In Part 1 of Faith in Reason, I said that, if I were asked to explain my Christian belief, I would begin with the impotence of reason to answer the questions that it sets for itself.
But I expect that critics will respond thus:
Let's say we agree that reason is impotent in the way you think. But from this nothing about the truth of Christianity follows. If reason is impotent, we must be skeptics about the big questions - the purpose of life, God's existence and the rest.
I certainly do agree that, from the impotence of reason alone, Christianity does not follow. But where reason cannot see, another faculty begins to discern the outlines of a greater truth. At times, I call this "the heart". Others call it "the conscience". There is within us a capacity to discern moral truth, a capacity that cannot be reduced to reason or to emotion alone. It is, I believe, sui generis - unique in kind. Where reason is silent, it speaks.
It speaks in me. It always spoke in me. When I was still a materialist and an atheist, my most deeply held convictions were moral. I believed that all persons were of equal worth, that the interests of all were of equal importance, and the root of evil was the denial of this.
This I still believe. I don't think that this conviction admits of rational proof. But I do no think that it needs proof. Nor do I think that my conviction is simply a way that I feel. It is genuine belief - genuine knowledge I would say. The equality of worth is, in itself, quite clear and quite obvious; and that by which I discern its truth is the conscience, is the heart.
So here then is my view. Reason is impotent. Mere emotion is not adequate to the task of discernment of moral truth; emotion does not yield knowledge. In the space that is left when reason and emotion retreat, conscience speaks; and it directs us to the truth.
How does this link up with Christianity? Over time, I have come to the opinion that Christianity best articulates what conscience first revealed to me. So it isn't that Christianity follows from the impotence of reason. Rather it's that, when reason knows its place and is silent where it cannot lead, another (and I should think better) faculty can speak; and if thought through, Christianity is the inevitable end.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Faith in Reason, Pt. 1
Once I had faith in reason. I though that it could unravel the riddles of life, that it could give certainty about life's purpose and God's existence (to name only two).
But that faith has slipped away over time. Reason, I now believe, is largely impotent if it works on its own. (At least it is impotent when it consider the great questions. About the lesser questions - What do I have for dinner? What's the chemical composition of table salt? - it seems adequate to its task.) Why believe this? My experience of the conclusions of the philosophers.
Here's what I mean. On any issue of any importance (life's purpose, God's existence, etc.), philosophers always, always come down on different sides. (I used to joke to my students that, about any philosophical issue at all, some philosophers say p, some say not-p, some say that we cannot know whether p or not-p, and some say that it was a pseudo-issue to begin.) But this isn't because some are better informed or more intelligent than the rest. Rather, philosophers who disagree are, as a rule, equally well-informed and equally intelligent.
Now, consider your own philosophical conclusions in this light. (I do mine.) Let us say that you have come to the conclusion (Descartes' and Plato's conclusion) that the mind is a non-physical substance. Some philosophers agree. Some disagree. But those that disagree are no less capable philosophers than are you. (This is an irrefutable empirical fact. I can be easily seen if you will but open your eyes.) Their view is just as well-informed, their arguments just as powerful.
Now, which of you is most likely to be right? Of course, since your views contradict, at most one of you is right. But which? It seems obvious to me that you are just as likely to be wrong as your opponent. Your and your opponent are equally likely to have made some subtle mistake that vitiates your argument. (We can say this at least about the philosophers - where they make mistakes, they make subtle ones.) But if this is so, it seems that one can have little faith in the cogency of one's own arguments. They might be good, they might not; and at present (and it would seem into the indefinite future as well) there is no way to know which it is.
Consider this too. Likely you have come to believe that some argument you once thought cogent really is not. I've done this a number of times. I once thought that mind was material, and thought that my arguments for this compelled assent. I now think precisely the opposite. Mind is immaterial, the arguments for its materiality are flawed, and the arguments for its immateriality are quite strong. Now, what is the probability that I'll do such an about-face in the future about this or some other issue? Surely it isn't negligible. Indeed I think it great enough that one must take the possibility of an about-face seriously. But if this is so, any claim to knowledge is vitiated. If once can be forced by reason to abandon a view that reason once led one to accept, one does not know.
My conclusion is this: the pervasiveness of philosophical dispute (and of change in philosophical opinion) makes philosophical knowledge impossible.
