Faith and Reason: Is There a Sharp Divide? (Part 3)

Upon review, Plato and Aristotle, while more sophisticated then the pre-Socratics, were in fact trying to do the same thing. And what was that? They both tried to come up with an all important principle that unites elements of reality. This principle would provide the basis for categories that we use to make sense of individual things. They were doing this through reasoning; in order to start they had to assume that reality was a certain way. Plato assumed the existence of the Forms (Question: if forms were perfect is there a form of filth?). If you need the Forms to make sense of everything else, how can you prove the existence of the Forms? Aristotle assumed the existence of matter, but matter has no qualities apart from Form. So the question becomes, what is Form a form of? Matter, strictly speaking is nothing (no-thing) according to Aristotle.

Their unifying principles proved to be no more effective then the Pre-Socrates’ “all is…” It is important to keep in mind that their arguments were based on assumptions/foundational beliefs that were not proven but rather served as standards that were used to prove everything else. Plato believed in the Forms, the same way that Aristotle believed in the unmoved mover, through blind faith.

Faith and Reason: Is There a Sharp Divide? (Part 2)

Though it’s probably crazy to do this if we’re discussing the history of philosophy, for the purposes of keeping within boundaries of this presentation we’re going to skip over Socrates, who is an eminent figure in the history of philosophy, notwithstanding. We are going to go directly to two thinkers that understood what the Pre-Socratics were trying to do. These two philosophers took it up a notch: Plato, student of Socrates, and then Aristotle who was a student of Plato.

Plato. According to Plato, the underlying unity that is necessary to make sense of things is not found in the world, i.e. in the world of sensory experience, what we can feel, eye, touch, taste, and hear. Senses can deceive us. In effect Plato split reality into two worlds; the world of the “forms” and the world of sense experience. The forms are perfect and without flaw; immaterial, you can’t touch, smell, hear, or taste them. They can only be grasped by the mind. They are changeless, stable so therefore all can be understood by reference to them. They act as the eternal, unchanging blueprints or receipt for all thing in the material, whether physical (like trees or dogs), or abstract qualities (like goodness, justice, redness, etc.). When things are similar, it is because they derive from the same form. The perceptual world consists of imperfect copies of the forms. Imperfect, so that they are not exactly the same as one another, but the similarity is based on the form that they are defective copies of.

Here’s a quick example: According to Plato’s doctrine of the the “forms” there exists in the eternal world a form of “treeness.” This form possesses all the necessary qualities that make a tree a tree. Every single tree down here in the physical world is patterned after this form of treeness. Down here, all tree are but imperfect copies of the form, and that’s why no two trees are exactly alike here in our world. Things in the perceptual world are perishable, because of their imperfection and changeability.

Aristotle. Aristotle does away with the platonic idea of the Forms. They are way too other worldly for him. Forms, for Aristotle, are not found in a separate world, it is rather an element of a thing in the world. The form is not “out there” but instead, the form is found “in the thing” itself. Now he sees things in the world, through the category of substance. A substance is an individual thing, a person, chair, etc. These things, these substances, are a combination of form and matter. Form is what a thing is, the whatness of a thing. Matter, is what it is made of, the thisness, that which makes it this particular thing. Brad Pitt and I share the same form, the form of man. Matter is what makes him that particular man (a much better looking man).

According to Aristotle, only the unmoved mover (Aristotle’s deistic god) is pure form without matter. It is the one exception to his rule. The unmoved mover is not influenced by anything in the world, yet it is what causes all motion, all change. The unmoved mover is the final answer to that ever so popular question, with not only kids but also with adults, “what caused this to happen?” A is explained by B, B by C, you eventually get to the unmoved mover and nothing caused it to happen. Unmoved mover is an abstract entity not a person; it does not have personality characteristics.

Faith and Reason: Is There a Sharp Divide? (Part 2)

The birth of the discipline known as philosophy resulted in the utter rejection of mythology as an explanation for the world of our experience. Many of the ancient philosophers did not want to outright proclaim their disbelief in the Olympic/Greek gods, because they didn’t want to offend the people. More importantly they didn’t want to get in trouble with the governments that used mythology and superstition to keep the people in check (an oversimplification, but nonetheless true).

First philosophers were called the Pre-Socratics. They asked some pretty important questions like: (1) where does everything come from? (2) What is reality made of? (3) How do we explain the plurality of things found in nature?

