Ah, I see now that you were articulating a possible atheist view, rather than your own.
Regarding early childhood development, particularly cause/effect concepts, language and their eventual connection with scientific thinking, we see the matter differently.
For me the science that most strongly argues for the existence of God is cosmology. If you know the history of the early universe, you will see it laid out in Genesis 1 – as long as you let go of tired clichés of interpretation. I could say more, if anyone is interested. Unfortunately most people seem uninterested, or resistant to this proposal. I am utterly convinced of this view.
I appreciated Draper’s argument, which Gould is familiar with here, that saw the intelligent design argument as being highly probable, and at the same time the argument from evil was highly probable to disprove God. So that was Draper’s argument for agnosticism. I imagine one would have to accept that argument before Gould’s argument from beauty carries any weight.
The Big Bang as a non-local singularity is quite perplexing and so tantalizing for how God can be totally perplexing (Psalm 18:26)
Who are Draper and Gould, and would you sum up their arguments?
What do their arguments have to do with the photo of the slide you shared:
Words like “saturated” “beauty” and “transcendent” are all highly subjective. If they were objectively demonstrable, what is the logical connection betwen them and g/God?
I am inclined to view this as a basis for the religious outlooks of people, who then distorted their natural inclinations by creating idols that substituted for the invisible attributes of God.
What is an objective truth for you?
She not only said “objectively” but “demonstrable” making it pretty clear. An objective truth is one where we have a basis for a reasonable expectation that others should agree in these written scientific procedures anyone can follow to get the same result.
I might alter the argument (for the existence of God from beauty) to ask why we even have a sense of beauty anyway. But then explanations have been offered…
According to current understanding, our aesthetic sense likely originates from a combination of evolutionary biology, where our brains are wired to appreciate patterns and forms found in nature like symmetry and the Golden Ratio, which could have helped our ancestors identify healthy mates and safe environments, and cultural influences that shape our individual perceptions of beauty based on our experiences and learned preferences; essentially, a mix of innate biological factors and learned cultural elements contribute to our aesthetic sense.
Thus aesthetic judgments might be seen to be based on the senses, emotions, intellectual opinions, will, desires, culture, preferences, values, subconscious behaviour, conscious decision, training, instinct, sociological institutions, or some complex combination of these, depending on exactly which theory is employed.
Of course as a physicist this all sound like very soft science to me. But it is enough to show that arguments like this (for God) are indeed rather subjective. It doesn’t mean you cannot find them convincing… personally… and maybe some people will agree with you. But convincing a skeptic? not likely… AND… they are not just being stubborn or unreasonable!
And then there is this part of what she said. It is a failing of many of these arguments for the existence of God. Perhaps this was addressed in the argument you reference. But then much of her response to your original post was a request for more information.
Last thing I remember was her being a post-modernist
I’d have to review my notes to see what Gould’s explanation was. But it’s a good question.
Like desire, I would say we all objectively have a desire for beauty, even though we often, maybe even necessarily, disagree on what beauty is.
As Lewis so well said:
It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
Or drawing from a passage in Keener’s book on miracles,
The boundaries are fuzzy, but we can at least provide paradigmatic examples of each. By analogy, the boundary between “long hair” and “short hair” may be unclear, but most of us would at least recognize Samson’s proverbial hair as long and the hair on a mostly bald head (mine, for example) as short.
You first.
You have yet to answer my questions for information or explanation.
@mitchellmckain has engaged thoughtfully with my posts, in which I asked you questions. Thank you, @mitchellmckain.
This is irrelevant. A red herring. A dodge. A jade’s trick.
Ah. I see. Your level of effort depends on who asks.
The only thing close to an objective element here is that humans have subjective experiences.
What do subjective experiences – such as the experience of desire or of beauty or of the desire for beauty – demonstrate about the existence of g/God?
What are the logical steps?
Precisely. I’ve heard a number of people suggest that apologetics are more encouraging to the believer than convincing to the unbeliever, particularly the skeptic. That’s fine. It’s fine for me. I worship God in the face of what I perceive as beauty as well as many other things. I don’t expect someone who is outside of faith to see it that way, or to find my experience as a reason to believe in any deity much less the God of Christianity.
Thank you for taking my posts seriously, @mitchellmckain.
I wish I (as well as anyone else who doesn’t) felt like this were convincing. Our sense of beauty, and the existence of our desire for it, doesn’t necessarily indicate anything. Maybe God created it in us; maybe God didn’t. I have no way of knowing. My belief that He did is no proof of anything beyond that I believe it, assuming I believe what I say I do.