But what is the method of the philosophers? Reason unaided. No appeals to authority, just reason and reason alone. But then we must say that reason unaided is impotent to settle the issues that it sets itself.
If asked, this would be one of the many explanations I'd give of my conversion to Christianity. Reason can't answer the vital questions of my life. Christianity can, and does.
But that faith has slipped away over time. Reason, I now believe, is largely impotent if it works on its own. (At least it is impotent when it consider the great questions. About the lesser questions - What do I have for dinner? What's the chemical composition of table salt? - it seems adequate to its task.) Why believe this? My experience of the conclusions of the philosophers.
Here's what I mean. On any issue of any importance (life's purpose, God's existence, etc.), philosophers always, always come down on different sides. (I used to joke to my students that, about any philosophical issue at all, some philosophers say p, some say not-p, some say that we cannot know whether p or not-p, and some say that it was a pseudo-issue to begin.) But this isn't because some are better informed or more intelligent than the rest. Rather, philosophers who disagree are, as a rule, equally well-informed and equally intelligent.
Now, consider your own philosophical conclusions in this light. (I do mine.) Let us say that you have come to the conclusion (Descartes' and Plato's conclusion) that the mind is a non-physical substance. Some philosophers agree. Some disagree. But those that disagree are no less capable philosophers than are you. (This is an irrefutable empirical fact. I can be easily seen if you will but open your eyes.) Their view is just as well-informed, their arguments just as powerful.
Now, which of you is most likely to be right? Of course, since your views contradict, at most one of you is right. But which? It seems obvious to me that you are just as likely to be wrong as your opponent. Your and your opponent are equally likely to have made some subtle mistake that vitiates your argument. (We can say this at least about the philosophers - where they make mistakes, they make subtle ones.) But if this is so, it seems that one can have little faith in the cogency of one's own arguments. They might be good, they might not; and at present (and it would seem into the indefinite future as well) there is no way to know which it is.
Consider this too. Likely you have come to believe that some argument you once thought cogent really is not. I've done this a number of times. I once thought that mind was material, and thought that my arguments for this compelled assent. I now think precisely the opposite. Mind is immaterial, the arguments for its materiality are flawed, and the arguments for its immateriality are quite strong. Now, what is the probability that I'll do such an about-face in the future about this or some other issue? Surely it isn't negligible. Indeed I think it great enough that one must take the possibility of an about-face seriously. But if this is so, any claim to knowledge is vitiated. If once can be forced by reason to abandon a view that reason once led one to accept, one does not know.
My conclusion is this: the pervasiveness of philosophical dispute (and of change in philosophical opinion) makes philosophical knowledge impossible.
But what is the method of the philosophers? Reason unaided. No appeals to authority, just reason and reason alone. But then we must say that reason unaided is impotent to settle the issues that it sets itself.
If asked, this would be one of the many explanations I'd give of my conversion to Christianity. Reason can't answer the vital questions of my life. Christianity can, and does.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Evil's Source
No one that I know - certainly no one that I take at all seriously - believes that the world is now or ever has been as it should be. But though we all agree upon that - that the world always could have been better than in fact it was - we do no agree upon why this is so. When we wish to speak of those parts or aspects of the world that makes it less good than it might have been, let us use the word "evil". Something evil, then, is something that, in some way or other, is not optimal. It is something that falls short, something that might have been better. So then we all agree that the world does now, and has always, contained evil; but we do not agree upon evil's source. Let us focus upon the evil that we humans do. Call this "artifact evil" or AE for short. (A good word for this is "sin", but some might not agree to its use, for it is a religious term.) Examples of AE: rape, murder, hatred, jealousy, spite, neglect of those in our care, genocide, slavery, racism, sexism, etc. Each is human, and each is evil. There are, I believe, two sorts of explanation of the genesis of AE in the world. One makes individual AE primary, the other makes group AE primary. Let me explain.