So they were trying to find an underlying/foundational unity that would enable us to make sense of all the particular/individual elements of reality as we know it. While they came up with fails to impress us: all is water (Thales), all is fire (Heraclitus), etc, what strikes us as worthwhile in the long run are: (1) their questions. It is these questions that early on set the direction of philosophy and (2) their strong belief that must be a unifying principle, some unity, to provide categories that are necessary to identify any particular thing. (Categories that actually tell us about the world and are not merely constructs. We’ll talk more about this in upcoming posts).

Faith and Reason: Is There a Sharp Divide? (Part 1)

We begin our little survey by going back to ancient Greece where the start of western philosophy began. Western philosophy places a great emphasis on rationality, coherence and makes a strident effort to abide by the laws of logic. It claims to frown on beliefs based on feelings alone. Some of the laws of logic would be:

A) The law of non-contradiction- Something cannot be both A and non-A (it’s negation) at the same time and in the same respect.

B) The law of identity- A is A

C) The Law of the excluded middle: A is either A or it is not A, it cannot be both.

Approx. 600 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, a movement arose whose purpose was to develop an understanding of the world that didn’t depend on the ancient pagan religions. The members of this movement sought to interpret what was around them without reference to a Mind that was above and beyond them. They were called “philosophers”; that’s Greek for ‘Lovers of Wisdom’. The early Greek philosophers were quite diverse and held various views but there were common features to their thought. Those features are:

1) The supremacy of human reason (rationality). The human intellect is fully able, under perfect conditions, to construct a true-to-life system that properly interprets and explains all of life (i.e. an all encompassing and fully developed worldview). The chief failing of humankind is not moral (i.e. sin, or something like that), but epistemological and metaphysical (i.e. we’re finite and ignorant)

2) The acceptance of nothing on the sole basis of tradition. This develops are the first point above. Since humans are fit within themselves to understand reality, revelation or tradition isn’t needed in telling us where we came from or where we’re going. Stories can be true or false, but the facts of reality, so it was believed, are just that, facts.

Faith and Reason: Is There a Sharp Divide? (Introduction)

Introductory marks for the upcoming series.
The following series is a look at the relationship between faith and reason and how their relation has been perceived throughout the history of philosophy. One thing you may notice is that people and schools of thought covered here are also covered elsewhere. Where this is the case, I’ll link to the other discussions. But what’s different here is that this series puts these thinkers and schools of thought [more] in their proper historical context. Once you understand what issues where driving their thought it can often aid in understanding why they believed the things they did.

This is a very general overview, so please don’t hold us to the standards of rigor that you’d find a published textbook. That being said, knowing major thinkers and how what they got either right or wrong aids in developing a sharper apologetic edge when speaking to unbelievers. Also, knowing the history of philosophy opens our eyes to seeing that so much of the weird, dangerous, and “latest” trends in unbelieving thought are more often that not old ways of thinking in new clothes.

For those of you who are interesting in beginning a study in philosopher, I pray that this series will both inform and edify you. The best intro to the history of western philosophy is Looking at Philosophy: The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy made Lighter, by Donald Palmer. His analysis and explanations are both clear an insightful, and his cartoons are funny and geared towards maintaining interest.

In closing, this series absolutely would not be possible without the assistance of my brother, David. Most of what you’ll find was originally written by him as an outline for a presentation that he once gave on this subject. Being that the original was in bullet-point format, I’ve expanded it and added brief explanations. Thus, this is a team effort.

Perspectivalism 101

John M. Frame has brilliantly formulated what I believe is an extraordinary biblical epistemology in his book, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (henceforth DKG). In this work Frame develops what he calls triperspectivalism, or multiperspectivalism (the truth is that if you can pronounce either of these terms properly, you’re halfway to mastery!). Now, what I’d like to do it walk my read through an explanation of what Frame is doing here, and why is helpful to the thought-life of a Christian.

In any and every act of knowing something we are in constant contact with three things, or as Frame calls them, three perspectives. These three perspectives are 1) the person doing the knowing (what we call the “knowing subject”), 2) the thing being known (i.e. the object of knowledge), and 3) the standard or criteria by which knowledge is attained. In knowing each of these we actually know the other two. Each are interrelated to the others in such a fashion that each could be seen as a perspective on the whole knowing process.

