Dear Theology: Show Me the Money!

Theologians, I have a very personal, very important thing you are going to do for me: show me the money.

I will sheepishly enter the fray of theology once again, this time to consider points by Aristotelian-Thomistic philosopher Edward Feser.

Feser has issues with both intelligent design and atheism, as each departs--albeit in different ways--from the scholastic philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Feser’s gripe with atheism targets the New Atheists. He chides them for dealing with a persistent caricature of Thomistic thought and for refusing to address the real arguments in the proper Thomistic context. Feser says:

Traditionally, the central argument for God’s existence is the cosmological argument, and (also traditionally) the most important versions of that argument are the ones summed up in the first three of Aquinas’s Five Ways. But the typical modern reader is simply not going to understand the Five Ways just by reading the usual two-page excerpt one finds in anthologies. For one thing, the arguments were never intended to be stand-alone, one-stop proofs that would convince even the most hardened skeptic. They are only meant to be brief sketches of arguments the more detailed versions of which the intended readers of Aquinas’s day would have found elsewhere. For another thing, the terminology and argumentative moves presuppose a number of metaphysical theses that Aquinas also develops and defends elsewhere.

So, to understand the Five Ways, the modern reader needs to read something that makes all this background clear, that explains how modern Thomists would reply to the stock objections to the arguments, and so forth. Naturally, I would recommend my own book Aquinas, since it was intended in part precisely as an up-to-date explanation and defense of these arguments, and will provide the reader with a useful survey of what not only Aquinas, but the Thomistic tradition more generally, has said about them.

I sympathize with Feser's point here. To fairly understand and address the arguments of Aquinas, or anyone else, one ought to consider these arguments in their proper context and with sufficient background. I also get Feser's frustration at seeing people argue against a caricature argument rather than the real one.

On this latter problem, Feser appears to understand that atheistic arguments get caricatured by eager would-be opponents all the time. Feser's schtick, in part, is to suggest that the New Atheists are not immune from the ignorance that they ascribe solely to their religious brethren.

Fair enough. Now, let's get a sense of how we might understand Aquinas's arguments properly:

Both critics and defenders of arguments for the existence of God as an Uncaused Cause often assume that such arguments are essentially concerned to explain the universe considered as a whole. That is true of some versions, but not all. For instance, it is not true of Aquinas’s arguments, at least as many Thomists understand them. For the Thomist, you don’t need to start with something grand like the universe in order to show that God exists. Any old thing will do – a stone, a jar of peanut butter, your left shoe, whatever. The existence of any one of these things even for an instant involves the actualization of potencies here and now, which in turn presupposes the activity of a purely actual actualizer here and now. It involves the conjoining of an essence to an act of existence here and now, which presupposes a sustaining cause whose essence and existence are identical. It involves a union of parts in something composite, which presupposes that which is absolutely simple or incomposite. And so forth. (As always, for the details see Aquinas, especially chapter 3.)

Let's see if we can parse this:

1. Anything in the world can be taken as the starting point in a long, logical chain that leads back to the existence of an uncaused cause.
2. That chain, going forward, is: sustaining cause (whose essence = existence) [to] act of conjoining an essence to existence [to] actualization of "anything in the world."
3. That chain, reformulated a bit, is: that which is absolutely simple or incomposite [to] an act of uniting parts in something composite [to] actualization of "anything in the world."

I can only assume that Feser and Aquinas have some backup on the "sustaining cause," on how we know its essence and existence are identical, on how we conceive of absolute simplicity and the like, and the mechanisms by which the act of conjoining and uniting might take place.

It's a safe assumption, of course. Here is Feser with a brief comment on divine simplicity:

the doctrine of divine simplicity is absolutely central to classical theism. To say that God is simple is to say that He is in no way composed of parts – neither material parts, nor metaphysical parts like form and matter, substance and accidents, or essence and existence. Divine simplicity is affirmed by such Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers as Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Maimonides, Avicenna, and Averroes. It is central to the theology of pagan thinkers like Plotinus. It is the de fide teaching of the Catholic Church, affirmed at the fourth Lateran council and the first Vatican council, and the denial of which amounts to heresy.

