Following Paul Draper, I'm going to define my terms as follows.[1]
By "naturalism," I mean the view that the physical exists and, if the mental exists, the physical explains why the mental exists. If naturalism is true, then there are no purely mental beings which can exist apart from a physical body and so there is no God or any person or being much like God.
By "supernaturalism," I mean the view that the mental exists and, if the physical exists, the mental explains why anything physical exists. If supernaturalism is true, then there is no purely physical matter which can exist without some sort of ultimate mental creator. "Personal supernaturalism" is a type of supernaturalism; it adds on the claims that one or more personal mental entities exist and, if a physical world exists, it or they produced the physical world for a purpose. "Theism" is a type of personal supernaturalism; it adds on the claim that there is just one mental entity, God, who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect.
"Otherism" is a catch-all category. It says that both naturalism and supernaturalism are false.
1. If Christianity were true, then Christ is divine. [Given]
2. If Christianity were true, then Christ is human. [Given]
3. If Christ is divine, then Christ is immutable. [1: divine nature entails immutability]
4. If Christ is human, then Christ is mutable. [2: human nature entails mutability]
Therefore:
5. If Christianity were true, then it would be true that Christ is immutable and it would be false that Christ is immutable. [From 1-4]
Therefore:
6. It is impossible for Christianity to be true. [From 5 by the law of noncontradiction]
Source: Alchetron
In this post, I want to assess an argument for atheism called the Transcendence-vs.-Personhood Argument (hereafter, "TvP Argument"). The first section is an exposition of the argument as formulated by Theodore Drange. The second section is a partial assessment of the argument. The work of William Lane Craig appears prominently in this section. Craig is a highly regarded philosopher of time and philosopher of religion who has written extensively on the relationship between God and time. He is also, of course, a theist. Thus, his work on divine eternity provides a useful "test case" for the TvP Argument.
In his 1983 book, God and the New Physics, Paul Davies writes:
Christians believe that God is eternal. The word ‘eternal’ has, however, been used to mean two rather different things. In the simpler version, eternal means everlasting, or existing without beginning or end for an infinite duration. There are grave objections to such an idea of God, however. A God who is in time is subject to change. But what causes that change? If God is the cause of all existing things (as the cosmological argument of Chapter 3 suggests), then does it make sense to talk about that ultimate cause itself changing?
In the earlier chapters we have seen how time is not simply there, but is itself part of the physical universe. It is ‘elastic’ and can stretch or shrink according to well-defined mathematical laws which depend on the behaviour of matter. Also, time is closely linked to space, and space and time together express the operation of the gravitational field. In short, time is involved in all the grubby details of physical processes just as much as matter. Time is not a divine quality, but can be altered, physically, even by human manipulation. A God who is in time is, therefore, in some sense caught up in the operation of the physical universe. Indeed, it is quite likely that time will cease to exist at some stage in the future (as we shall see in Chapter 15). In that case God's own position is obviously insecure. Clearly, God cannot be omnipotent if he is subject to the physics of time, nor can he be considered the creator of the universe if he did not create time. In fact, because time and space are inseparable, a God who did not create time, created space neither. But as we have seen, once spacetime existed, the appearance of matter and order in the universe could have occurred automatically as the result of perfectly natural activity. Thus, many would argue that God is not really needed as a creator at all except to create time (strictly, spacetime).
So we are led to the other meaning of the word eternal — ‘timeless’....
A timeless God is free of the problems mentioned above, but suffers from the shortcomings already discussed on page 38. He cannot be a personal God who thinks, converses, feels, plans, and so on for these are all temporal activities. It is hard to see how a timeless God can act at all in time (although it has been claimed that this is not impossible). We have also seen how the sense of the existence of the self is intimately associated with the experience of a time-flow. A timeless God could not be considered a ‘person’ or individual in any sense that we know. Misgivings of this score have led a number of modern theologians to reject this view of an eternal God. Paul Tillich writes: ‘If we call God a living God, we affirm that he includes temporality and with this a relation to the modes of time.’ 3 The same sentiment is echoed by Karl Barth: ‘Without God's complete temporality the content of the Christian message has no shape.’