Returning to your initial response to the OP:
And
I agree. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem be good enough - at least “here” and now. So many Christians are at a loss how to handle the admonishment to be able to give an explanation for our hope yet feel strongly compelled to. Because the terms (world view) under which we live now are so different from those of the NT, the underlying assumptions that were (nearly) universal at that time, particularly of a god or gods, which put everyone on a similar footing, are gone. What was self-evident to the Apostle Paul and his contemporaries simply is not to us now.
I understand why people hope to find something like evidence for God through science. Scientific observation and reasoning are what we see as trustworthy ways of understanding our world. The methods of science have been developed deliberately to promote, if not ensure, objectivity. These are the standards of thinking that culturally we see as reliable now. But they don’t serve us in the search for God.
What I find yet harder is that in order to “give an explanation for our hope” subjective “arguments” are often given as if they were of similar quality to scientific observation and reasoning, or even carried the weight of a well-based hypothesis. The person who scrutinizes them is blamed for finding they don’t live up to their intellectual promises. Labeled “stubborn” I think you said. Maybe, rather, they are disappointed, sad, heartbroken.
We need something different. And we need it presented as what it is.
There’s a statement I would love to have had to throw out for argument in our informal intelligent design club, given that most were former atheists and agnostics who came to God via science!
I heard a paper which argued that Paul is expressing a tenet of Jewish astrology (nothing like Babylonian astrology, BTW), that the stars often give information about what GOd is up to – the classic example being the Christmas star event(s).
This is something our informal intelligent design club would have objected to: I think I can safely say that all who became Christians would have said that seeing evidence for God in the scientific realm led to a “God with no gaps” view – it was the system, not individual phenomena, that for them pointed to God, whether the elegance of evolution or of cosmology or fine-tuning.
Not just infants – it took Knox maybe a half dozen times to recognize that I was still there while I pulled a sweatshirt over my head. The first time I pulled one over while he watched I left it covering my face and waved my arms around and he went crazy; by the sixth time it was more, “C’mon, papa, just get your shirt on”.
Paul would say that people made idols because the top elohim whom Yahweh appointed to guide the nations decided to play God and get their assigned nations to worship them, and lesser elohim formed pantheons where the “invisible attributes” were represented.
I think the fact that there were gods of war, the harvest, mountains, fertility & sex, fire, etc. shows that the gods weren’t meant to represent God’s invisible attributes.
Most people who engage in apologetics have never read the early apologists; if they had, they would address the matter quite differently. What they do these days is cheering on the choir, so to speak.
The original point of apologetics was to remove obstacles held to by nonbelievers, not to try to prove Christianity but to show it as not unreasonable.
My “something different” involves looking at the text and showing that (1) it isn’t intended to say what attackers are claiming it says and (2) that what it actually conveys is not contrary to modern science. Most of what I hear presented as apologetics, though, could have been designed by propagandists whose intent was to make Christians look stupid.
I guess I was focusing in on the word “evidence” or more specifically, empirical evidence. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Christian and, like a number of members in this forum, was also a scientist. If the act of “seeing” constitutes evidence then we must part ways. Now, I happen to believe that the majesty of creation was caused by God. So, instead of saying evidence of God I would say that the majesty of creation is reason to believe in God but not evidence of God. In fact, my view is perfectly in line with the Designer theology in which the occurrence of an uninhabited, solidly designed and furnished house on, say the moon, certainly suggests that the house was designed by a supernatural being. But again. suggestion, not matter how profound is not evidence.
Just a nano-nit. I know, but I thought I’d express it anyway,
Blessings.
I am thinking of (the amplified bible):
For that which is known about God is evident to them andmade plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.
20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature andattributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible andclearly discernible in andthrough the things that have been made (His handiworks)
When you say this, what do you have in mind?
I understand that there are currently apologists who practice something like this. I don’t know if I have encountered any of them, though.
I did make a non-judgemental attempt to answer your “Why?”
To which you asked 4 or 5 more questions
So, it is objectively your turn…
And your answer to my question will help me to understand how best to further respond… I mean that sincerely
I did ask both for information and explanation. Posts referenced in the links below.
My questions were sincerely meant as well. You decided sincerely not to answer them in any useful or meaningful way.
Perhaps you asked:
(A question problematic in a number of ways) in relation to what I said here:
Your questiion diverts the discussion from my point and question related to the argument in the photo you shared. If you think the point of the argument presented in the slide is something other than what I indicated, address it, rather than divertingfrom the discussion about the contents of the slide.
This is something that I have noticed in many conversations on forums like this one. A quick search of thread titles here at BioLogos will find “Evolution is a faith” or “Evolution is just a religion” as a way of attacking science. These are Christians who are using the words religion and faith as slurs, as a reason not to believe something. It makes you wonder what they think of their own Christian beliefs.
In contrast, nearly all of the Christian scientists I talk to have no problem embracing their faith and religious beliefs, and find no problem in not having “objective proof”.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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