Here is Feser again on divine simplicity:

The doctrine of divine simplicity holds that God is in no way composed of parts. Not only is God incorporeal and immaterial, and thus not composed of form and matter, He is also not composed of essence and existence. Rather, His essence is His existence. There is also no distinction within God between any of the divine attributes: God’s eternity is His power, which is His goodness, which is His intellect, which is His will, and so on. Indeed, God Himself just is His power, His goodness, etc., just as He just is His existence, and just is His essence. Talking or conceiving of God, God’s essence, God’s existence, God’s power, God’s goodness, and so forth are really all just different ways of talking or conceiving of one and the very same thing. Though we distinguish between them in thought, there is no distinction at all between them in reality.

To both of these lovely passages, we may pose a very reasonable question: you assert that God is simple and that His existence is his essence, and you talk about the way we conceive of God in our thought and how that's a bit different from what God is "in reality." Pray tell, how in reality do we establish that which know about God? If we can distinguish between our mental model of God and an actual God, and if we can make indicative assertions about God's properties in reality, then from where are we getting this actual, real knowledge? Feser, the good philosopher, has an answer:

Now, for the Thomist...when we predicate goodness, knowledge, power, or what have you of God, we are using language in a way that is analogous to the use we make of it when applied to the created order. It cannot be emphasized too strongly, though, that this has nothing to do with “arguing from analogy” after the fashion of Paley’s design argument; indeed, it is diametrically opposed to Paley’s procedure. It has to do instead with Aquinas’s famous “doctrine of analogy,” which distinguishes three uses of language: Words can be used univocally, in exactly the same sense, as when we say that Fido’s bark is loud and that Rover’s bark is loud. They can be used equivocally, or in completely unrelated senses, as when we say that Fido’s bark is loud and that the tree’s bark is rough. Or they can be used analogously, as when we say that a certain meal was good, that a certain book is good, and that a certain man is good. “Good” is not being used in exactly the same sense in each case, but neither are the senses unrelated, as they are in the equivocal use of “bark.” Rather, there is in the goodness of a meal something analogous to the goodness of a book, and analogous to the goodness of a man, even if it is not exactly the same sort of thing that constitutes the goodness in each case.

For the Thomist, this is the key to understanding how it can be the case that God’s goodness is His power, which is His knowledge, which is His essence, which is His existence. Such a claim would be nonsensical if the terms in question were being used univocally, in exactly the same sense in which we use them when we attribute goodness, power, knowledge, etc. to ourselves (and as they are used in Paleyan “arguments from analogy”). But neither are the senses utterly equivocal. Rather, what we mean is that there is in God something analogous to what we call goodness in us, something analogous to what we call knowledge in us, and so forth; and in God, it is one and the same thing that is analogous to what are in us distinct attributes. From a Thomistic point of view, it is precisely because theistic personalists apply language to God and creatures univocally that they are led to deny divine simplicity and in general to arrive at an objectionably anthropomorphic conception of God.

OK, so we can say/know that God is, for instance, absolutely simple through analogy. Yet we cannot really know God. We can observe that a certain piece of music is sweet and say that God is sweet too, except that God has a God-appropriate sweetness that is utterly different and superior to music-type sweetness. Thus, we draw a nice circle around God and His qualities, a circle that occludes him and keeps Him worthy of worship. Just take anything you think is pretty decent and tell yourself that the God-level type of decency is unfathomably better.

The perceptive reader will notice that I'm starting to think that ultimately we are dealing with very logical and nicely constructed bullshit here. It makes lovely sense and demonstrates the wonderful ingenuity people have. But it's bullshit until we get to an area that is not imaginary, is not occluded, and is not accessible only by analogy. Right now, it appears we always travel down a one-way street from reality to imagination, and we never return.

Perhaps I am being unfair to this philosophizing? Perhaps I am making demands on it that are legitimately beyond its scope? Perhaps I ask of theology what I do not ask of my own primary disciplines, literature and history? No,  don't think so: if God is going to be posited as a real entity, then God needs to be shown to have tetherings in observable reality. If God can be known by people--and not just imagined--then we need to be able to mechanize and computerize this way of knowing. 

