmation? This might be closer. If anyone affirms that there is a God, gods, or anything supernatural, then he is called religious. If this is so, then religious beliefs shouldn't be disqualified merely on the basis of their category. Rather, they should be investigated to determine whether they are reasonable. In this case, the proposition "God exists" is something that a free thinker, scientist, or philosopher may inquire as to the truth of. Such an inquirer may come to agree with the proposition in question, rendering him religious. Or, he may come to disagree with the proposition, rendering him, in this case, irreligious. Either stance, if arrived at rationally, may turn out to be a scientific or philosophically defensible position.

Is religion an epistemology that derives belief from authority, tradition, intuition, and/or feeling? This also comes close to the popular use of the term. Most classified "religions" such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and yes, even Christianity, hold epistemological frameworks that elevate tradition (pick your holy book), authority (pick your religious leader), intuition (pick your bosom-burning), and/or feeling (can you feel the Spirit?). If this is what religion is, then I want no part in it.

My personal goal is to seek to believe in what is true, meaning what is accurate to reality. In my humble and limited experience I have come to esteem science and logic as avenues to arrive at truth. I am a sort of free thinker, an arm-chair scientist, a lay anthropologist, and a budding young philosopher.

On an only semi-related, but very important note...

I have recently sworn off all conspiracy theories. These include common Christian presumptions about the hatred and deceitfulness of atheists and other non-Christians. I have actually been finding Dawkins to be quite a reasonable man. His scientific discourses are interesting, clear, and informative. I think that his qualms with religion are valid, and in fact I share them. He is right to rebut screwy epistemology, promote science and free inquiry, as well as common sense.

I think that people of all religions, including Christianity, have more to learn from him than teach him. I have always been uncomfortable with the notion of "blind faith". I grow increasingly frustrated with with what I call "folk Christianity", and with the Religious Right.

I have even been reforming much of my own world view and behavior as of late. I feel like I have a large humility pill I need to swallow. I feel that I have been guilty of a lot of ad-hoc thinking, red herrings, and ad hominems. I have been guilty of sweeping aside arguments merely because of their source (genetic fallacy). But I am young, and this transition in my development marks only an important period of growth, and the beginning of a new stage of thinking.

Perhaps instead of fighting Dawkins, Christianity should embrace what he has to say and teach. Perhaps we need a wake up call. This is not to say that we can't engage Dawkins logically, however.

After all, we were the ones who use to build the universities, kick off the science experiments, and promote literacy. We use to drink, smoke cigars and pipes, experiment with music, talk philosophy, engage the culture, make friends with prostitutes, and love the homeless. Yes, there are many who do this today, and yes, we've certainly had our dark and hateful times in the past as well. We have a lot to learn, and a long way to go in many areas.

Why don't modern Evangelicals clearly see the destructiveness in accusation and judgment as much as they see the destructiveness in individual sins and disbeliefs themselves? Why are we so scared to encourage doubt? Why are we glad to see our children and friends believe in the right things for the wrong reasons, or using the right beliefs to motivate wrong behaviors?

The average "Christian" today couldn't give a rational defense for his beliefs. This grieves me.

At the end of the day, I remain a Christian. By this I mean that I believe that the Bible is true, I believe there is a God who exists as three persons, and I believe that Jesus is fully and completely God, as well as fully and completely human. I believe that He died for my sins, and that my trusting in Him is an important part of accepting the gift of eternal life. I believe that He can offer this to me, because despite the wages of sin being death, Jesus died as a penal substitution for me. Communing with Him is exactly that, and will persist after bodily death. I will one day reunite with my body in some capacity, and all of creation will be redeemed, from the stars to the rocks to the plants to the animals. Those who reject Christ (whatever form that takes, and whoever they are - I am not placing judgment) will be dealt with justly and permanently.

But why I continue to believe in these things follows an ironically more traditional line of thought than many modern Evangelicals. I do not choose to believe in these things, and allow these beliefs to motivate certain behaviors, merely because my parents taught them to me. Nor do I believe in them because millions of people do. I don't accept the Bible on blind faith, then follow everything it says without question. I don't believe that doubts and questions should be suppressed.

Now I have to admit, I grew up in a Christian family, who went to church weekly. I am white. I am an American citizen. I "accepted the Lord", so to speak, when I was two years old. What this means for my position as an objective observer, I fear. Forgive my vulnerability.

Nevertheless, as of today, I maintain that there exists a sufficient body of empirical and logical evidence to render my beliefs at the very least reasonable. Furthermore, I have experiential warrant for the continuity of my faith. Any attempt at persuading others on certain matters should be done so based on evidence of varying kinds; I don't pretend I have all the answers, but I don't ask anyone to accept my world view without good reason.

I may have grown up thinking like a Christian, but any beliefs that have persisted have done so because of what I judge to be good reason. I ask nobody to take my word for it, but encourage everybody to investigate these matters on their own.

The God Delusion

When Augustine Sounds Suspiciously Non-Calvinistic

St. Aureluis Augustine

(354-430), Bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria)

Augustine -- God is not the author of the evil a man does though he is the author of the evil a man suffers.*

Evodius -- Is there some other author of the kind of evil which we do not attribute to the action of God?

Augustine -- There certainly is, for we cannot say that it happened without author. But if you ask who that is I cannot tell you. For there is no one single author. Every evil man is the author of his evil deeds. If you wonder how that is, consider what we have just said: evil deeds are punished by the justice of God. They would not be justly punished unless they were done voluntarily.

From, "On Free Will".