Individual AE
Here the root cause of all AE is said to lie in the individual human heart. It is there that evil is first conceived, and it is there from which evil action springs. As Solzhenitsyn said, the line that divides good from evil runs through the human heart. The one who holds this view need not deny the existence of group AE. The racism inculclated in the youth of the South when I was young might be a example, for it seems that this racism was spread across an entire culture and that this culture perpetuated its racism in the education of its young. But though one who holds that the root cause of AE is individual need to deny the existence of group evil, she will insist that, if one traces backward to time to the source of this group evil, one will find the individual human heart, corrupted by its love of that which is evil. Christianity is, I take it, wedded to an individualistic account of the source of AE. There is much in the story of humanity's fall in Genesis that is not true if read literally. But there is a nugget of truth in the story that Christianity must embrace, and it is that first one individual, and then another (and after them all humanity) turned freely against God and thus brought evil into the world. AE, says Christianity, has its source in an individual decision and individual action. Thus did evil enter the world, and thus now does it infect all of humanity. Note a consequence of this for how we are to conceive of the individual. The individual is prior to any group of which she is part. Her identity - that which at bottom she is - is not formed by the societal relations that bind us to one another. Rather the individual exists first - first in thought, first in action- and from this societal relations spring.
Group AE
Here the root cause of all AE is said to lie in culture, class, race, gender - in general, in group identity. Here the line that divides good from evil is the very line that divides group from group. When in The Communist Manifesto Marx tells us that the history of every society heretofore has been the history of class struggle, he makes quite clear how we are to conceive of the individual and of AE. The identity of the individual is derivative from the class of which he is part. I am the man that I am because I am a man of this class. Class first, individual after. Because of this, AE must too have its root cause in group identity. At bottom, it is not this or that human who is evil. Rather at bottom this or that group is evil (and by this we are likely to mean that it oppresses or otherwise mistreats other groups over which it has power), and the evil done by the individuals within it derives from their group identity.
Consequences
Since Individual AE and Group AE differ so fundamentally about the cause of AE, one should expect that they will differ about how to put things right; and they do. Individual AE calls for the transformation of the human heart. (As John Lennon so wisely said, "when you tell me that it's the institution, well you know you better free your mind instead.") Only then, it says, can societal justice be achieved. Group AE on the contrary calls for societal transformation first, and holds that this is the only way to achieve the good of the individual. Individual AE does not see societal upheaval as necessary to address AE (though it might think this helpful at times). Group AE does. For it, evil can be overcome only if society is reformed - if, for instance, the slave-owner is made to free the slave. Indeed it is common among those who hold to Group AE that revolution - the violent overthrow of oppressor groups - is necessary to the abolition of AE. I know where my allegiance lies. I am Christian and with Solzhenitsyn hold that evil has its source in the individual human heart. Transform the heart and justice will follow. Seek justice without a transformation of the human heart and revolution will come to naught (indeed it will likely breed more evil than existed before).
Individual AE
Here the root cause of all AE is said to lie in the individual human heart. It is there that evil is first conceived, and it is there from which evil action springs. As Solzhenitsyn said, the line that divides good from evil runs through the human heart. The one who holds this view need not deny the existence of group AE. The racism inculclated in the youth of the South when I was young might be a example, for it seems that this racism was spread across an entire culture and that this culture perpetuated its racism in the education of its young. But though one who holds that the root cause of AE is individual need to deny the existence of group evil, she will insist that, if one traces backward to time to the source of this group evil, one will find the individual human heart, corrupted by its love of that which is evil. Christianity is, I take it, wedded to an individualistic account of the source of AE. There is much in the story of humanity's fall in Genesis that is not true if read literally. But there is a nugget of truth in the story that Christianity must embrace, and it is that first one individual, and then another (and after them all humanity) turned freely against God and thus brought evil into the world. AE, says Christianity, has its source in an individual decision and individual action. Thus did evil enter the world, and thus now does it infect all of humanity. Note a consequence of this for how we are to conceive of the individual. The individual is prior to any group of which she is part. Her identity - that which at bottom she is - is not formed by the societal relations that bind us to one another. Rather the individual exists first - first in thought, first in action- and from this societal relations spring.
Group AE
Here the root cause of all AE is said to lie in culture, class, race, gender - in general, in group identity. Here the line that divides good from evil is the very line that divides group from group. When in The Communist Manifesto Marx tells us that the history of every society heretofore has been the history of class struggle, he makes quite clear how we are to conceive of the individual and of AE. The identity of the individual is derivative from the class of which he is part. I am the man that I am because I am a man of this class. Class first, individual after. Because of this, AE must too have its root cause in group identity. At bottom, it is not this or that human who is evil. Rather at bottom this or that group is evil (and by this we are likely to mean that it oppresses or otherwise mistreats other groups over which it has power), and the evil done by the individuals within it derives from their group identity.