Let's read some more Feser on divine simplicity and knowing God:

Precisely because God is simple, though, there is in Aquinas’s view a sense in which we cannot strictly know His essence. For we know things in the strict sense by being able to define them in terms of genus and specific difference, and since God is absolutely simple, there is in Him no distinction between genus and difference, and thus no way to define Him (again, in this technical sense of “define”). God is not merely a unique member of some general class of things; the fact that there is one God is not some metaphysical accident, but an absolute metaphysical and conceptual necessity. But precisely for that reason, precisely because He is so radically unlike anything in the created order, we simply cannot expect to comprehend Him with anything close to the sort of clarity with which we can understand the denizens of that order.

I have had enough already of this theology. God is this, God is not that. Assertion, assertion, assertion, assertion. And though Feser's arguments are well reasoned by themselves, at some point the theology departs from the texts that are the source of God's revelation to humankind. For instance, Feser surprisingly offers "the fact that there is one God." Well, someone forgot to tell this to God because God suggests in the Torah that there are other Gods and he's the top of the line (i.e., henotheism). One may object that I have mis-interpreted the Torah, but it is indisputable that the Bible presents a complex, divergent picture of the divine population:

• Rachel the matriarch and her family of household gods (teraphim).
• The idols in the period of the judges (as in Micah's story).
• The cults of Ba'al and Asherah (various passages in 1 and 2 Kings).
• The picture of Adonai as king of the gods (Ps 95:3; Ps 82).

In the end what do we have with the theology of Feser and Aquinas? We have an intricate, nuanced, and well-reasoned human system. We have a deep study on the kind of being Feser and Aquinas would feel comfortable worshiping. That's about where it all ends, for there doesn't seem to be much to do with theology outside of saying "Yes, that is it" and moving along to a pew.

Theologian 1: God is simple.

Theologian 2: You don't say!

Theologian 1: He is so simple, like absolutely metaphysically ultimate-type simplicity.

Theologian 2: Wow.

Theologian 1: And yet, he is inscrutable in his essence. Totally beyond our mental abilities to comprehend.

Theologian 2: So true, and based on centuries of really intelligent people working out the logic of it all.

Theologian 1: So...we're agreed? God's really really unimaginably simple?

Theologian 2: Yes. I am with you one hundred and one percent.

Theologian 1: Mmm. Great. Now what?

Theologian 2: Let us pray....

I said before that I sympathize with Feser's point on how too many atheists don't know enough theology and religious philosophy--and they don't know the real arguments of Aquinas, in particular. I get that point. The scientists, philosophers, ID proponents and all the rest have closets full of straw men. We all do, and that's a problem we need to monitor constantly.

But perhaps Feser and the philosophers can do a better job of communicating where all the philosophizing is supposed to go. Great as Feser's logic and style of argumentation are, I don't see any particular grounding in what we might vulgarly call "meatspace." Feser and philosophy have no obligations whatsoever to articulate such a grounding, but it seems to me that they need to do like Jerry Maguire and "Show me the money!"

It Takes More Than Just Having an Explanation

Old Philosopher

I am no philosopher. I don't want to be one. As I've recently indicated, I have not been impressed with the philosophical chops of Vincent Torley.

Yet there is some good philosophy of religion out there, and one philosopher who supports the theistic position is Paul Herrick. Herrick has a very interesting article defending the cosmological argument against another philosopher, Keith Parsons, who is an atheist.

Herrick argues that belief in God remains reasonable despite the apparent success of science in explaining the universe. Although I genuinely appreciate the argument and the various inroads Herrick takes to develop and support his points, I think his argument ultimately fails for three reasons:

1. To my mind, the creator deity described by Herrick bears little resemblance to the god(s) of the Torah, the Christian Gospels, the Qur’an, Hindu texts and so on. Although Herrick argues that the God of philosophical theism created this universe out of love, his cosmological theism seems at odds with the berserker deities of holy books. The Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament both depict gods with the all-too-human fits of passion, jealously, and rage.
2. Philosophical theism is, as Herrick admits, not a scientific explanation. But Herrick’s article attempts to use philosophical theism to explain something that is primarily within scientific jurisdiction. The best explanation will be a scientific one. Non-scientific explanations, although interesting, will always be too speculative for extended consideration.
3. Herrick’s position rests on a simple distinction. His philosophical theism, he says, “makes rational sense of the existence of the material universe.” Atheism and scientific materialism do not provide a satisfying explanation for this existence. And yet…what if we were to ask Herrick, “Your rational explanation: is it true?” His answer would be, “I’m not sure. I don’t know.” Thus, in the end, Herrick's rational explanation is no better than the scientific explanation which does not make full and complete sense of the material universe. Plus, even the most apparently rational explanations require validation—no matter how “satisfying” some people seem to think these explanations are prima facie. The choice is, then, between a rational explanation without validation and a scientific explanation that is incomplete.

To lead me toward accepting his argument, Herrick would have had to have provided some reason to think that the Creator God of his article was the same as the God of whatever religion. I don't think we can just assume they are the same. Herrick also would have needed to justify his approach, as in explaining why a philosophical explanation would suffice for the scientific question of the origins of the universe. Finally, Herrick would have had to defend the idea that any rational explanation was better than an incomplete-yet-scientifically-justified explanation.

Although I disagree with its conclusion, I heartily recommend Herrick's article. Were I a philosopher, I would want to be able to put together an argument as well as Herrick has.

The Creationist Is/Ought

Will creationist Lucy allow humanist Charlie Brown to address the football? You know the answer.

Creationists have a peculiar habit of starting with facts and then extrapolating from them wildly. I call this "the Creationist Is/Ought." They'll begin, for instance, with a statement on how amazing a living cell is or how fantastic a galaxy is. But then they use this statement to argue that the very first-ever living cell or the very first-ever galaxy had to come about because of the magic of their god.

It goes the other way, too. They'll make the obvious point that Atheists reject the existence of gods and then go on to claim that Atheists think life is meaningless and empty. This second part is bunk for me as well as for many Atheists I talk to.

But this is why it can be so difficult to argue with creationists. They have lots of the facts, but they're also cramming these facts into a pre-set agenda. They argue their unwarranted extrapolation, denigrate the more reasonable limitations allowed by the facts, and "orientalize" a more empiricist bent.  Plus, creationists don't want their agenda out on the surface, so they try to couch the facts and the speculations carefully.

For example, when intelligent design creationist William Dembski argues, as he did in his recent debate with Christopher Hitchens, that --

We now know that every cell (and all life is composed of cells) is a vastly complicated assembly of interconnected technologies that argue for intelligent design. We need to be engineers to understand what’s inside the cell, and the level of engineering we find there far exceeds anything humans have invented. (emphasis added)

he applies the language of ingenuity and intent to frame the cell (and all life) as, ultimately, an invention of a being that far exceeds the capabilities of the human. Dembski's language, not his facts, reinforces a design hypothesis. His use of "engineers" is interesting, too, because it seemingly promotes technical understanding while not mentioning at all biological and historical understandings. No doubt, we should should seek to understand what's inside the cell from the standpoints of the technical (what parts, what structure, what local function), the biological (what process, what role), and the historical (what precursors, what changes or differences).

*  *  *

The Creationist Is/Ought is an argumentative bait-and-switch. You think you're getting a straightforward argument but what you're actually getting is evangelism. The evangelism can be of the soft-shoe variety, as with Dembski, or it can be more of the Torquemada sort, as with a character called "GEM of The Kairos Initiative," who describes himself as "A Caribbean-based applied scientist, educator and strategic change/ transformation advocate and facilitator." Here is an example of his style:

Nor, am I merely giving metaphors. If you do not know that the genetic code is a 4-state discrete code, you are utterly too ignorant to be a part of this discussion. If you do know that, you know or should know that such an entity is an instantiation of a digital code based system.

Further, as just one example, the protein manufacturing process using mRNA, AA-loaded tRNA and ribosomes is a step by step, code driven finite process that takes in inputs and generates defined outputs. That is, it is a physically implemented algorithm. If you don’t know that, you are not ready for this discussion. Kindly, go do a 101, starting from the linked above.

If you do, and try the “metaphors” dismissal, you have no excuse for the above “metaphor” remark.

Rhetoric ruses into reality: CRUNCH!