---------------------
*Augustine's conception of evil might vary from that of the modern man. The evil that he says God does to evil men is only an execution of justice. Augustine rightly refuses to affirm that God ever commits or causes moral evil, even though He is often responsible for causing destruction, or has good reasons for allowing moral evil to be committed by other agents.

Although my Calvinist brothers claim Augustine for their own, he comes through for me in the clutch. Here we find him denying that God is the author of the evil a man does, a position contra modern compatibalist Calvinism. Moreover, he affirms that punishment is only just when the action being punished was committed voluntarily.

Before you jump to conclusions read the rest of his work, wherein he likes to do things such as solve Epicurus' puzzle. And remember that he is only here making relatively broad strokes, not trying to elaborate all at once on why destruction and evil often befall men who practice good deeds, or follow Christ. He also delves into the pathology of evil decisions, and the psychology of atheism.

The Genuis of Max Alan Clark

By sheer intuition I Googled one of my best friends, Max Clark. Given his status, think of my shock when I uncovered a rather consistently kept-up but obviously somewhat secret blog of his from of old. I read a couple posts, and was not surprised by how insightful they were. But then I got hit by the most impressive fact. What packed the punch was that he hadn't touched it since he was like 15. I like that he gives credit where credit is due, not trying to steal the glory for good jokes and important insights. One thing he brought to a post was a quote from a younger boy he had met,

saying
"it works in theory, but not in reality"
is wrong.

you just have a bad theory.

I agree, Max.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rejects Creationism, and By The Way I am a Darwinist Too

In my previous post, the full article from which I quoted contained a disturbing comment:

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, made a useful and unequivocal intervention rejecting creationism...

Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins | Columnists | Guardian Unlimited

At first I thought about how sad it is that although there has been ecclesiastical continuity in Augustine's Chair, the men holding positions like the Archbishop of Canterbury have gone quite liberal in order to make Christianity palatable to the mainstream. Personally, I believe in contextualization of Christian truths and ethics. But I do not believe that true propositions ever change. If God created everything, then He did. If He didn't, then He didn't. Let's find out what's true, and believe it! Communicating that truth within different cultural and temporal contexts, and demonstrating its relevance to daily living is something that we have to be constantly reinventing. If we really believe that Christianity is true and valuable, why change it?

That said, I do want to make clear that I believe that there are in fact some details that are up for debate within Christianity. Putting aside the non-negotiables (meaning, propositions that may be debated, but if they are not believed in by person A, then A cannot be called a "Christian" in the traditional sense of the word), we find propositions that are hotly debated among Christians. These include things like whether there will be a rapture, whether Christ will return to set up a Kingdom for the duration of a literal 1,000 years, whether creation was accomplished within six literal 24-hours periods, whether Christ descended into hell while His body was in the grave, whether God's predestination is unconditional, etc.

Anyway, I decided that a half-sentence from a secondary source on a completely different topic wouldn't be enough. I resolved to seek other sources on the matter. So I Googled "archbishop of Canterbury rejects creationism", and found all kinds of articles citing this alleged concession that the man in Anselm's tradition made. Here's the mention of it in the top hit:

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has rightly called [creationism] “a category mistake” within Christian thinking.

Government department rejects creationist infiltration of science teaching

But there are more. Lots more. Knowing what I do now, I am tempted to be upset that everyone is taking what he said out of context and blowing it out of proportion. But to be honest, I now almost find it cute. When I was young and I caught my brilliant older sister absent-mindedly placing a carton of ice cream in the fridge, I berated her for years. I still bring it up. Why? Because it was the only mistake I had ever seen her make. Finally she called me on it and said that she understood that I want to make myself feel good by reliving the one moment of silly thinking she had ever had, but it was now getting a little annoying for her.

The Archbishop's comment wasn't even as bad as absent-mindedly misplacing an ice cream carton. He was selecting his language carefully to make a point. Was he advocating a stance contra Genesis? Let's take a look at the actual transcript of the interview he had with Guardian:

"AR" is Alan Rusbridger, and "ABC" is Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury.

AR: Are you comfortable with teaching creationism?

ABC: Ahh, not very. Not very. I think creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories. Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it's not a theory alongside theories. It's not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said well, how am I going to explain all this.... I know ' In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And for most of the history of Christianity, and I think this is fair enough, most of the history of... Christianity there's been an awareness that a belief that everything depends on the creative act of God, is quite compatible with a degree of uncertainty or latitude about how precisely that unfolds in creative time. You find someone like St. Augustine, absolutely clear God created everything, he takes Genesis fairly literally. But he then says well, what is it that provides the potentiality of change in the world? Well, hence, we have to think, he says, of - as when developing structures in the world, the seeds of potential in the world that drive processes of change. And some Christians responding to Darwin in the 19th Century said well, that sounds a bit like what St. Augustine said of the seeds of processes. So if creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other theories, I think there's - there's just been a jar of categories, it's not what it's about. And it - it reinforces the sense that...

AR: So it shouldn't be taught?

ABC: I don't think it should, actually. No, no. And that's different from saying - different from discussing, teaching about what creation means. For that matter, it's not even the same as saying that Darwinism is - is the only thing that ought to be taught. My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it.

Archbishop of Canterbury | Sermons and Speeches

Wow, what a different story! We see the Archbishop saying things like creationism is not a mere "theory among other theories", that "a belief that everything depends on the creative act of God, is quite compatible with a degree of uncertainty or latitude about how precisely that unfolds in creative time", and finally, "creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it".

