I'm in Korea! It's so good to be nearby Chowon again after the long trips I've recently taken. I'm preparing for my sister-in-law's wedding now, and for the next week I'm in-between jobs. Exciting times.
I'm blogging on my phone, so please excuse typos for now. I'll come back through and make corrections later.
Also, I had an opportunity to employ the epistemological argument in a conversation recently with someone whose philosophy stagnated after apprehending the thought that it's impossible to know anything about God, but that at least God's existence enables us to know about other things. So his issue was not that he couldn't see a way to know truth, but rather that he couldn't see a way to know truth about God.
Unfortunately, he was convinced enough that there was no possibility for a solution that he had a hard time hearing me attempt to propose a solution. It's an attitude that I should carefully avoid in myself when I talk to other worldviews. I'll be sure to listen next time an atheist attempts to give a cogent response to solipsism.
On one hand he said that he completely agreed with me, and even repeated back to me the part about God's initial revelation being independent from our perceptive or interpretive faculties. On the other hand he asked, "how can we know that the self revelation of God isn't a hallucination", which made me think that we weren't understanding one another. The question regrettably added an emotional charge to my thoughts, because earlier in the conversation we were talking in an unrelated fashion about hallucinations and I revealed my own history with (something similar to, but not definitely diagnosed as) hypnogogia. As a result, I totally forgot the potential answers to that question in the moment, and simply turned the conversation to an earlier, unresolved point.
In any case, I think it's worthwhile to address the specific issue here from the two most obvious angles that come to me:
First, the hallucination hypothesis is nullified by our earlier point that the revelation depends not on our interpretive faculties.
Second, the rules for truth apply to hallucinators in the same way that they apply to mentally healthy individuals. That is, the truth is perfectly internally consistent and includes in it the full set of information about all things comprising reality, and it is the only set of information with that quality. Therefore, a thorough enough investigation of any idea or argument which is untrue will eventually find an internal inconsistency in the way that it operates as a full system or worldview. All that to say, it is possible to distinguish between hallucinations and reality.
The conversation ended with both of us relatively unchanged in opinion, but expressing a desire to continue again later. I think it was a successful conversation, though, because during it he expressed that he thought Christianity was just the same as Islam only it lacked the Quran, which gave me the opportunity to explain how Christians have a different view of justice than Muslims, especially in terms of the means of our salvation. So I got to share the gospel briefly, and in the end that's more important and powerful than any argument I could produce, because now he has enough information for his salvation, and so the Holy Spirit can work on his heart.
Sometime later I'd like to explain my understanding of the arguments against Islam. Maybe in my next blog......
Also, I've spent a lot of time with Chowon's dad during this trip. I have to watch my Ps and Qs a bit, because he's a very traditional guy, but I think things are going well. It's easiest if Chowon translates.
Well, that's it for tonight's update. I'll post again later, after the wedding, maybe.
"People who love dogs are generally very nice."
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Sunday, March 18, 2018
Tonight I want to restate my version of the epistemological argument in as few careful words as I can. First, a quick personal update: I got a new job in Chandler, but I'm finishing out a project for my current/previous employer. I start with my new company on April 9th. Details about that when I more clearly understand what's ok for me to write online. That's it for updates.
I'm going to write as if responding to a hypothetical person who says, "I am atheist because I only wish to have verifiably true beliefs. The scientific method is a reliable (maybe the most reliable; maybe the only) means of verification. God's existence is an unfalsifiable and hitherto untestable hypothesis, so I am unable to apply the scientific method to it, therefore I have no reason or motivation to believe in God."
Now, the argument:
We're having this discussion because we hope to discern what is true. The scientific method is intended as a means for discerning truth. So in order to apply the scientific method to verify something as true, we depend on two assumptions:
1. Truth exists
2. Truth is discernable (we can know truth)
Without those two assumptions, any discussions about what is true or false are meaningless, so they are prerequisites for a reasonable application of the scientific method. I want to take those assumptions seriously, and so we can't just grant them without grounding them in some justification within the worldview. That is to say, any worldview which may be called "true" must allow for people to know truth, so they can know that the worldview is true and call it "true".
For the sake of argument, let's agree that there are only two options: either God exists or He doesn't
Let's first examine "God doesn't exist". (Every godless worldview I've encountered which posited the scientific method has also included Darwinian macro-evolution in its belief set, so I'm joining that belief to this option.)