Consequences
Since Individual AE and Group AE differ so fundamentally about the cause of AE, one should expect that they will differ about how to put things right; and they do. Individual AE calls for the transformation of the human heart. (As John Lennon so wisely said, "when you tell me that it's the institution, well you know you better free your mind instead.") Only then, it says, can societal justice be achieved. Group AE on the contrary calls for societal transformation first, and holds that this is the only way to achieve the good of the individual. Individual AE does not see societal upheaval as necessary to address AE (though it might think this helpful at times). Group AE does. For it, evil can be overcome only if society is reformed - if, for instance, the slave-owner is made to free the slave. Indeed it is common among those who hold to Group AE that revolution - the violent overthrow of oppressor groups - is necessary to the abolition of AE. I know where my allegiance lies. I am Christian and with Solzhenitsyn hold that evil has its source in the individual human heart. Transform the heart and justice will follow. Seek justice without a transformation of the human heart and revolution will come to naught (indeed it will likely breed more evil than existed before).
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
The Natural and the Good
I'm skeptical that the concept of the natural as commonly understood can lie at the foundation of ethics. For that common idea of the natural is that it is what at present occurs always or for the most part. But we live in a fallen world, and much that now seems quite natural because of its frequency cannot be as God intended. Examples:
1. Sin itself. It is now ubiquitous. But (needless to say) it is not for that reason natural. It is profoundly unnatural.
2. All the many specific types of sin. Anger is quite common, as are selfishness and pride. But as with all sin, they are unnatural.
3. All the many institutions created to bring a measure of order to a sinful world. Are jails natural? I'll grant that they are inevitable given the ruin wrougt by sin. But they are not for that reason natural. Rather they are a necessary means to mitigate with the dangers of sinful and thus unnatural humanity.
4. Death. Scripture and Tradition teach us that death is a result of sin. Thus it inherits the unnaturalness of sin.
Questions remain, of course. If to find what's natural we cannot simply examine the world about us, how are we to know what it is? If the natural is not what occurs always or for the most part, just what is it? I'll take up these questions in a later post.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Success
Solzhenitsyn says this in Vol. 2 of The Gulag Archipelago:
Our children are told again and again to follow their dreams, to passionately pursue that which they most desire.
But this assumes that we are good judges of what we ought to pursue, that we can rightly distinguish those desires which are worthy from those that are not. But we are not good judges of this. Much that we desire we ought not desire, and much that would be good for us if we had it we do not desire.
What is your goal? Wealth? Money is but a means to an end, and to set it up as the end of one's life is thus profoundly mistaken. Power? Power corrupts (or rather feeds the innate corruption that is our inheritance from Adam). Fame? The world is foolish, and only a fool seeks fame among fools.
Be careful what you pursue, and do not assume at present that you know what you ought to do.
[T]he ways of the Lord are imponderable. [W]e ourselves never know what we want. [H]ow many times in my life [have] I passionately sought what I did not need and been despondent over failures which were successes. (501, "The Muses in Gulag")Profound truth! We chase after goals that we have set for ourselves (or perhaps goals that wider society has set for us and we pretend to have set for ourselves) and count as success when we meet them and failure when we do not.
Our children are told again and again to follow their dreams, to passionately pursue that which they most desire.
But this assumes that we are good judges of what we ought to pursue, that we can rightly distinguish those desires which are worthy from those that are not. But we are not good judges of this. Much that we desire we ought not desire, and much that would be good for us if we had it we do not desire.
What is your goal? Wealth? Money is but a means to an end, and to set it up as the end of one's life is thus profoundly mistaken. Power? Power corrupts (or rather feeds the innate corruption that is our inheritance from Adam). Fame? The world is foolish, and only a fool seeks fame among fools.
Be careful what you pursue, and do not assume at present that you know what you ought to do.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Idols
At present I'm half-way through volume two of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. It's among the best books that I've ever read, and is perhaps the very best of the prolonged accounts of the varieties of evil that I've ever encountered.