Here’s an example of how these perspectives are connected (though I realize that it probably raises further questions). Let’s take the example of me getting to know my nephew’s dog, Rusty. Perhaps I’ve come to the conclusion that Rusty is a short-haired dog. How does this talk of “perspectives” relate to this act of knowing? Well, first there’s the subject of knowledge, that’s me. Second, there’s the object of knowledge, that’s Rusty and his coat of fur. Third, there’s the standard that I use to evaluate whether Rusty’s hair is long or short. Of course, there’s also in play my knowledge of what does and doesn’t count as fur, etc.

Now let’s get to this all a bit further. (What follows is a revision and expansion of the original article I wrote on this subject for the Frame’s Mutiperspectivialism entry on wikipedia.)

The Normative Perspective (i.e. law or standards that govern thought and action). In all of our actions there is some standard that serves as a guides us, for example, in telling us what is proper to question, what actions should we pursue and avoid, what the universe is really like, and how we should seek out knowledge. The marketplace of ideas is full of systems that compete for our acceptance, longing to set themselves up as god over our hearts and minds. For some people final allegiance is due to sense experience (“Seeing is believing”), their emotions (“If it doesn’t move me, it isn’t real.”), or political allegiances (“I couldn’t believe in a system that is so hostile to individual free speech”), for others it is their particular religious tradition (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Ba’hai, etc) or secular philosophy (empiricism, rationalism, Marxism, etc.). Whatever serves as our final authority functions as our normative perspective.

Christians believe that God has verbally revealed Himself to mankind in Scripture, providing all the words from God that we need for life and godliness (cf. 2 Peter 1:3) God’s inspired word serves as the standard by which all truth claims are to be checked. God’s word dictates to us who He is, the true nature of the world around us, and who we as creatures are in relation to both Him and the world. As John Calvin has said, Scripture serves as the lenses through which we see everything. But even in knowing Scripture we know both the world, and ourselves and in knowing them both we come to know Scripture better.

The Situational Perspective (i.e. the object of knowledge). This perspective daws our attention to the facts of reality, i.e. the things our persons we are trying to know. With this perspective in mind, we should pay close attention to the details of history, science, and evidences for various beliefs. Yet science, history and the evidences are never to be interpreted in a fashion that ignores or sets aside the authoritative nature of the normative perspective. Remember, they’re all tied together.

Without an understanding of our world, we cannot understand or apply Scripture to our lives. An ethical example should help. The standard argument against abortion on demand is this:

1) Murder is a sin
2) Abortion on demand is murder
3) Therefore, Abortion on demand is a sin.

Point 1 provides us with the command of Scripture; it serves to provide us with a objective moral principal. But in order to arrive at point 3 we need to know whether or not abortion on demand is taking the life of an innocent unborn person. Coming to grips with the facts of abortion (the situational perspective) helps us to apply the command of God (the normative perspective). Our attention is drawn to the medical information on the nature of the unborn, the law of biogenesis, and the abortion procedure. Without this crucial information we could never know whether or not we where faithfully understanding God’s word as it applies to our lives.

The Existential Perspective (i.e. the knowing subject). This perspective draws our attention back to the person doing the knowing. As individuals, we bring our personal dispositions, temperaments, biases, presuppositions, and life experiences to every act of knowing. We ignore this crucial aspect of knowledge at the risk of constructing an unnatural, wooden, approach to knowing that is in conflict with the body-soul unity taught in Scripture. One of the nagging problems to epistemology is that when we’re trying to formulate a true-to-life approach to knowledge we are examining an action (“knowing”) that we perform almost every moment of our lives. While tacitly we perform these actions, putting then into carefully formulated propositions is quite tricky.

