Naturalism and Epistemology
Here is a part of a discussion I had with a friend a few years ago. We’ll call the person I was writing to “Tom.” I thought this section might be profitable:
My original comment:
The [rise of modern science came about from the conviction of the] Bible’s presentation of metaphysical realism teaches that the external world was really there, not merely a projection of our minds, and detailed study of it could lead to a true understanding of the world rather than merely biographical insights (opposed to eastern influenced worldviews that teach reality as maya, illusion.). This is grounded in the Biblical notion of a Creator/creature distinction.
Tom’s reply: “Lucretius & Democritus said this long before the Bible.”
Joe: Lucretius believed in a Creator/creature distinction? Great! Wait…no? Did he believe that the external world was really there? Great! I’m not saying that non-Christians can’t do that (well, not the creator/creature thing), but notice I spoke of the Christians REASON for such beliefs. They were grounded in their worldview, and it’s not just that Christians said, “yeah we believe that too!” but rather that they made perfectly sense within their worldview.
For instance, many epistemologists over the centuries have noted what i’ve called the problem of the knower. That is, how do we know that our measures, thoughts, etc match up to the external world? Our measures, observations, etc may WORK (they may provide pragmatic usefulness), but how do we know that they lead to TRUTH. Personally, I can understand how on a materialistic worldview they lead to the first (pragmatic usefulness), but not how they can secure the second (truth).
You see, this is also called the subject/object problem. But, one of the reasons for the problem (and the issue here, again, is how does one justify, integrate, harmonize, provide the philosophical preconditions for, these assumptions. I’m not doubting that the assumptions are valid, I’m question the ground on which they are believed) is that people have ignored the issue of an epistemological norm or standard. Naturally, for the Christian this standard is the Bible, and lots of work has been done to unpack the philosophical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, etc from the teachings of the Bible, like John Frame’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (P&R Publishing), and Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford). This “norm” serves as a presupposition in the sense that it acts as the filter, lens (insert analogy here) through which evidence will be understood. This norm isn’t easily refuted or correct by a simply appeal to “the facts” either, because it’s the standard by which evidence is interpreted. This is why I addressed the issue of worldviews in the 1st (or 2nd?) part of the letter. This clash of worldviews was made explicit in the now infamous book review by Richard Lewontin:
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, IN SPITE OF its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, IN SPITE OF the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a A PRIORI adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.–(“Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review of Books, Jan. 4, 1997, pg. 31. Emphasis in original, though they were italicized, not caps)
This speaks volumes, and I’m convinced that this worldview clash is what dictates so many of the arguments against ID (for instance). It’s a commitment to methodological naturalism (and as Lewontin notes, and a priori commitment at that)
My original comment:
Fourth, the biblical anthropology of mankind created as the image of God coupled with a logos epistemology, which teaches that God has created the world with a rational structure and likewise has modeled our thinking to match (more or less) this rational structure, undergirds what I said above in point three. Since the same God created both me, and the world outside of me, there is a correlation between the too. In fact, in the early chapters of Genesis, mankind is told to cultivate the garden, which presupposes and assumes that he can learn about the outside world, because God made both it and him to do so.
Tom: Really… Genesis says so many things that are so absurd…I don’t want to spend the afternoon citing it? Adam and Eve(the fossil record again….)? A rib woman….? The fossil record doesn’t confirm any of this, yet you trust the scientific method which disproves all this.
Joe: “Tom,” the fact that you think the Genesis account of creation is irrelevant. I have said nothing about how I “feel” about an essentially atheistic universe. And as for Adam and Eve and the fossil record, let’s take a look at that. Let’s assume for a second that the Bible is true, and Adam and Eve were both historical, real-life, flesh and blood humans. How in the world (!) could the fossil record falsify the claim that Eve was created from the side of Adam? Considering that the BIble fully recognizes (and stays so explicitly) that ever other human comes from a woman, how would the fossil record show this? Do you expect to find (from the numberless fossils, human and non-human alike) the very Adam and Ever who walked the earth? How would you know it was them (they don’t have state ID!), etc? Your claims are again, comparing apples and oranges.
October 14, 2009 at 4:27 am
Call me Chris, that’s who I was then, and now. No need to use Tom.
Small miracle, divine intervention maybe? Heh, I was about to go take a shower before bed but figured I would skim amazon for a particular item. Amazon triggered my memory that I had seen a new Dawkins book in the campus bookstore, which triggered my memory of you, and I had the desire to check out your blog. Oh how the mind works…
I do not retain a copy of our discourse, but at best, this a hatchet job of a discussion that lasted weeks, and took up at least some several dozen pages I believe.
My Lucretius reply was not that narrow, and short. The presentation given here shows you offering 10×1 as many sentences as I did. At best, that’s not the case.
Anyone I do not doubt Christianity played a role in the historical evolution leading up to present day science. Nor do I doubt that many Christian’s believed what you say, and still do, and can be perfectly adept scientist to boot. Regardless, my point was, a couple less popular, less well-known, individuals, were drawing very similar conclusions to the material world, and equally engaged and captivated in their approach to studying the cosmos, without invoking (pre-dating) Christianty. Therefore, they, myself, and others, can act as if “the external world was really there, not merely a projection of our minds, and detailed study of it could lead to a true understanding of the world rather than merely biographical insights (opposed to eastern influenced worldviews that teach reality as maya, illusion.)” without being “grounded in the Biblical notion of a Creator/creature distinction.”