If we are the product of unguided processes, and our brains are just matter in motion, then our thoughts and perceptions are also the result of the same chemical fizz. Our actions are simply the results of our chemicals acting on their environment. I don't think it's a large leap from here to say "we cannot trust that we are interpreting our senses correctly, or that they are providing us with accurate information about our environment." I'm trying to be brief here, but basically what I'm driving at is "the problem with hard solipsism", which I see as a challenge specifically to the atheist worldview (I'll dive into an application of the arguments in solipsism to the Christian worldview in a bit).
A critical inspection of Darwinian atheism leaves us fully dependent on our own fallible faculties for perception and reason in order to deduce truth. Since our faculties are broken, there is no reliable basis to suppose that we are capable of knowing the truth about anything, let alone whether there is such a thing as a reality containing truths. Darwinian atheism fails the worldview test proposed earlier because it does not provide any basis for us to make our two assumptions, which are necessary prerequisites for the scientific method.
Now, the other option, "God exists". (I'm going to argue specifically for the Christian worldview. See my notes at the bottom for info about why Christianity is the only viable religion; the discussion is not immediately applicable to my argument).
I'm going to make my statements about the Christian worldview's answers to these questions by referencing and building on Biblical quotes so that it is clear that my argument reflects actual doctrine taught within Christianity (seldom as it may be).
The Bible teaches that every person knows about God, but they suppress the truth by means of unrighteousness (Romans 1:18-20). That doesn't mean that every person believes in God, and it doesn't mean that every person consciously suppresses the truth; but just that the knowledge of God is in the heart of every person. Christians understand that the way that God reveals Himself to us is by general revelation, which exists in all of nature. In particular, God revealed his own existence to us in a way which does not depend on our fallible senses and faculties, by creating us in His image (Genesis 1:27). Now, as we've already seen, the knowledge of truth must not be dependent on our fallible faculties, and the truth is not something which is confined to the internal parts of the individual consciousness; truth is not arbitrary. That is to say, all reason is dependent on an external source of truth. The Bible places the knowledge of God as the foundation and starting point for all knowledge and understanding (Proverbs 1:7, 9:10).
So, Christianity solves the problems inherent in atheism by providing an external, infallible source of information which reveals itself to us in a way that does not depend on our fallible senses: God. As a result, the "problem of solipsism" does not apply to Christianity, because solipsistic reasoning proceeds from the notion that our fallible faculties are our only source of information.
So, Christianity passes the test proposed at the beginning of this blog.
The end.
---------------------------------------------------------
The next question I often hear is "well, why not any other religion?". The short answer is that if you think carefully about what qualities would be necessary in an external source of truth (must be honest, must be infallible, must be capable of imbuing knowledge infallibly, etc), you will find yourself ruling out large groups of other religions in every step, and eventually you will land with a basic unnamed description of the Christian God. I speculated about this point quite a bit in previous blogs.
Here are some references to my older blogs:
On the qualities of God by which he provides the preconditions necessary for intelligibility, and the possibility of using "Logic" itself as an ultimate foundation instead of God:
April 15, 2017
April 16, 2017
April 19, 2017
July 5, 2017
Some thought experiments toward quickly exposing the failures of Atheism as a component in any worldview:
April 12, 2017
A post completing and containing references to all other parts of a "series", wherein I wrote my thoughts leading up to these conclusions as I was processing them for the first time:
December 20, 2014
I'm going to write as if responding to a hypothetical person who says, "I am atheist because I only wish to have verifiably true beliefs. The scientific method is a reliable (maybe the most reliable; maybe the only) means of verification. God's existence is an unfalsifiable and hitherto untestable hypothesis, so I am unable to apply the scientific method to it, therefore I have no reason or motivation to believe in God."
Now, the argument:
We're having this discussion because we hope to discern what is true. The scientific method is intended as a means for discerning truth. So in order to apply the scientific method to verify something as true, we depend on two assumptions:
1. Truth exists
2. Truth is discernable (we can know truth)
Without those two assumptions, any discussions about what is true or false are meaningless, so they are prerequisites for a reasonable application of the scientific method. I want to take those assumptions seriously, and so we can't just grant them without grounding them in some justification within the worldview. That is to say, any worldview which may be called "true" must allow for people to know truth, so they can know that the worldview is true and call it "true".