The approach that largely characterizes modernism is an epistemology that viewed the knowing enterprise as something hampered by human subjectivity in search of a sterile ”objective” mode of knowing. Frame notes that the search for a purely objective knowledge is not only impossible, but also idolatrous. He says,

Sometimes we dream fondly of a “purely objective” knowledge of God–a knowledge of God of freed from the limitations of our senses, minds, experiences, preparation, and so forth. But nothing of this sort is possible, and God does not demand that of us. Rather, He condescends to dwell in and with us, as in a temple. He identifies himself in and through our thoughts, ideas, and experiences. And that identification is clear; it is adequate for Christian certainty. A “purely objective” knowledge is precisely what we don’t want! Such knowledge would presuppose a denial of our creaturehood and thus a denial of God and of all truth. (DKG, 65)

The Integration of the perspectives. In order to appreciate the richness of the human knowing process we must see that every instance of knowing involves three perspectives. Esther Meek, following Frame closely, calls these perspectives ”the rules, the self, and the world.” (See her extremely helpful and fun book, Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People) Emphasizing the existential perspective Meek states, ”Knowing is the responsible human struggle to rely on clues to focus on a coherent pattern and submit to its reality.” Viewed from the this perspective, knowing is the process of integration, where we focus on a pattern by and through the means of various clues, which she calls subsidiaries, in the world (i.e. the situational), our body-sense (the existential), and in our norms for thinking (the normative).

Much of the pattern-making process is hard to articulate, yet this more-than-words aspect of knowing cannot be ignored, for it is crucial in our common, everyday process of getting to know things and people. Through the integration process the clues now take on greater significance. No longer are they viewed as seemingly disconnected occurrences, but rather meaningful portions that make up a greater reality (Meek uses as a example a “magic eye” puzzle). Yet, in a very real sense the pattern or integration, once achieved, retroactively throws light on the subsidiaries that made it up. The particulars retain their meaningfulness, but one that is enhanced and transformed.

These patterns now shape us, because, ideally, they connect us with a reality independent of ourselves. We come to see the fullness of the pattern when it’s truth is lived in, habited, thus extending ourselves out into the world by means of it.

Hopefully in the near future I hope to expand on this a bit, pointing out what I think are the theological, and philosophical benefits to Frame’s approach.

The One and the Many (Part 1 of 2)

All throughout the history of philosophy, especially in the early philosophers before Socrates (called “pre-socratics”), a debate over the ultimate nature of reality has gone on. The debate is over what can be said to be the skeleton key that unlocks the treasure chest of knowledge. Is the key the notion of unity or plurality? Many of the pre-socratics favored unity (the One over the Many). Different answers were proposed as to what provided that ultimate unity, Thales believed all was water, Heraclitus believed all was fire, while others came up with there own theories.

Others, like the atomists, held that the key to understanding reality was plurality. They denied that anything (other than the human mind) brought unity to the world. An example of this would be the ancient philosopher Democritus, who believed that everything was made up of atoms (what he thought of atoms is slightly different from what we know of them today). According to Democritus, everything we see around of is the result of these atoms (which are always in motion) banging around and becoming latched on to each other in various ways.

In historic Christianity, not only are rationalism and irrationalism avoided but also the war between monists (those who favors unity, or the “One”) and pluralists (those that favor plurality, or the “Many”), as well as the battle between epistemological rationalism and empiricism (the question what is the ultimate source of knowledge, abstract concepts or data gained by the 5 senses), is dissolved. Rationalists, such as Plato, have asserted that that which is the “most real thing” is the world of ideas. This world of ideas, or “forms,” as he called them, where more real than the physical objects we encounter everyday. This, Plato believed, was because the forms provided physical matter with the concepts or patterns after which they were to be made. For instance, a round object is the combination of base matter (wood, steel, clay, etc.) participating is the form of “roundness.” Therefore, according to Plato’s line of thought, the form of “roundness” is more important, more real, and more fundamental than the matter than round object is made from. Plato was wrestling with the One/Many problem, but favored unity over plurality.

Though few went as far as Plato in denouncing all physical knowledge as mere opinion, other rationalists, such as Descartes, believed that only ideas, or “pure reason” could furnish one with absolutely certain knowledge. Others denied the existence of such “forms”, such as Aristotle, John Locke, and David Hume, believe that the only true reality is the world of particulars, sensible objects. If something is not susceptible to observation or experience by the five senses then it simply cannot be an object of knowledge. (Note: Aristotle is the exception here, he didn’t deny the existence of “forms”, but did deny that they existed in another realm, apart from matter.)

Thus rationalists exalt generalities, categories, and abstracts over concrete realities. Empiricists exalt the sensible over and above the general, abstract, etc. But a danger lies on either side of this bridge. When one emphasizes the abstract categories of understanding over and above particulars the particular lose their individuality and uniqueness.