I think it is firstly very clear that the Archbishop affirms the Genesis account of Divine creation, certainly placing him well within the Intelligent Design camp, and maybe even within the Creationist camp. It is not clear whether he personally believes in literal 24-hour periods, or whether God used a system roughly resembling Darwinian natural selection to produce species or kinds. He does seem to be concerned with upholding the "doctrine of creation", and he does grant the scientific validity of Darwinism. Although he literally says "creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake", he goes on to elaborate on what he means by this, which is that "[it's] not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said well, how am I going to explain all this". Well, if the writer of Genesis didn't make the story up, Who did? Let's take a hint from 2,000 years of Christian teaching (not to mention thousands of years of Jewish teaching, for that matter) and presume that the very Archbishop of Canterbury himself might actually be crazy enough to believe in something like the Divine inspiration of the Bible! Now we are getting a much different picture of the concessions he made to the Darwinists!

Personally, I have observed that it is no longer really debated whether Darwinian natural selection is a real process that occurs in nature. In fact, it is a very important part of the Creationist's model for rapid speciation. There are also other forces that affect speciation. But most Creationists deny that it is sufficient to increase genetic information or produce different kinds. This is where they part ways with traditional Darwinists, because they then say that the separate kinds were originally created by God.

I happen to be a Christian, a Creationist, an Intelligent Design theorist - whatever. I think that the ID movement is a better way to frame scientific theistic arguments in a secular society, and I deny that the arguments require Christian premises. Nor is the movement synonymous with Creationism. But am I a Darwinist? Kind of. I don't think that humans evolved from primates, I don't think that speciation increases genetic information, and I reject current atheistic accounts for the origin of the universe. But none of that separates me in any critical way from Darwin himself! Call me what you will.

My only question is why we are alerting Dawkins to the fact that he is so helpful to Intelligent Design?

While Dembski and others celebrate the affect Dawkins is having on the Intelligent Design movement, fellow Darwinians rue the wantonly false and boisterous construels of religion that he thinks are helping to advance science. Consider this excerpt:

William Dembski (one of the leading lights of the US intelligent-design lobby) put it like this in an email to Dawkins: "I know that you personally don't believe in God, but I want to thank you for being such a wonderful foil for theism and for intelligent design more generally. In fact, I regularly tell my colleagues that you and your work are one of God's greatest gifts to the intelligent-design movement. So please, keep at it!"

But while Dembski, Dawkins and Dennett are sipping the champagne for their very different reasons, there is a party pooper. Michael Ruse, a prominent Darwinian philosopher (and an agnostic) based in the US, with a string of books on the subject, is exasperated: "Dawkins and Dennett are really dangerous, both at a moral and a legal level." The nub of Ruse's argument is that Darwinism does not lead ineluctably to atheism, and to claim that it does (as Dawkins does) provides the intelligent-design lobby with a legal loophole: "If Darwinism equals atheism then it can't be taught in US schools because of the constitutional separation of church and state. It gives the creationists a legal case. Dawkins and Dennett are handing these people a major tool."

There's no room for complacency, urged Ruse over lunch in London last week. Last December's court ruling against the teaching of intelligent design in some Pennsylvania schools may have been a blow, but now the strategy of the creationist/intelligent-design lobby is to "chisel away at school-board level" across the US. The National Centre for Science Education believes that as many as 20% of US schools are teaching creationism in some form. Evolution is losing the battle, says Ruse, and it's the fault of Dawkins and Dennett with their aggressive atheism: they are the creationists' best recruiting sergeants.

Ruse has got to a reckless stage of his career. He prefaced the essay he submitted for Dawkins' festschrift with the above quote from Dembski and went on to declare that he "felt intensely irritated with Dawkins ... It's bad enough having to fight the enemy without having to watch my back because of my friends." The editors were horrified and ordered a more deferential rewrite - which Ruse duly provided.

Even more reckless, Ruse put on the net an email exchange between himself and Dennett in which he accused his adversary of being an "absolute disaster" and of refusing to study Christianity seriously: "It is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil." Dennett's reply was an opaque one line: "I doubt you mean all the things you say."

But Ruse has got a point. Across the US, the battle over evolution in science teaching goes on. Just in the past month there have been bills in state legislatures in New York, Mississippi, Nevada and Arkansas promoting intelligent design. Last November the Kansas education board promulgated a new definition of science that allowed for supernatural explanations of natural phenomena. A school district in Kansas rebelled last month, accusing their board of "an utterly false belief that evolutionary science and the scientific method is based on atheistic philosophy. Promoting this false conflict between science and faith erects unnecessary barriers." At the heart of many of these local controversies is the firmly held belief that Darwinism leads to atheism, indeed that it is atheism. Across the US, a crude and erroneous conflict is being created between science as atheism and religion.

Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins | Columnists | Guardian Unlimited

reflections.

Reflecting on the debate L and I are having about the causal nexus between God and morality left me we the following thought. The most pertinent question man can possibly seek is this one:

“To whom do I owe my existence?”

And there seems to be two, and only two, possible answers: either no one or someone. And that’s all the difference in the world. And then I thought about how germane Pascal’s wager is. If you’re an agnostic (which is anyone who is unsure about God’s existence) then the most reasonable thing is to hope with all your heart and mind and soul that something like the Christian God does exist. If such a God does exist then you’re life will not end at death, and you have eternal bliss to look forward to, and even if you’re wrong, living your life in accordance to what the Christian God is genuinely like will only increase the value of your finite life. If you place your bet on the non-existence of the Christian God, all you have to look forward to is this life, and if you’re wrong you’ll be losing out on the most precious life imaginable. Construed as such, the only win-win situation is to hope that God exists and He loves you the way Christ said He does.