GEM recently made the following argument to me:

We live as contingent creatures amidst a world of other contingent creatures, in an observed cosmos that is evidently finely balanced at an operating point that allows for C-chemistry cell based, intelligent life.

Such a contingent cosmos implies a necessary being as its ultimate ground. That necessary being would be the ultimate reality.

GEM goes on (and on), but I want to pause here because our discussion quickly became de-railed partly because of an offhand comment I had made.

GEM’s argument is familiar enough. In the end, it’s a Cosmological Argument: a contingent cosmos presupposes having been caused by a necessary being. The extra stuff -- fine-tuning, ultimate ground, ultimate being -- is window dressing. The relevant objections to GEM’s argument, then, are that (1) the causal relationship between the cosmos (even a finely tuned one) and the necessary being is suspect and that (2) the existence of a necessary being requires justification per the principles of causation or sufficient reason.

The Creationist Is/Ought happens in the transition from the fact -- a contingent cosmos -- to the unwarranted speculation -- the necessary being (i.e., God). That first paragraph talks of contingent creatures, fine-tuning, and "C-chemistry cell based, intelligent life." And then in the next paragraph, boom! A "necessary being" with no obvious connection to what's come before and with no explanation as to why or how the necessary being arrived to become the cause of the contingent cosmos.

But GEM and I never got into these issues because the discussion got de-railed. How? Well, it started when I said --

Implies? I disagree. In any case, I wouldn’t hang my hat on an implication.

My primary aim in this comment was to disagree that there was a clear and present implication from the contingent cosmos to the necessary being. Implication requires a reasonable connection between the antecedent (contingent cosmos) and the consequent (necessary being), and in GEM’s argument this connection was based only on assumption. My point, then, was that GEM needed to explain how we know that necessary beings cause contingent universes to exist.

My second statement, however, was made off-handedly. What I meant by the statement was that implications are funny things, and we need to keep some perspective on them. Implications can be strong or weak. They can be clear or muddy. They can be misleading, depending on how one gauges the relevance of the conditions to the consequences. No one should “hang their hat” on an implication in argumentative discourse because implications are not automatically iron clad; indeed, they are very much in the realm of interpretations. When people assert implications, they also better do a good job of connecting the dots between antecedent and consequent. Simply asserting “X implies Y” is not itself compelling, and asking someone to accept an implication on its face is intellectually dirty.

But I guess this point didn't make it through to GEM, who in response to my statements became indignant and accused me first of “selective hyperskepticism” --

Going further, do you understand what implication means, i.e. P = > Q?

[P is sufficient for Q so that if P holds P will also hold, and Q is necessary for P so that unless Q holds, P cannot hold?]

That every time you depend on an aircraft or airplane or computer or similar designed system with underlying laws and mathematical specifications, you are relying on the power of implication to hold in the real world?

In short, you routinely rely on the logic that you want to reject when it is inconvenient to your preferred worldview.

That is classic selective hyperskepticism.

And then of rejecting the very basis of reasoning --

You are the one who tried to dismiss the logic of implication, which is also closely connected to cause-effect thinking. Indeed, it is foundational to inferential reasoning.

GEM seems fairly apoplectic. Questioning a weakly formulated implication is hardly the same as dismissing all inferential reasoning, and it’s not inconsistent at all. We're having a discussion with reasoning as a main part of the subject, for FSM's sake.

What are the lessons in all this? A first lesson is that the logic of the Creationist Is/Ought is poor. One has to call out the issue immediately and not let the discussion proceed until the "ought" is excised. Related to this is the lesson of not getting distracted by other "oughts" or soupy terms, such as GEM's additional gobbledygook on fine-tuning, ultimate ground, and ultimate being. These terms are apart from the main claim being made and so will have to wait for later or another time. Although one's blood pressure might go way up in the presence of nonsense terms like "ultimate ground," one needs to follow the old advice of choosing battles.

A third lesson is the general hysteria of creationists when you aren't playing their game. If you don't get all starry-eyed about "C-chemistry cell based, intelligent life" on the way to their "oughts," they become abusive and belligerent. It's not difficult to see why. People generally don't want to go back and check their math, but especially in what they consider their strong suit.