Let’s see how this works out in everyday life. if I wanted to know, say, my nephew’s dog, Rusty, what do I really need to know in order to really know him? According to those who emphasize unity, “forms” or abstract concepts, what I really need to know about Rusty is the “dogness” that he “participates” in. Why? Because how can we know Rusty the canine, without knowing the thing that he is (a “dog, an abstract concept). According to those who emphasize diversity and plurality, what I really need to know about Rusty are the features of his face, his weight, the shape of his legs, etc (i.e the particulars of this particular dog).

The problem with the first approach (placing all the weight in Unity) is that the further I abstract into Rusty into “Jack Russell Terrier” and further more to “dogness,”the further away I move from Rusty. In fact, if i abstract somuch that I’m thinking about the thing that unifies all breeds of dog, then I’m left with nothing, because there’s always going to be qualities that apply to a couple of breeds and not to others. Once I’m down to the lowest common denominator, I’m left with nothing distinctive to dogs. This approach doesn’t work.

The problem with the second approach (reducing Rusty down to particulars) is where do I stop? After all, Rusty is made up of ears, eyes, paws, fur, legs, a tail, colors, smells, etc. Do I really know Rusty is I “know” these aspects of him? But, these aspects of him are further broken up into smaller parts, like cells, atoms, protons, and neutrons, etc. The snag is that if I’m focusing all my energies to knowing these things, I miss Rusty. Rusty is the total combination of all these things and cannot be reduced to the parts he’s made up of.

Here’s an example of how one comes down on this issue plays out in real life. In political theory favoring the One leads to totalitarianism, where the goals of the state supersede the “rights” of the individual. According to Rousas John Rushdoony:

If the many, or plurality, best describes ultimate reality, then the unit cannot gain priority over the many; then the state, church, or society are subordinate to the will of the citizen, the believer, and the man in particular. If the one is ultimate, then individuals are sacrificed to the group. If the many be ultimate, the unity is sacrificed to the will of many, and anarchy prevails. (The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy. Fairfax: Thoburn Press, 1971, Pg. 2.)

Next we’ll look at the Christian response to this problem and see whether the Bible has anything to say about this (Hint: it does )

Putting the Pieces Together

For the past several months I’ve covered a variety of topics related to theology, apologetics, and the Christian worldview. One of the problems readers may have is that much of the work I’ve done here can seemingly appear random and possibly (though I hope not) without order, obscuring the big picture.

I thought now would be a great time to reorganize the work already posted on this blog in a logical order than helps the reader develop their approach to apologetics (my primary area of specialization) in a Biblically faithful, and philosophically sound way. The goal is this: if you read these in order you should be able to understand the flow of the arguments in favor of the Christian worldview, as well as understand the more philosophical of the entries.

Level 1: Making Sense Out of Apologetics
1) Prologue to Apologetics, part 1, 2, 3, and summary
2) Why Apologetics? part 1, 2, 3, 4
3) Pointers for Defending the Faith, part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and summary
4) Evangelism, Apologetics, and the Sovereignty of God

Level 2: Apologetics and the Bible
1) Apologetics and the Witness of Scripture, part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
2) Creation and Corruption

Level 3: Tackling Objections
1) “But, the Bible was Written by Men!”
2) Is the Bible a Reliable Book? (This is a longer article than most. For a short video clip summarizing, see here)
3) Does the Bible Contradict Science?
4) Is Morality Relative?
5) Do we Judge What’s Right and Wrong by Counting Heads?

Level 4: Taking It Up a Notch
1) Answering the Atheist
2) Answering the Fool According to His Folly, part 1, 2
3) The Uniformity of Nature
4) The Twin Sins of Non-Christian Thinking, part 1, 2
5) Applying Our Approach in a Real Debate

What’s the Difference Between Philosophy and Theology?

I’ve been rereading sections of my favorite theology book, Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, by John M. Frame, and ran across this gem and thought I should share it:

It is hard for me to draw any sharp distinction between a Christian theology and a Christian philosophy. Philosophy generally is understood as an attempt to understand the world in its most broad, general features. It includes metaphysics or ontology (the study of being, of what “is”), epistemology (the study of knowing) and theory of value (ethics, aesthetics, etc.) If one seeks to develop a Christian philosophy, then he will certainly be doing so under the authority of Scripture, and thus will be applying Scripture to philosophical questions. As such, he would be doing theology, according to our definition [Frame's definition of Theology is "the application of God's word by people to all areas of life."]. Philosophy would be a subdivision of theology. Further, since philosophy is concerned with reality in a broad, comprehensive sense, it may well take it as its task to “apply the word of God to all areas of life.” That would make philosophy, not a subdivision of theology, but identical to theology.

