My choir is right there with you. I sometimes record things without noting how I came by them. So I hope I’m not feeding back to you s source that came from you. This article sees it the same way.
If we combine reasonable explanations of the origin of religious beliefs and the small amount of belief among the intelligentsia with the problematic nature of beliefs in gods, souls, afterlives or supernatural phenomena generally, we can conclude that (supernatural) religious beliefs are probably false.
The counter to Clifford’s evidentialism has been captured by thinkers like Blaise Pascal, William James, and Miguel de Unamuno. Pascal’s famous dictum expresses: “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.” William James claimed that reason can’t resolve all issues and so we are sometimes justified believing ideas that work for us. Unamuno searched for answers to existential questions, counseling us to abandon rationalism and embrace faith. Such proposals are probably the best the religious can muster, but if reason can’t resolve our questions then agnosticism, not faith, is required.
Would an evidentialist who had a talent or genius be able to justify relying on that talent? Would it be reasonable of him to accept the inspiration without understanding the source?
Does the latter really refute the former? And the former says nothing about ‘reaching’ or having ‘more’ knowledge about. Just knowledge of the existence of something does not constitute ‘knowing’ it. The bare knowledge that an infinite being must exist is hardly satisfying and not an indication of any kind of special privilege or more intelligence, and it says next to nothing about its attributes.
And Pascal doesn’t refute it either. He is talking about knowing and experiencing God and ‘religion’ and its implications, recalling that the word has in its origins the same root as ligament, ligation, and ligature, denoting a binding, what we bind ourselves to, not merely logical arguments. There is certainly an argument that atheists and agnostics bind themselves to something too, and it is not a given that it is rational or necessarily logical, speaking of the heart.
That wasn’t my experience. It was a real possibility that I found when I thought I could know God apart from Jesus. The question came into mind, “What if you are the necessary being?”
No kidding. I had recently learned the ontological argument from Sproul and Gerstner’s book, “being is and non-being is not.” And now reciting the words like a mantra in full panic mode while my belief in Jesus was being trashed by Earl Doherty.
Talk about a real setup!
The coincidences that followed and preceded it, as well as how unreal people can seem in their sinfulness continued to reinforce my fear that I was alone. Then something rather unexpected happened one night when I was reading Heidegger, which you may have seen me write about here.
I often wonder how Pascal or Kierkegaard would respond to a story like this. It seems to break the mold.
Being is and non-being is not, the impossibility of an infinite number of things, or the unobservable nature of an uncaused cause, they are child’s play.
It’s a serif font that looks about 10 pt. Height of the caps is about 1/8 in. Your problem is the introductions, which are tiny. I’d guess you the the Kindle, Kendel. (Couldn’t resist.)
I wasn’t trying to refute the arguments. That’s been done many times by those more qualified than me. Just pointing out Pascal’s objections to “certainty” on philosophical questions. By logic alone, we can’t prove we’re not dreaming (or, in modern terms, living in a simulation), but that simply demonstrates the limits of our logic. As Wittgenstein said 300 years later, the limits of my language are the limits of my thought, and there are as many different types of knowledge as there are types of sentences. Pascal again:
The heart has its own order; the intellect has its own, which is by principle and demonstration. The heart has another. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by enumerating in order the causes of love; that would be ridiculous. Jesus Christ and Saint Paul employ the rule of love, not of intellect; for they would warm, not instruct.
Pro-tip: Never take a Christian apologist’s summary of a philosophical argument at face value.
My initial take is the ontological argument isn’t evidence-based, being purely logical. Buyer beware. Off the top of my head, you went down an uncommon rabbit hole. Solipsism comes down to the existence of other minds, and both toddlers and chimpanzees have “first-order” theory of mind.
I have not seen anyone address Sproul’s version of the ontological argument. And the best refutation of the cosmological argument I saw was Draper’s view that an infinite past could be a brute fact to which present events are added. And yet how does one add to a brutally or symbolically infinite set? At the beginning or end of it?
Yes, but neither can it be called atheism.
This is one of the places where I mention what happened.
Draper was Plantinga’s student. They collaborated on the 2007 The Great Debate. And I got to write Plantinga several years ago, and amazingly, received a response from him.