Although I would say personally, and I cannot speak for Lucretius, that I do not think this method has, and perhaps cannot, “lead to a true understanding of the world,” only a better understanding of the observable & repeatable aspects of the cosmos within degrees of probability. Absolute upper-case T Truth….it would be nice, but I’m not convinced of that.
Your quotation of my genesis critique is extremely unfair, and inaccurate, if my memory serves me correct. The point I usually emphasize on genesis is that each day, no matter how it is perceived (literal days, billions of years, millions, etc), is not consistent in the order of the fossil record. eg. when land animals, vegetation, animals of flight, humans, and life in the sea, were created in genesis, is inconsistent with a fossil record presentation. So we are presented with a problem. If the author of the bible is cause of the universe, then we have to ask why the inconsistency? Was it deliberate, or are our tools of investigation staggeringly incorrect, and the author is correct? The tools only continue to confirm and embolden the evidence and veracity of the fossil record. You seem to support such tools/procedures to investigating a material world as well. Where as a deliberate charade by the cause of the universe has no coherent explanation that I am aware of. Moreover, that leads to another far more probable explanation, the cause of the universe did not author the bible, and an ignorant, yet poetic, homo-sapien did.
I do not think the genesis account is irrelevant. I think it’s very relevant to the discussion of the veracity of the bible for instance, but I do not think it’s relevant to have functioning empiricism (as my Lucretius point pointed out). And given the fastidious context of this quote mining, I have no idea if “I have said nothing about how I “feel” about an essentially atheistic universe,” was remotely pertinent to the back-and-forth flow of that dated conversation….Nor the relevance at the time of our genesis discussion and its supposed immediate following of our Lucretius conversation, which I apparently held for all of a sentence… (doubtful, our conversation was dozens of pages long – bearing false witness against thy neighbor?)
“Let’s assume for a second that the Bible is true, and Adam and Eve were both historical, real-life, flesh and blood humans. ”
Sure I’ll give you a second, but don’t be deceitful, you have not assumed, you have made a career and life around such a concept.
“How in the world (!) could the fossil record falsify the claim that Eve was created from the side of Adam? Considering that the BIble fully recognizes (and stays so explicitly) that ever other human comes from a woman, how would the fossil record show this?”
Well now you have set up some kind of bizzaro straw man, starting with an assumption, and then because the first untenable assumption cannot be refuted by your second untenable assumption, you deduce your first must be correct?
The fossil record would falsify to a level of severe improbability (not 100%, more like 99.9) that for millions of years, across shared species, orders, class, families, etc, mating took place via sperm, eggs, and reproductive organs. We still presently do, our closest and even very distant species, genus, family, relations still do it. Moreover, the fossil record has primates with uncanny similarities in anatomy that presumably mated the same way. Continuing on, birth for all these close species relatives presently, and in the past, due to obvious anatomical similarities, was and is through the vagina of the female (I feel like I am in grade-school). Therefore the probability that eve came from Adam’s rib is improbable indeed, when the hundreds of thousands of fossils and present day scenarios give ubiquitous credit to an entirely different conclusion. Of course I do not know how far back you say Adam and Eve were around, even if I pretend they were real. If you mean 6,000 years ago, pfui. If you mean millions, I can address that as well. (Meanwhile none of this vindicates the capricious order of evolution in genesis.)
“Considering that the BIble fully recognizes (and stays so explicitly) that ever other human comes from a woman, how would the fossil record show this?”
I’m right about grade school…You started from the assumption that the bible was true, then used the bibles claim to prove that it was true. Circular logic. Come on. The fossil record shows this through uncanny similarities in anatomy across time and space, through many layers of species-phylums-genus. Birth in a dog, mouse, chipmunk, primates of past and present, is done through the female vagina. Moreover, fossils exist of pregnant related species helping to support this claim.
“do you expect to find (from the numberless fossils, human and non-human alike) the very Adam and Ever who walked the earth?”
No, but I do not believe genesis to be authored by the cause of the universe and as you say, am only playing a mind game where I assume for a second. What I do know though is that the evolution of primate species in the fossil records, dating back 6 million years ago, to present, is staggering and robust. Tiny steps along the evolutionary line from vine swinging, to chair sitting. This evidence supports evolution over time and space, and not the sudden appearance of adam and eve, and their kin populating a world of black, white, brown, tan, yellow, extremely black, extremely pale, etc across eurasia, the americas, polynesian islands, the bahamas, caribean, indian ocean islands, the azores, etc
My claims are not comparing apples and oranges. At least the ones I am making now are not. And I do not think the past ones were either. Joe, don’t hatchet my words, and cherry-pick my ideas like that. I am dissapointed.