I wish everyone a wonderful time celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

What Atheists Say About Intelligent Design

1. Some atheists say that Intelligent Design is dead. If this is so, then why can't they shut up about it? This is especially ironic, as they turn right around to harp on the fact that they are in the minority, presumably to gain sympathy and pretend that they are so unique and lonely in their genius. Humans have this tendency to want to make themselves out to be victims; it's like, the thinking man's opium.

2. Some atheists say that Intelligent Design is just religiously motivated, dressed-up Creationism. This is not very precise, as Creationism, (along with it's critiques of ID), is the view that everything was brought into existence by a special act of divine creation. Intelligent Design differs from this, as it does not necessarily posit any deity. Rather, ID posits that design by an intelligent entity is a better explanation for the origin of life than untintelligent processes. The difference is significant, because the Creation Science movement never got far, while the Intelligent Design movement has been advanced, even advocated by some atheists and agnostics, with the help of other atheists. In fact, there are even some atheists using the term to describe their message, that humans were intelligently designed by other humans. The fact that many religious people have latched onto it for obvious reasons, or the claim that it has religious implications, has nothing to do with whether the theory is scientifically credible. Intelligent atheists say, 'let's hash it out, not censor it it'.

It seems to me that we all need to put history, statistics, and even implications aside and just find some common epistemological ground, some common goals, and some love, then set out to do good science and good philosophy in the areas of the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin of species. I don't care what the effects or implications of believing in certain propositions are, I care about whether they are true--pragmatism be damned!

To Derek RE: our latest moral argument discussions

[To the reader: cf. all posts on the Moral Argument for the proper context of this letter.]

Based on your writings and our phone conversation, I perceive your view to be thus: you believe that contingent persons really create morals, which only regard other contingent persons. These "morals" are possible because of a permanent, abstract concept, "good", which is derived from the impersonal facts of the universe. Please correct me if I have your view wrong.

Where I think you missed my point, and where I feel the Russellian Platonist's view should be corrected to understand that if morals exist, then an eternal person of utmost authority exists, goes like this:

A Law of Ought is one person's willing, wanting, and urging for another person to obtain a possible situation. Although it may be possible for contingent persons to create Laws of Ought, their laws can only persist as long as they live and have authority to create laws. Therefore, if any necessary law exists, it means that it was created by a necessary person (ie God).

Let me try to animate my thinking a little more for you; pardon the redundancy of some broad-stroke claims.

So for example, Smoking Teenager (from my adventure) willed, wanted, and urged people in the neighborhood to not trespass. Smoking Teenager, at T1 did not want people to trespass anytime after T1, even though at T1 nobody was actively trespassing. He imagined the situation of another person trespassing and did not like it, so he willed that people not do such a thing. He also urged (in this case through a written linguistic expression--the sign) that people not trespass. This Law of Ought (that people should not trespass) did not exist before he made it. But when he made this Law, it began to exist. When Smoking Teenager dies, this Ought will cease to exist, as there will no longer be a person with authority over this property, wanting, willing, and urging people not to cause the possible situation 'trespassing' to obtain.

It is because Laws of Ought require their creators to possess abilities like imagination, emotion, intellect, will, and authority that they are obviously only able to be created by persons. These attributes are personal, and indeed are critical elements of the definition of what is personal. For example, a rock has no self-consciousness, intellect, feelings, will, or authority. But a human person like me or you may have those things.

A bean stock may have vegetative life, but it has no consciousness.

An orangutan may have consciousness and (physical) feelings (or urges or drives), but he has no intellect and no will (although he may exhibit behaviors roughly expressing what might be called 'desires' he has no 'intentionality', no rational deliberation, he cannot write a book or a meaningful sign saying 'no trespassing'). Orangutan's do not have intellectual, or rational, minds.

No, rocks, bean stocks, and orangutans are not capable of creating Laws of Ought. Only full-fledged persons are. 'Person' roughly meaning here, a united object with definite attributes, including emotion, intellect, and will.

What I meant in my former posts by 'objective', when describing such permanent Laws of Ought as morals, was not only 'real', as you seem to have taken it. What I meant was transcendent. Specifically, I mean by 'transcendent', that the law described exists outside of human (but not personal) existence. So the laws of logic are transcendent, as they exist whether or not there are humans writing truth tables. The laws of math are this way, too. Even the laws of nature, although it is debatable as to their logical necessity, transcend human existence. Transcendent objects like laws are not created by humans, they are not social constructions, they are not artificial, they are not generated by human activity, they persist throughout the birth and death of individuals. Transcendent objects may be discovered, but they may not be generated (by humans).

So step 1 of the argument I have been trying to make clear is that transcendent morals exist. I understand that there are possible situations that we should pursue obtainment of. In other words, we should do certain things. But the things that we should do, these standards for right and wrong, do not change as humans live and die. Although they only regard humans, the standards themselves do not fluctuate in and out of existence (unlike 'no trespassing' signs). Nor do they change. What is right has always been so and will continue to be so, and what is wrong has always been so and will continue to be so. Step 1 then, is that transcendent morals exist.

Step 2 is that Laws of Ought (in this case 'morals', not Monopoly rules or traffic regulations) can only be generated by persons. Like I said, this is so because they regard possibilities (requiring imagination), desires (requiring emotion), and will (requiring intellect). They also bear authority (something only a person can wield).