If there are any differences, they would probably be (1) that the Christian philosopher spends more time studying natural revelation than the theologian, while the theologian spends more time study Scripture; (2) that the theologian seeks a formulation which is an application of Scripture and thus absolutely authoritative; his goal is a formulation before which he can utter “Thus saith the Lord.” A Christian philosopher, however, may have a more modest goal: a wise human judgment which accords with Scripture thought is not necessarily warranted by Scripture.

A Christian philosophy can be of great value in helping us articulate in detail the biblical world view. We must beware, however, of “philosophical imperialism.” The comprehensiveness of philosophy has often led philosophers to seek rule over all other disciplines, even over theology, over God’s word. Even philosophers processing Christianity have been guilty of this. Some have even insisted that Scripture itself cannot be properly understood unless it is read in a way prescribed by the philosopher. Certainly philosophy can help us in the business of Scripture interpretation; philosophers often have interesting insights about language, e.g. But the line must be drawn: where a philosophical scheme contradicts Scripture, or where it seeks to inhibit the freedom of exegesis without Scriptural warrant, it must be rejected. (Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, pg. 85-86)

For more, see:

Rationalism and Irrationalism in Non-Christian Thought: The Case of Kant (Part 2 of 2)

A brief example of the rationalist/irrationalist principle can be illustrated from the history of philosophy. The epistemology of Immanuel Kant (1724 -1804) taught that the concepts the are necessary for our understanding the world around us, such as causality, laws of logic, time, space, and order, are structured by our minds and imposed upon the things we experience. In order to be rational and make sense out of life we must assume, or presuppose, these notions. Because we cannot prove these categories by touch, smell, sight, etc. they must be thought of as created by, and arising from, our minds, thus ordering and providing the standard for those things that we can empirically verify. This lead Kant to conclude that if we are to think of anything at all we must think in terms of everything being caused by something logically and temporary prior to it. This lead to a fairly deterministic view of mankind (man’s actions are strictly the result of prior conditioning, by both nature and nurture).

But what becomes of personal freedom, and moral responsibility? Kant believed that while we could not prove that man was a responsible moral agent we must nevertheless act as though this were the case. Philosophers have described these as Kant’s two worlds, the world of nature (which leads to determinism), and the world of freedom (where responsibility is found). Kant spoke of the “starry skies above” and the “moral law within.” While Kant could not deny the splendid regularity of the natural world and the reality of humanity’s “moral motions,” his philosophy could not bring these two worlds together. With no rational justification, Kant made the “upper story leap” to irrationalism.

Thus in Immanuel Kant we find both rationalism, and irrationalism.

Likewise, every non-Christian system contains what Jacques Derrida calls “alterity”, i.e. their own system contains the very principles for its downfall. They all “auto-deconstruct.” Esther Meek notes that much of the history of western philosophy can be described as the path from skepticism to “certainty” back to skepticism. The history of secular philosophy, up to this present day, is the story of man’s downward spiral

from epistemological presumption to chaotic relativism.

The Enlightenment project, which started with thinkers such as Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650), begun from a theistic basis. Descartes considered himself a Christian and, in principle, sought not to undermine the faith he held. Yet, because his philosophical method began with the human mind as completely sufficient to determine the nature of the “really real,” later generations abandoned the idea that belief in the Biblical God was necessary for understanding reality. Soon enough rationalistic deism was born.

As the downward spiral of western philosophy continued, rationalistic deism gave way to pessimistic nihilism, followed by rebellious existentialism, eventually leading to relativistic postmodernism . Thus, non-Christian thought, when consistent with its own principles leads only to deeper and deeper levels of hopelessness and despair.