*  *  *

UPDATE: But of course I take requests! GEM has asked for some substantiation to my claim that the Uncommon Descent site has "censored" my comments. So, here's an image of what's happening (click to enlarge):

The title of the thread can be seen in the blue stripe at the top of the image. Post #37 remains "awaiting moderation," as does the post before it, which was submitted on 12/14. There's your substantiation.

GEM, your 48-hour demand is amusing and dickish. Settle yourself down and let's have a conversation. Would you like to respond to anything specific in what I've posted here?

*  *  *

Well, whaddaya know? For some mysterious reason (wink, wink), UD has taken my last comment out of moderation. Funny, that.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help either GEM's argument or style of argumentation.

Communication Breakdown

Can people with fundamental disagreements have productive debates? To some extent, it depends on what we mean by productive. To me, productive means, or should mean, that one debater acknowledges the other's position is supported by a superior argument. But perhaps my definition is too rigid and I should back off it. Besides, in my experience such acknowledgment rarely happens.

But, why is this outcome so infrequent? Perhaps I'm bad at arguing or perhaps it's a matter of holding pre-set positions? To attempt some preliminary and provisional answers, I'd like to follow an online debate that was initiated by "SJ," who had commented on a post of mine and later challenged me to debate him. The subject of the debate was the Cosmological Argument (CA). Our full debate is available at SJ's blog.

What I want to do here, however, is examine our various exchanges and see how we argue with each other. In the images below, I have reproduced only the beginnings of our comments. I have done this to keep the text in the images legible. I also don't think very much gets said after the first 3-5 sentences that really warrants full representation here.

Here, then, is how we begin:

My position is that CA doesn't solve the infinite regress problem. SJ appears to agree that infinite regress is a problem. However, his phrasing is curious: The point, he says, is that the CA solves the infinite regress problem. I agree with SJ on what the point of SA is. My challenge still stands, however, I don't the CA achieves its point. Now, in Exchange 2 I will make precisely this argument, but I don't want to skip over the new argument that SJ introduces, that the Bible gives us an idea of who/what cause the universe.

Thus, I think already that we are not getting anywhere. We're multiplying arguments instead of closing them down.That is, we're not being productive in the sense of moving either one of us from our original position. Instead, I see that even in my own argumentation, I'm giving a daisy chain of argumentative demands: (1) what causes God, (2) why can't the universe be uncaused, (3) how can you develop an explanation from something that is inscrutable. I suppose the thrust of these questions was to get SJ to see his position as basically unbalanced and narrow. I don't think my strategy worked because he deflected my parry by suggesting I wasn't appreciating the point of the CA and by using the Bible as an authority on knowledge from/about God.And of course

Let's look at the next exchange:

Here, I try to make the distinction (mentioned above) between the point of the CA and whether or not it successfully makes its point. I also reiterate my original argument. If I understand correctly, SJ asserts that God is by definition an uncaused cause. I imagine that this assertion is meant to defend my earlier point that invoking God just defers the regress problem: instead of wondering what caused the universe, now we must wonder what caused God.

The argument was originally a contest to move the opponent from a position concerning the efficacy of the CA. As Exchange 3 starts, SJ and I have focused on the existence of God and the state of knowledge in physics. I use focused ironically, since we're really at a rather vague and unspecified level with our comments. Follow along below with the exchanges. The discussion devolves into trite barbs and finally dissolves with mutual raspberries:

Are there any lessons or takeaways from all this? Yes. In retrospect I don't think I should have argued the success/failure or the merits/flaws of the CA. Both SJ and I already had solidified positions going into this debate. I dare say neither of us was entertaining the idea of moving off of these positions. We were not debating but rather articulating our positions; indeed, our function to each other was to help the other clarify and refine his position.

I have nothing against clarification and refinement, naturally. But I don't think I learned anything from this debate. I now believe that the better approach would have been to expand upon the CA itself. The CA is not just one argument, and there is more than just one formulation of it. This might have been a better discussion and a more productive debate, if indeed we ever got to debating.

I also think the goals of the debate and the "rules of engagement" might have been better spelled out by we the participants. What was it we wanted from each other?

So, I'll try to be better and more mindful in my debating.