So then it is not only that the property or relation 'good' is predicated of certain situations, it is that 'good' situations are things that we are being urged to pursue. We are wanted to do good. But not only this, an authority wills that we do good, that we obtain those possibilities that are described as 'good'. We should perform good deeds because an authority over us tells, urges, desires, wills, and wants us to. Good things most often happen to be those things which preserve life and uphold truth and nourish souls, but these things, these good things, should be pursued because of a personal requirement of us to do so. This is analogous to the 'no trespassing' sign, but it is different in that these moral laws do not change, and are above man made laws in authority. This is where I have begun to understand Dostoevsky. To perceive a moral is to apprehend that there is a person who is requiring adherence to it.

A 'moral' is not a situation. It is not a moral, 'man loves wife'. Rather, the moral would be 'the situation man loves wife should be pursued'. Even if the situation 'man loves wife' is said to be a 'good' situation, morality is not yet being described. Rather, the 'good' situation 'man loves wife' is something that we ought to cause to obtain. In other words, someone cares that we do what is right. Someone is urging us to do what is good. There is a will that supposes us to comply. There is an authority that has generated these Laws of Ought. Only persons may generate Laws of Ought (like morality).

Step 3 is easy, for if oughts can only be generated by persons, and permanent, authoritative oughts exist, then it logically follows that there is a person who does not come into existence or die, a person with authority greater than any human person. So...

(1) Oughts are generated by persons
(2) Necessary Oughts exist
(3) ∴ a necessary Person exists

This is like saying that if we perceive with our minds some moral ought like 'it is wrong to rape', we are looking at a cosmic sign saying 'no trespassing', a perception that logically leads to belief in a person who generated that ought and has the authority to enforce it. This differs from saying that,

(1) Oughts are generated by persons
(2') Oughts exist
(3') ∴ persons exists

This seems to be your argument, but the key deviance from mine is (2'). Although you verbally affirm that objective morality exists, your view does not allow for it. For if any Ought persists despite individual humans living and dying, then my conclusion is necessitated.

Now, if you happen to believe that the universe we live in is somehow in existence without a God, and it itself is impersonal, but nevertheless capable of evolving persons, then the BEST you can do if you grant (2) is to say that the universe coughed up a person, then that person generated morality. If you only grant (2), then you can deny (1), and there is no problem for you. "Morality", if it can be called such, is then relative to each individual human person who generates his own. Societies can then construct agreements, and life can go on as you seem to want it to. BUT this entails that you must concede that under your view there are no necessary morals, no transcendent, objective 'oughts'. There is no right and wrong that is above man made Laws of Ought (on the level of traffic regulations, copyright infringement, transgressions of the Geneva Convention, identity theft, taxes, etc.). The laws that human authorities make are the highest standards man should follow, and there is nothing above them or beyond them. You therefore forfeit the right to call things like the Holocaust (sorry for the example, Chris) "evil" unless you qualify it with the statement that it is evil according to your own made-up rules. In other words you are forced to say 'because I say the Holocaust was wrong, it was wrong'. You can't say that the individual Nazi's under Hitler's authority should have known better, for they were being obedient to their sovereign. Surely it makes no sense (even under this view) to say that every man should follow his own made up rules, deviating from the commandments of their sovereign. If this were so, the government would have no right to punish murders or anybody for that matter, on the account that each individual should be expected to behave as he himself deems fit. I am not here refuting your view, but you have to admit this in the tradition of your clear-thinking atheist fathers such as Nietzsche and Sartre. These men agreed with my argument, but rejected God's existence and as a consequence rejected all notions of morality (transcendent morality).

If you accept (1), you can reject (2). Perhaps morality can be generated by impersonal objects, or perhaps moral laws are like logic or math - they are just necessary components of the universe. To argue for this, however, you must either a. show that neither emotion, intellect, nor will are required to generate moral oughts, or b. show that neither emotion, intellect, nor will are personal attributes.

But if you grant (1), and (2), which you seem to be trying to do, then you must show where my logic is wrong. How is the conclusion not entailed by the premises? Where does my fallacy lie?

What exactly is the view of the RP in reply to this? Can you show me how her view is coherent, and why my critiques are not valid?

Atheist Anne Rice of "Interview with the Vampire" Finds Transformation in Life and Writing Because of Christ the Lord

Anne Rice

famous for her vampire series, a couple entries of which were made into the movies Interview with the Vampire, and Queen of the Damned, just popped out an intriguing new book, surprising both her current fans and those with any interest in Christ who also own even a minute appetite for literature.

Anne Rice describes her book as the product of her life, after having grown up Catholic and abandoning her superficial faith for atheism, becoming uncomfortably fascinated with the occult, then truly finding Christ and converting to Christianity upon the culmination of years of studying the Bible and the most respected New Testament criticism and scholarship.

In the original Author's Note, she confesses,

From [the time of my husband's death] on... I have studied the New Testament period, and I continue to study. I read constantly, night and day.

I have covered an enormous amount of skeptical criticism, violent arguments, and I have read voraciously in the primary sources of Philo and Josephus which I deeply enjoy.

Having started with the skeptical critics, those who take their cue from the earliest skeptical New Testament scholars of the Enlightenment, I expected to discover that their arguments would be frighteningly strong, and that Christianity was, at heart, a kind of fraud. I'd have to end up compartmentalizing my mind with faith in one part of it, and truth in another. And what would I write about Jesus? I had no idea. But the prospects were interesting. Surely he was a liberal, married, had children, was a homosexual, and who knew what? But I must do my research before I wrote one word.