The Unformity of Nature

Earlier, in my first post on David Hume, I mentioned that a theory of knowledge that claims that all knowledge is based on sense-experience cannot explain why the world runs in such a uniform fashion (what we call the “uniformity of nature”). To drive this point home to the non-believers we should ask the non-Christian to give an account of why it is that they trust the future to be like the past. If the universe does run in a fashion in which the future resembles the past, this implies design, or teleology. This teleological dimension of the universe has intensely practical implications.

When we take a prescription medication we assume that the positive effects it had in the past will continue into the present and future. This is especially damaging to one who believes the reality can be boiled down to complex matter in motion for unnumbered eons of time. If the universe is impersonal and purposeless, then why assume a uniformity amongst random events? If the answer is because nature has always behaved in this manner we must make it apparent that this response assumes what it needs to prove (i.e. is begs the question). If all “knowledge” comes from sense-experience, then we can have no warrant for saying that the future will be like the past. Why? Because, by definition, we have no “experience” of the future.

The Christian is perfectly comfortable with this uniformity because scripture speaks of it (Deut. 11:14). God has promised, in His word, to continue to run the universe in a largely uniform fashion, also the covenant with Noah tells us (Gen. 8:22).

Though I am simplifying for the sake of clarity and space, we must realize that this last point is absolutely devastating to many of the “scientific” objections to the faith. The scientific method of inquiry assumes the general repeatability of an experimental procedure to validate a given hypothesis. Without some warrant for the general predictability of nature we can have no assurance that a antitoxin that fruitfully achieved its purpose the first one hundred times will not act as a poison the one-hundred and first. Our lives demonstrate that everyday we act on the belief that nature is uniform. What we’re asking of the non-believing empiricist/naturalist/materialist is to provide a philosophical justification for such a belief from within their worldview.

Naturalistic scientists cannot take their first steps without denying, in practice, their philosophical underpinnings.

Help from Hume (Part 2 of 2)

Last time we briefly sketched the skeptical epistemology of David Hume. He noted that this thought was working from within a philosophical tradition known as empiricism, the view that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience.

What’s interesting to note is that in David Hume, so many philosopher’s believed that were witnessing the end of philosophy as they knew it. Immanuel Kant (who we’ll discuss at a later date) stated the it was Hume that arose him from his “dogmatic slumbers” and drove him to develop an epistemology that served as a response to Hume.

Does Hume’s radical empiricism help a Christian apologist? Without a doubt (no pun intended!), the answer is Yes. Hume pushes empiricism to it’s logical[ly absurd, yet consistent] limits. The fact of the matter is that though Hume throughly discredited epistemological empiricism hundreds of years ago, most outspoken forms of atheism (ala Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins) are “religiously” empiricist. Likewise the average “man on the street” unbeliever functions on the basis of a “seeing is believing” mentality.

How it works. When we encounter unbelievers with this epistemological framework we should always ask the same questions and hold them to the same level of consistency.

First is the issue of consistency. We should ask the empiricist unbeliever to be absolutely consistent with their theory of knowledge. we could politely ask them if they believe in true and objective moral standards, justice, laws of rationality and mathematics, human dignity, beauty, and real cause-and-effect relations. Now, surely most will. Even those who see where you’re going and attempt to deny these things (by saying, for example, that they are merely social constructs) should be reminded that their everyday actions betray that they really do believe them.

Second, we need to ask revealing questions. Empiricism as a theory of knowledge and truth largely depends on materialism and naturalism (the belief that only the physical realm exists, only matter in motion coming together in strange ways). So, here are some questions to ask the empiricist:

Have you tasted, touched, heard, smelled, or seen a law of logic? (hereafter i’ll substitute “tasted, touched, heard, smelled, or seen” with “sensed”)

Have you ever sensed a law of mathematics such as A² +B²= C²?

Have you ever sensed a number? (and here I don’t mean a numeric inscription such as 1 or I, 2 or II, but the number itself)

Have you ever sensed “human dignity”?

Have you ever sensed caused and effect? (I don’t mean succession-I covered in the first post-I mean causation)

Have you ever sensed the chief empiricist principle, “all knowledge comes from sense experience”?

By asking such kinds of questions, you’re simply asking the empiricist to be consistent with their principle that all knowledge comes from the five senses. After all, the answer to all the questions above is a resounding No. The naturalist worldview denies a basis for affirming these things and hence cheats when it tried to “borrows” these concepts for it’s anti-God project. And if the empiricist approach doesn’t even provide a sound basis for it’s chief principle (the last question above), then it disqualifies itself as a serious theory of knowledge and challenge to Christianity.