October 14, 2009 at 4:34 am
Correction:
“The fossil record would NOT falsify…”
October 18, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Chris, I do not have the time to reenter our previous discussion, but I wanted to clarify the record for anyone else reading. The “previous discussion” is online, for all to see and read. You can find it here: http://wp.me/p30a1-4e (in the comments section)
One thing that you, or anyone else, can do is to a word search on “Lucretius,” and see exactly what you said about him. Readers will find that you actually provided no content, you simply say, again, and again, “Lucretius said the same thing.” So my summarizing your position in those terms is hardly a “hatchet job.”
Second, you’ve missed my point. It’s not enough that someone, somewhere (ex: Lucretius) agreed with ONE point that Christians later held. Rather is was a collection of beliefs that made modern science possible. Even Alfred North Whitehead, not exactly a friend to historical Christianity, said in Science and the Modern World, “Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.” The point? Even those who later rejected Christianity were still borrowing from its metaphysicals beliefs in the practice of science.
October 20, 2009 at 2:53 am
I can provide the content if you, or readers desire, that indicates Lucretius, among other people in history, also moved the “scientific enterprise” forward, without Christianity in their frame-work. Very simple concept; simply put, Christianity is more correct/incorrect, and no more responsible/irresponsible in ‘modern science’ then non-belief and philosophy of non-believers.
Remember the past post, which you have linked to, reviews why you believe in Yahweh as the cause of the universe. Where as the hatchet job was reviewing naturalism and epistemology. My reference to Lucretius is quite a bit more robust in the context of “Letter to a friend (Part 3)” then it is in “Naturalism and Epistemology.” After all, the quote from me is in responding to your third point, after I’ve fleshed out the Lucretius point for some time – where as in this present discussion it came across quite differently as some isolated utterance.
“Second, you’ve missed my point. It’s not enough that someone, somewhere (ex: Lucretius) agreed with ONE point that Christians later held. Rather is was a collection of beliefs that made modern science possible. ”
That could also be worded to say that Christians agreed with many points the late Lucretius held, that made modern science possible.
Regardless I addressed it already, numerous times, while fully comprehending your point. I’ve done it in the past, I did iit on 10/14/09:
“My Lucretius reply was not that narrow, and short…
Anyone I do not doubt Christianity played a role in the historical evolution leading up to present day science. Nor do I doubt that many Christian’s believed what you say, and still do, and can be perfectly adept scientist to boot. Regardless, my point was, a couple less popular, less well-known, individuals, were drawing very similar conclusions to the material world, and equally engaged and captivated in their approach to studying the cosmos, without invoking (pre-dating) Christianty. Therefore, they, myself, and others, can act as if “the external world was really there, not merely a projection of our minds, and detailed study of it could lead to a true understanding of the world rather than merely biographical insights (opposed to eastern influenced worldviews that teach reality as maya, illusion.)” without being “grounded in the Biblical notion of a Creator/creature distinction.”
I could go on. No scientist denies David Hume played a role, and he was staunchly not a Christian. Nor would anyone deny that Algebra, as developed in the middle-east by Zoroastrians and augmented by Muslims, has played a role in science. And if we continue to be serious in reviewing history, we can view Benjamin Franklen and Thomas Jefferson, both scientist and engineers, as playing a serious role in making “modern science possible,” as did the support of their children, and family. Also their nourishment from food and drink. White men played a role, Jews played a role, and paper and ink played a role. Focusing on something as broad as “modern science” and trying to spotlight isolated Christian incidents or Christian individuals in history as the shoulders everyone else stands on is an obscene task.
“Even Alfred North Whitehead, not exactly a friend to historical Christianity, said in Science and the Modern World, “Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.” The point? Even those who later rejected Christianity were still borrowing from its metaphysicals beliefs in the practice of science.”
That is anon-sequitor, and not a valid point at all. If an individual is entirely ignorant and devoid of knowledge of some past work/philosophy/theology/writing/thought/etc, and yet comes up with a nuanced similarity of an idea, it does not follow that the person has been borrowing from that which he/she was ignorant of. I’ve heard longer-winded versions of the golden rule mentioned by people entirely ignorant of Kant and the categorical imperative. Hell, let’s twist that point on its head.
Since Lucretius was alive before Christianity, was a non-believer in god(s), the afterlife, prayer, etc, yet used the ’scientific method’ in his investigations, and recommended it to others, specifically a friend of Gaius Memmius, it follows using your logic that those who accepted/rejected Christianity were still borrowing from godless Lucretius in the practice of understanding nature.
Anyway, as I said, I do not deny Christians can practice science, and be very good scientist to boot. But history can never cover all the social relationships, and fortuitous events along our way, that lead to everything in the present. Many of us borrow, many of us share, many of come with ingenious thoughts that without or knowledge mirror past sentiments, all the while being wrong and right about a host of other things.
This Abraham Lincoln quote sums up things nicely:
“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.”
Which does not follow that a man is borrowing or accepting the thoughts of the past upon realization.
October 20, 2009 at 2:57 am
Also you failed to account for the observable fact that the genesis response from me is blatantly a cherry-picked hatchet job of our overall conversation. Really, why go to that length? If you have a point to make to your readers, fine, but don’t drag ‘tom’ through the mud of subterfuge.