These skeptical scholars seemed very sure of themselves. They built their books on certain assertions without even examining these assertions. How could they be wrong? The Jewish scholars presented their case with such care. Certainly Jesus was simply an observant Jew or a Hasid who got crucified. End of story.

I read and I read and I read. Sometimes I thought I was walking through the valley of the shadow of Death, as I read. But I went on, ready to risk everything. I had to know who Jesus was--that is, if anyone knew, I had to know what that person knew.

Now, I couldn't read the ancient languages, but as a scholar I can certainly follow the logic of an argument; I can check the footnotes, and the bibliographical references; I can go to the biblical text in English. I can check all the translations I have and I have every one of which I know from Wycliffe to Lamsa, including the New Annotated Oxford Bible and the old Catholic translation, and every literary translation I can find. I have offbeat translations scholars don't mention, such as that by Barnstone and Schonfield. I acquired every single translation for the light it might shed on an obscure line.

What gradually became clear to me was that many of the skeptical arguments--arguments that insisted most of the Gospels were suspect, for instance, or written too late to be eyewitness accounts--lacked coherence. They were not elegant. Arguments about Jesus himself were full of conjecture. Some books were no more than assumptions piled upon assumptions. Absurd conclusions were reached on the basis of little or no data at all.

In sum, the whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified by nobody and had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and would by horrified by it if he knew about it--that whole picture which had floated in the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years--that case was not made. Not only was it not made, I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I'd ever read.

Anne Rice, Christ the Lord, (New York: Ballantine Books, 2006), p. 329-330.

Rice goes on to describe the criticisms and historical scholarship she read--a large body of works on either side of the argument, to be sure. She continues to describe her very own conversion experience, and follows this all up with another note to the paperback edition.

As for the book itself, I am thoroughly enjoying it. She is a very engaging writer, capturing subtle movements of eyes and bodies and social cues, communicating the faint smells and textures of 7-year-old Jesus' experience from his own perspective as he comes to learn about how the prophecies concerning the messiah line up with his own birth and childhood. Little Jesus comedically works a few miracles by accident, weeps into Mary's bosom, perceives John's constant staring at him, holds little Salome's hand, gets excited to visit the temple, and has his little heart broken on a number of occasions. Jesus' full and complete humanity is anti-gnostically affirmed, as the fullness and completeness of his deity glimmers through this veil.

MSNBC reports on the fans of Anne's work during the isolated study that led to her conversion,

After 25 novels in 25 years, Rice, 64, hasn't published a book since 2003's "Blood Chronicle," the tenth volume of her best-selling vampire series. They may have heard she came close to death last year, when she had surgery for an intestinal blockage, and also back in 1998, when she went into a sudden diabetic coma; that same year she returned to the Roman Catholic Church, which she'd left at 18. They surely knew that Stan Rice, her husband of 41 years, died of a brain tumor in 2002. And though she'd moved out of their longtime home in New Orleans more than a year before Hurricane Katrina, she still has property there—and the deep emotional connection that led her to make the city the setting for such novels as "Interview With the Vampire." What's up with her? "For the last six months," she says, "people have been sending e-mails saying, 'What are you doing next?' And I've told them, 'You may not want what I'm doing next'." We'll know soon. In two weeks, Anne Rice, the chronicler of vampires, witches and—under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure—of soft-core S&M encounters, will publish "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," a novel about the 7-year-old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. "I promised," she says, "that from now on I would write only for the Lord." It's the most startling public turnaround since Bob Dylan's "Slow Train Coming" announced that he'd been born again.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9785289/site/newsweek/

As for Anne, she continues to study and write, planning two sequels to Christ the Lord, writing both solidly helpful and controversial Amazon book reviews, and enjoying her newfound relationship with God.

Don't Cry Out.

My roommate Oscar Martinez is a film major at Cal State Fullerton and he made this video for one of his film classes. I think the whole thing was shot in our garage and on a little patch of grass at our condo complex, and the guy in the video is the husband of a girl I work with at Starbucks. I think it's pretty cool so I thought I would post it here to celebrate a job well done on the skimpiest budget ever! You're awesome Oscar!



And for all you animal lovers, animals were harmed in the making of this video.

a question for lots of animal rights people.

Tonight at my Starbucks the following exchange took place between myself and a coworker who prides herself on being vegetarian for reasons related to animal rights.

Amber: Hey, do you have any chicken left for me? (I had just eaten some lemon chicken from pick-up-sticks)

Me: No! Sorry, I ate every last bit of my chicken.

Amber: I’m just kidding silly! Don’t you remember I’m a vegetarian?

Me: Oh yeah. (fake laugh)

And then I got to thinking.

In my experience, by and large, those who are animal rights advocates (and not just people who happen to think animals should be treated fairly, but people who are nearly militant about the subject), also happen to support abortion rights. So would they have a problem with eating veal (or any other organism in its fetal state) if we were able to harvest them without doing harm to any other animals in the process? For the person who thinks human organisms have no rights when in the fetal stage, what would be the consistency in thinking non-human organism do?