For the sake of argument, let's agree that there are only two options: either God exists or He doesn't
Let's first examine "God doesn't exist". (Every godless worldview I've encountered which posited the scientific method has also included Darwinian macro-evolution in its belief set, so I'm joining that belief to this option.)
If we are the product of unguided processes, and our brains are just matter in motion, then our thoughts and perceptions are also the result of the same chemical fizz. Our actions are simply the results of our chemicals acting on their environment. I don't think it's a large leap from here to say "we cannot trust that we are interpreting our senses correctly, or that they are providing us with accurate information about our environment." I'm trying to be brief here, but basically what I'm driving at is "the problem with hard solipsism", which I see as a challenge specifically to the atheist worldview (I'll dive into an application of the arguments in solipsism to the Christian worldview in a bit).
A critical inspection of Darwinian atheism leaves us fully dependent on our own fallible faculties for perception and reason in order to deduce truth. Since our faculties are broken, there is no reliable basis to suppose that we are capable of knowing the truth about anything, let alone whether there is such a thing as a reality containing truths. Darwinian atheism fails the worldview test proposed earlier because it does not provide any basis for us to make our two assumptions, which are necessary prerequisites for the scientific method.
Now, the other option, "God exists". (I'm going to argue specifically for the Christian worldview. See my notes at the bottom for info about why Christianity is the only viable religion; the discussion is not immediately applicable to my argument).
I'm going to make my statements about the Christian worldview's answers to these questions by referencing and building on Biblical quotes so that it is clear that my argument reflects actual doctrine taught within Christianity (seldom as it may be).
The Bible teaches that every person knows about God, but they suppress the truth by means of unrighteousness (Romans 1:18-20). That doesn't mean that every person believes in God, and it doesn't mean that every person consciously suppresses the truth; but just that the knowledge of God is in the heart of every person. Christians understand that the way that God reveals Himself to us is by general revelation, which exists in all of nature. In particular, God revealed his own existence to us in a way which does not depend on our fallible senses and faculties, by creating us in His image (Genesis 1:27). Now, as we've already seen, the knowledge of truth must not be dependent on our fallible faculties, and the truth is not something which is confined to the internal parts of the individual consciousness; truth is not arbitrary. That is to say, all reason is dependent on an external source of truth. The Bible places the knowledge of God as the foundation and starting point for all knowledge and understanding (Proverbs 1:7, 9:10).
So, Christianity solves the problems inherent in atheism by providing an external, infallible source of information which reveals itself to us in a way that does not depend on our fallible senses: God. As a result, the "problem of solipsism" does not apply to Christianity, because solipsistic reasoning proceeds from the notion that our fallible faculties are our only source of information.
So, Christianity passes the test proposed at the beginning of this blog.
The end.
---------------------------------------------------------
The next question I often hear is "well, why not any other religion?". The short answer is that if you think carefully about what qualities would be necessary in an external source of truth (must be honest, must be infallible, must be capable of imbuing knowledge infallibly, etc), you will find yourself ruling out large groups of other religions in every step, and eventually you will land with a basic unnamed description of the Christian God. I speculated about this point quite a bit in previous blogs.
Here are some references to my older blogs:
On the qualities of God by which he provides the preconditions necessary for intelligibility, and the possibility of using "Logic" itself as an ultimate foundation instead of God:
April 15, 2017
April 16, 2017
April 19, 2017
July 5, 2017
Some thought experiments toward quickly exposing the failures of Atheism as a component in any worldview:
April 12, 2017
A post completing and containing references to all other parts of a "series", wherein I wrote my thoughts leading up to these conclusions as I was processing them for the first time:
December 20, 2014
Thursday, March 8, 2018
I've been pretty stressed recently. I haven't had time to blog about it. Even now, I'm laying in bed, blogging on my phone. Maybe sometime in the near future I'll write out this story, because it's an interesting one, I think. I expect that the near future will yield a sharp reduction in my stress, as the last several months have been a jagged incline.
For now, I wrote this poem...
-------
All I am is words,
words spoken by God
without malice
-------
I guess it's called "design", because God decreed everything about us in eternity past, and then spoke to create all things.
"Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure"
For now, I wrote this poem...
-------
All I am is words,
words spoken by God
without malice
-------
I guess it's called "design", because God decreed everything about us in eternity past, and then spoke to create all things.
"Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure"
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