Now, naturally the Christian rejects the principle of empiricism, though we do not deny the need in many cases to be empirical regarding study, research, science, etc. (cf. 1 john 1:1)

Two things remain, an answer to these questions from a Christian worldview (some of which I’ve sketched out in previous posts) and a discussion on the uniformity of nature, which I mentioned in the first post. On the uniformity of nature, I’ll post an independent entry soon.

Thanks for the assist, David!

Help from Hume (Part 1 of 2)

For the next 2 posts I’d like to take a look at Philosopher David Hume. While he was no friend of Christianity, I believe that his approach to a theory of knowledge (i.e, his epistemology) is extremely helpful in aiding Christians against the predominant philosophical objections to the faith.

Hume stood in the philosophical tradition of British Empiricism, a tradition which teaches that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience. That is, if something is not, at least in principle, able to be tasted, touched, seen, heard, or smelled, then it does not count as a potential object of knowledge.

Brief explanation of [some of] Hume’s thought
Hume had an interesting method of sifting through different types of beliefs. Picking up what a tool of analysis from Leibniz, Hume’s fork for sifting is the “analytic/synthetic” distinction. Analytic statements are relations of ideas, and to deny them necessarily leads to a contradiction (laws of logic, definitions such as “all bachelors are unmarried men). These are usually what we think of as a priori truths. Hume’s (hereafter H) attack on analytic statements was that they are tautological, i.e. they add nothing new to knowledge. H believed that his rationalist philosophical counterparts (ex. continental rationalists such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) were building philosophical systems in mid-air, with nothing empirical to ground their flights of fancy.

Synthetic statements are those which can be empirically explored and verified. An example of such a statement would be “Molly’s dress is green.” How can we truly “know” that this statement is true? By checking it out, it must be subject to an
empirical inquiry.

(Please remember that H, like most Enlightenment philosophers, was working with internalist presuppositions, defined “knowledge” as “justified, true belief”. In order for someone to possess knowledge they must be aware of why they believe as they do and how that particular belief fits in and are supported by all their other beliefs. This is also known as classical foundationalism.)

In light of H’s empiricist epistemology, he uses this fork to sort out all philosophical issues. Only synthetic statements lead to true knowledge. So, H asked of the traditional questions of philosophy, are the answers given merely in the realm of relations of ideas, i.e. analytical ? If so, then they are tautological and offer us no help. But since H only accepted as worthy of study and consideration beliefs based on verifiable experience by at least one of the five sense, he lapsed into his notorious skepticism.

**Things Hume doubted because we cannot know them through the 5 senses:

1) The existence of God (but isn’t God-at least the God of the Bible-a Spirit, and hence should not be sought in the same way that we verify material things?)

2) A continuing self through time (when was the last time you experienced your “self”? Looking into a mirror won’t help, because all you see is a body, not the “self.”

3) Causation. (we never actually “see” a cause. We see one event followed by another, but we cannot experience in any way the necessity of the procession of events. In philosophical terms, we “see” a succession of events-ball A moves after ball B strikes it- not causation. Remember, H is being a consistent empiricist)

4) The uniformity of nature. (There is no empirical -and non question begging!- reason to believe that the future will be like the past. We have had no experience of the future, and hence cannot really be sure. An anti-toxin that cures today may poison tomorrow. Of course apart from the uniformity of nature science cannot proceed.)

Of course the truth is that David Hume never said that the above mentioned things do not exist, or even that he himself didn’t believe in them. His point was to demonstrate that autonomous reason has no logical reason for believing these things. Again, his point was that empiricists cannot given a sufficient explanation of how the belief in the above things are consistent with their approach to knowledge.

According to Hume, beliefs in the uniformity of nature and the necessary relationship between cause and effect are rather grounded in our psychological make-up, a “habit of the mind.” Thus, being that Hume rejected the rationality of belief in God, causality, a sustained “self”, etc, he attributed the belief in such things to the irrational aspect of humanity. Without, for instance, a Christian conception that God creates both the world around us and our minds to understand it (being created in His image), Hume had no assurance that the objects of our knowledge and our perceptions of them cohere.

Next we’ll develop more how Hume aids a Christian apologetic argument against naturalism…