Oh and Draper went to Perdue shortly after I had him at my local university. I asked him a few years later if he ever spoke with Rowe about the problem I found in his book on the cosmological argument. Of how Rowe mistook what Aquinas wrote about the possibility of a series proceeding to infinity and the impossibility of it becoming actually infinite. He said he had not, and we had a nice little correspondence about his position on the argument.
Plantinga’s a good person. I know him second-hand through Kelly James Clark.
But my point is, it makes no sense to say the ontological argument is “proven” when there’s a long history of disagreement with it. Appealing to a lack of response to Sproul’s particular spin on it doesn’t mean much. It feels more like moving the goalposts, since academic philosophers don’t keep track of Sproul’s opinions in popular books for the evangelical market or feel much need to refute them.
You’re too fast for me to keep up with tonight. I’ll give other folks a chance to weigh in and check back tomorrow. Meantime, you should read the last link I supplied. It’s gold. Blessings.
Draper wasn’t that bad either, only God knows what he thinks about this. He gave me quite the look of disbelief when I said I wanted to write a journal article.
I hope it didn’t come across as a baseless appeal. As I meant it as a factual statement that Sproul and Gerstner have a different argument. One which directly addresses Kant’s statement about a priori knowledge and contradictions. They acknowledge the problem with the traditional argument, and put forward a version that merely proves a necessary being due to the contradiction of positing the existence of nothing. “Being is and non-being is not.”
I started to look at the article and found going in the direction all articles I’ve seen on the ontological argument go. If there is anything that addresses what I have said, please give me a nudge in the right direction. Best regards.
Thanks. Last word for tonight. (So I guess I lied a minute ago. haha) I pointed you to the wrong link. My apologies. I meant to point you back to this:
Here’s why I said to jump to Pt. 3: My main point is that knowledge of the existence of other minds, specifically in the form of “mind reading,” has deep evolutionary roots. I can read my dog’s thoughts pretty easily. And he’s certainly capable of recognizing when I’m watching him and when I’m not.
I’ve written a bit about theory of mind and its relationship to language and grammar, but I won’t burden you with any more reading assignments tonight. Haha.
That’s really an interesting subject! I love how connections to other minds can be found in the animal world!
Now none of that totally outweighs the possibility of determining reality itself via a manner of thinking. New age mystics have described something like this by thinking one’s intention to think or act as originating from the same place that the universe begins. But they like the serpent in the garden use the plural pronoun to cover up what is totally undesirable, even if you gained what ever you wanted in the world.
You quoted my comment that dealt with the ontological argument. I’m looking forward to what you have to say about this.
I do think Christians who enjoy intellectual argumentation would do well to first get clear on how much it is reasonable to expect anyone to change their basic disposition to the world based on accepting reasons for assenting to propositions on highly abstract and speculative matters. As Haidt makes clear our moral decisions do not follow from reasoned arguments. How much less likely that anyone would change their global orientation toward the world on such a basis? Either Christianity claims a central position in how one understands the world or it likely never will.
Citing cases where you or someone else seems to have done exactly that doesn’t answer the question of how being persuaded to agree about peripheral propositions is supposed to shift anyone’s foundational orientation to the world. Or else God belief for that person only ever will be a hypothetical stance toward an abstract construct. How that ever claims a central position for anyone’s understanding of their life’s meaning and purpose is unclear but doubtful. Being confused and unable to generate a better theory doesn’t magically become faith.
Claiming certainty regarding highly specific but non-demonstrable factual claims regarding what are primarily heart matters undermines credibility. The situation is no better for non believers who insist they know no God does, can or ever could exist and that believing such a thing corrupts their ability to understand themselves or the world. But nons have the option of admitting lack of knowledge in either direction. Agnostics can wonder about and suspect but are freed from defending the indefensible. More enlightened believers will confess they don’t know but have trust and hope that what they’ve come to believe on faith is true on a basis inaccessible to rational argument or observation. That is a respectable position and preserves the integrity/trustworthiness of the believer. Strong/obnoxious atheists do not persuade anymore than the strident believer who overstates the strength of his position. What I’d needed is an emphasis on the epistemic boat we are all are in. Those who are honest about this have more in common with each other than those who hold the same unreasonable position in either direction.