Or better yet. Peter Singer (bioethics chair at Princeton, author of Animal Liberation) has argued that it’s completely arbitrary to define life in terms of the born/unborn distinction since the born and unborn organism, biologically speaking, is still one and the same organism. In fact he thinks the only non-arbitrary demarcation between life and no-life (when it comes to the endowment of rights) is consciousness; if an organism is conscious it is an organism which has rights. Part of such reasoning is that an unconscious biological entity can hardly be thought of a thing deserving of rights (think of flagellum and tangerines), and furthermore a biologically unconscious entity cannot be self-conscious and hence cannot even value or reckon its own existence, much less feel pain and experience the world. Such entities, Singer thinks, are not the sort of things which we think have rights. A curious implication of this idea is that the right to abortion currently tolerated to various degrees in nearly the entire western world, and almost the whole world, would also include infanticide, since, as empirical psychology has shown, infants are typically not conscious (or at least exhibit no signs of self-consciousness anyway) until the age of two or so.* In such cases Peter Singer thinks that the reasoning (correct, in his view) concerning the right to abortion combined with the only non-arbitrary criteria of life (with respect to rights) justifies the killing of human organisms before they reach the age of two (or whenever they exhibit self-consciousness). God bless empiricism.

So what if scientists were able to clone zygotes (which already exist in laboratory freezers throughout the world) of all the animals humans eat; then harvest them through the fetal stage and through the early stages of infancy; and then replace their brains with a synthetic silicon one that, unlike the brain, does not produce consciousness; and then have them wirelessly hooked up to computers which neurologically get the animals to do all the things animals usually do (but be not conscious, they would be zombie animals); and then when all is ready and plump we stop their biological life (we would kill them), and then we eat them. Assuming that this is all technologically and economically feasible, would the eating of animals be justified? It seems that on Singer’s terms such animals would be in nothing more than fantastic vegetables and vegetarians are okay with eating vegetables. It seems in such a scenario there would be clearly nothing wrong with eating meat.

___________________________
Tangent note:

* I think it’s impossible, on principle, to know whether something is conscious or not from any point of view other than the point of view of the subject whose consciousness is in question (that is, an objective point of view) which would include any and all sciences. To be conscious is never identical to exhibiting conscious behavior, and if something is conscious the only thing that could ever know it is the one who is conscious, or perhaps a mind vicarious enough for such a feat (God’s mind).

what the heavens are abstract objects?

A week or so ago James Gibson let me borrow Peter van Inwagen’s essays on philosophical theology, and the first article is a critique of all (known) ontological arguments, with special attention given to Alvin Plantinga’s formulation.

I’ve yet to fully comprehend the meat of van Inwagen’s argument against all known ontological arguments, but I definitely have beef with something van Inwagen says in the preliminary stages of his argument. I’ll quote the beginning of the section III at length:

Let us now turn to ontological arguments. We said that there were ontic
arguments that could be regarded as arguments for the existence of a
Deity. But this is vague, since it is not clear in the case of every set
of properties whether it could be instantiated only by a Deity. For
example, could something that is not a Deity instantiate the set {N, being the
maker of the world}(1)? It seems (epistemically) possible that, if
there were a necessary being who was the maker of the world, this being
might also be rather limited in power and knowledge, indifferent to the
sufferings of its creatures, and perhaps even made the world out of some
inchoate stuff that existed independently of its will. Should we be
willing to apply the term ‘Deity’ to such a being? Perhaps some would and
some wouldn’t, and this indicates the concept of a Deity (and hence our concept
of an ontological argument) is vague.
Let us therefore replace this vague idea of an ontological argument with a more precise one. It is clear that, whatever ‘Deity’ might reasonably be supposed to
mean, and Deity must be a nonabstract object. (I shall call nonabstract
objects concrete without regard for the etymology or philosophical history of
this word.)
I am not sure how to go about analyzing the notion of an abstract object, but I
think it is an important and intelligible notion. There are things that we
can see, hear, be cut or burned by, love, hate, worship, make, mend, trust in,
fear, and covet. These are the sorts of thing I mean by “concrete
object.” And there are things we could not possibly stand in anyone of
these relations to, for example, properties, propositions, sentence-types, sets,
and systems of natural deduction- and these I call “abstract objects.”
Let us suppose that the distinction between abstract and concrete objects is
clear enough to go on… (pg. 28)

My point of contention is this ostensive distinction between abstract and concrete objects doesn’t at all make clear the salient differences between the two. What exactly is the criterion for a certain object to be either abstract of concrete?

I’ve never actually done any studying on the distinction between abstract and concrete objects; they’ve only come up as peripheral points in the metaphysics literature I’ve been exposed to. To my knowledge I don’t think there is even a book whose primary content is the exposition of the distinction. In the little research I’ve done Frege’s On the Foundation of Mathematics and David Lewis’ The Way of Negation seems to be the primary places to which our current assay has been inherited. At this point I’m going to give my current and extremely tentative view of the nature of the distinction and what objects I think fall into which category.

In my experience thus far I’ve come to think of the word ‘abstract’ as having two different senses: the first is adjectival and referring to a type or class of object and the second sense verbal and epistemological.

When ‘abstract’ is used in the former sense it’s about an entity which has no spatial or temporal location. An entity that I almost always read about being in such a category is numbers. The number 1 for instance is an object which has no spatial location and no duration within the universe. It’s also been argued that properties such as “redness” and “being snub-nosed” are things are also abstract entities; but if the criterion for being abstract is that an entity must necessarily not be extended in space and have a specifiable duration then I don’t know what to make of the idea of that properties are abstract. Surely it’s the case the whiteness and being snub-nosed has been extended in space and time, for my door is white and Socrates was said to be snub-nosed, and those things are (and were) extended in space and time.