There is thus a grave and fundamental difficulty in reconciling all the traditional attributes of God. Modern physics, with its discovery of the mutability of time, drives a wedge between God's omnipotence and the existence of his personality. It is difficult to argue that God can have both these qualities.[1]
(1) There is some puzzling phenomenon P which science cannot at present explain.(2) Theism does explain P.Therefore:(3) P is more likely on the assumption that God exists than on the assumption God does not exist.
Version 1: The Argument from Consciousness (Gap Version)
(1) Science cannot explain consciousness.
(2) Theism does explain consciousness.
Therefore:
(3) Consciousness is more likely on the assumption that God exists than on the assumption God does not exist.
Version 2: The Argument from Consciousness (Non-Gap Version)
(1) E ("Human consciousness exists") is known to be true, i.e., Pr(E) is close to 1.
(2) Source physicalism is not hopelessly intrinsically much more probable than theism, i.e., Pr(|N|) is not much greater than Pr(|T|).
(3) Human consciousness is antecedently more probable on the assumption that source physicalism is true than on the assumption that theism is true i.e., Pr(E | T & B) =1 > Pr(E | N & B).
Therefore:
(4) Other evidence held equal, N is probably false, i.e., Pr(N | B & E) < 1/2.
In version 2, premise (3) would then be supported by one or more arguments based on what we do know, rather than appealing to scientific ignorance.
(1) The evidence (E) regarding some known topic T is known to be true.(2) Naturalistic explanations 1...n are weak explanations because they are ad hoc, have weak explanatory power, or both.
(3) Theism has great explanatory power.
Therefore:(4) Theism is true.
Version 1: The Argument for the Resurrection (Weak Explanation Version)
(1) The evidence (E) relevant to the alleged Resurrection of Jesus is known to be true.
(2) Each of the traditional naturalistic explanations 1...n for E are weak explanations because they are ad hoc, have weak explanatory power, or both.
(3) The Resurrection theory is a strong explanation of the evidence.
Therefore:
(4) [probable] Jesus rose from the dead.
Version 2: The Argument for the Resurrection (Non-Weak Explanation Version)
(1) The evidence (E) relevant to the alleged Resurrection of Jesus is known to be true.
(2) Each of the traditional naturalistic explanations 1...n for E are weak explanations because they are ad hoc, have weak explanatory power, or both.
(3) The Resurrection theory is a strong explanation of the evidence because it is neither ad hoc nor has weak explanatory power.
Therefore:
(4) [probable] Jesus rose from the dead.
In version 1, the argument assesses traditional naturalistic explanations by considering their background probability and explanatory power, but does not consider the background probability of the Resurrection theory. In contrast, version 2 considers background probability and explanatory power of all explanations. N.B. I think even version 2 fails, but version 2 is better than version 1. Why does version 2 fail? I'll save that for another time.
I know that Thomists have had about centuries to come up with responses, but it just occurred to me that it is far from obvious that divine simplicity is logically consistent with the Trinity. Not making an argument; rather, just a note for future research.
Source: WallPaper Flare
I’m sure I’m not the first person to notice this, but, in light of the frequent accusation that atheists are self-deceived, it is striking how common it is for atheists to be told to behave in ways that are self-deception (or what we might call "self-deception adjacent") to cultivate theistic belief.
I’m sure I’m not the first person to notice this, but, in light of the frequent accusation that atheists are self-deceived, it is striking how common it is for atheists to be told to behave in ways that are self-deception or self-deception adjacent.m, to cultivate theistic belief
— Secular Outpost (@SecularOutpost) July 10, 2023
I just finished reading a surprisingly persuasive disproof of God's existence.
I've been thinking about Craig's defense of the kalam cosmological argument again. In this post, I will sketch two arguments I've formulated and then briefly discuss what I perceive to be the key issue which kalam proponents (hereafter, "kalamists") are likely to dispute.