I suppose this is where the verbal and epistemological sense of ‘abstract’ usually comes into the discussion. Philosophers have maintained that properties are extended in space and time, but the mind has the capacity to abstract from its experience certain properties like whiteness and snub-nosedness from the spatial/temporal things which have such qualities and to think of such properties “in abstraction,” that is, as things in themselves and apart from the object which ‘actually’ have them.

Indeed, some philosophers have maintained that all abstract entities are reducible to the set of things which humans have abstracted from the things which actually have them, and numbers too, are no different. This view says numbers are only true of the world when there is a number of objects, and when the mind observes these objects they abstract from the number of things to think of just number themselves, and only at this point do numbers take on a mode of existence that lacks spatial and temporal dimensions.

For such philosophers then, there presumably is only one genuine sense of ‘abstract,’ and this sense is the epistemological sense which describes the ability of the human mind to artificially remove a property of a thing spatially and temporally extended and to be thought of without being such. Such a construal is often what allows philosophers to make sense of mathematics while still being materialists.


Along with the non-spatiality criterion, Frege thought that the second requisite to be an abstract object was to be causally inefficacious. But I think this account flies in the face of some serious tradition. Plato would deny such a construal. Abstract objects, though neither spatial or temporal entities are surely causally efficacious. What accounts for the possibility of predication in sensible objects (like the white pages in my book) is that such instances stand in certain causal relations to abstract entities, like the form whiteness. If Plato’s account is correct, then abstract entities are not only causally efficacious but causes par excellence.

From what I can tell so far the only unanimous criteria for an entity to abstract is the non-spatial/temporal criteria.

So what of concrete objects? The most obvious contrast that concrete objects have to abstract ones is that concrete objects are spatially and temporally located. May we say then to be concrete is exist temporally and spatially? I think this is uncontroversial, and so it has my tentative alliance.

Well maybe not. If dualism is true or if humans have genuine conscious states that escapes physical description (and reduction), then there is the possibility of existing without being spatially located, for consciousness has no spatial location (if so, where?). But maybe this is too quick. Even if it is the case that consciousness itself is not located anywhere spatially speaking, the perspective had by a conscious state it seems must necessarily be a conscious state of some spatial location or another. I can’t imagine myself being conscious without having a point of view, a vantage point of some space in the universe. Does necessarily having a spatial perspective allow consciousness to join the class of concrete objects? I have no idea.

But let’s pretend the consciousness cannot be admitted to class of concrete objects, does this mean that consciousness is an abstract thing? No. To be abstract an entity cannot be temporally situated, and it seems to be the case that all conscious states are temporally situated.

So this seems to imply that conscious entities are neither abstract nor concrete, and I have no idea how to make sense of this.

Notice, however, that just because something is not concrete it does not mean that it doesn’t exist. Abstract entities, whatever they are, must exist in at least some fashion, or else we wouldn’t be able to intelligibly discuss them.

So let’s go back to van Inwagen’s construal. He seems to think that if God exists, then he’s a concrete object. But what of the fact that to be concrete one must be spatially and temporally located, and if God did exist, and assuming it’s possible he can have a temporal mode of existence, he most certainly would not be spatially located anywhere. So it’s not all clear how van Inwagen thinks that if God does exist he must be a concrete object. Assuming I’m right here, that van Inwagen has misconstrued the mode of God’s existence, I don’t know what kind of implications this might have on his argument.

Any thoughts?






____________________________________

Notes
1. N = the property of necessarily existing.


Works Cited___________________________

SEP on abstract objects.
SEP on God and other necessary beings.


Further Reading________________________

Edward Zalta's webpage.
Edward Zalta's online papers on extremely sexy topics.

Just a Brief Thought on Anselm's "Blasphemy"

I was browsing the blog and re-read Chris' clever post on Aselm's blasphemy. I can't help but wonder if he read Anselm's own rebuttal to Guanilo, and just forgot to include it when responding to the relevant historical text on the matter. I am also curious as to whether Derek's modal ontological argument, or his rehashing of Descartes' ontological argument have been at all considered since their posting. At any rate I had a brief thought on the part where Chris offered his own theological perspective. He argues,

1. God exists and man by necessity of being in every way inferior to him is proved to not exist. Or...

2. Both Man and God exist. Man being in every way inferior to God proves that existence is not a perfection. Therefore the argument is void. Or...

3. Man exists and is therefore in that regard equal to God.

All three assume that existence is binary: either on or off. Either an object exists or it does not. But this is not the whole picture. Certainly there are modes of existence. For example, man's existence is contingent, meaning his creation and sustainance is dependent on things outside himself (for us theists, man's existence is considered dependent on God, but even the atheist must admit that humans are dependent on things like food and water). But God (if He exists) exists necessarily, and a se. He is the source of existence, and sustains even His own. So while the attribute of existence is communcated to man, it is so in a limited sense. This is like sight, which man has, but God has without limits (He is omniscient). This is also like power (or free will), which we reference in God with the term 'omnipotence', while man is only 'potent', and has within himself only a limited ability to determine.

So while man shares in divine attributes, they are only communicated in a limited way, hence 'image of God', not 'exact duplicate of God'. So your lines of reasoning need to be reworked in light of this modality. I have taken the liberty of doing this work for you:

1. God exists and man by necessity of being in every way inferior to [Him] is proved to [exist contingently]. Or...

2. Both Man and God exist. Man being in every way inferior to God proves that [God exists necessarily]. Therefore the argument [still works]. [And]...

3. [That 'man] exists and is therefore in that regard equal to God[' is a void argument].

Arguments (1) and (2) no longer debunk the ontological argument, and (3) no longer renders Anslem a blasphemer (phew!).