At one point, Solzhenitsyn says something quite remarkable about the imprisonment of orthodox Communists in the gulag. Consignment to the gulag, he says, is to be expected - even for most orthodox of Communists - because the government that created it, and the ideology that drives it, is a human idol. By this, I take him to mean that it's a purely human creation in which humans nonetheless put their faith.
Let me reflect for a moment about this. It seems to me to hint at a profound truth. We humans are ruined beings. We come into the world with an in-born disposition to evil (a disposition that, I think, derives from a disproportionate love of self), and that disposition inevitably makes itself known. We do evil, all of us. Moreover, if we cut ourselves off from God - who is Christ has made possible our salvation, our rescue from ruin - we are inevitably lost. But this is just what the Communists did. They denied God's existence - they were, of course, materialists - and instead put their trust in a purely human ideology. Moreover, they put their trust is the ability of their leaders to implement that ideology. Thus they set themselves on the path of ruin. Fallen humanity, when it trusts in itself and itself alone, removes all checks upon its in-born disposition to evil and thus falls upon itself as the wolf falls upon the lamb. Death and destruction are the inevitable result.
Whenever humanity turns from God and trusts in itself and itself alone, Stalins are the result.
(A word of caution here. Recall that I'm a latitudinarian when it comes to faith in God. One's orientation to God - whether acceptance or rejection - is, as I say here, indicated by one's moral character. The good accept Him; the evil reject. Thus those who accept him need not accept him by name. I do believe that, in the life to come, the good will come to know that their goodness entailed an implicit acceptance of Him; but they need not know that now. This seems quite evident to me. There are many good non-Christians.)
At one point, Solzhenitsyn says something quite remarkable about the imprisonment of orthodox Communists in the gulag. Consignment to the gulag, he says, is to be expected - even for most orthodox of Communists - because the government that created it, and the ideology that drives it, is a human idol. By this, I take him to mean that it's a purely human creation in which humans nonetheless put their faith.
Let me reflect for a moment about this. It seems to me to hint at a profound truth. We humans are ruined beings. We come into the world with an in-born disposition to evil (a disposition that, I think, derives from a disproportionate love of self), and that disposition inevitably makes itself known. We do evil, all of us. Moreover, if we cut ourselves off from God - who is Christ has made possible our salvation, our rescue from ruin - we are inevitably lost. But this is just what the Communists did. They denied God's existence - they were, of course, materialists - and instead put their trust in a purely human ideology. Moreover, they put their trust is the ability of their leaders to implement that ideology. Thus they set themselves on the path of ruin. Fallen humanity, when it trusts in itself and itself alone, removes all checks upon its in-born disposition to evil and thus falls upon itself as the wolf falls upon the lamb. Death and destruction are the inevitable result.
Whenever humanity turns from God and trusts in itself and itself alone, Stalins are the result.
(A word of caution here. Recall that I'm a latitudinarian when it comes to faith in God. One's orientation to God - whether acceptance or rejection - is, as I say here, indicated by one's moral character. The good accept Him; the evil reject. Thus those who accept him need not accept him by name. I do believe that, in the life to come, the good will come to know that their goodness entailed an implicit acceptance of Him; but they need not know that now. This seems quite evident to me. There are many good non-Christians.)
What is it to be Human?
One might ask for a biological definition. I propose a spiritual one.
To be human is to orient oneself - to take an attitude towards - the infinite. One might reject its existence. One might embrace it. One might align oneself with it. One might rebel. But no matter what one does, one does something, and this something serves to fix what at bottom one is. Those who are good align with it; those who are evil rebel. But no matter if it is a pole from which we flee or a pole to which we flee, it is the pole around with our lives revolve.
This gets to the root of my objection to materialism. It makes us out to be much smaller than we in fact are. It would seek to reduce us to just a bit of matter. It would seek to say that our existence is circumscribed by a tiny little bit of space-time.
But we are more than this. We can know - indeed we can some into fundamental accord with - the infinite, and this shows that there's something of the infinite in us. (For as the Greeks knew, only like can know like.)
Yes, we are embodied. Yes, we carve out a path through space-time (both the individual and the species). But our boundaries are greater than that. We can reach out in thought and in emotion to the infinite source of our being, and there we can find rest.
To be human is to orient oneself - to take an attitude towards - the infinite. One might reject its existence. One might embrace it. One might align oneself with it. One might rebel. But no matter what one does, one does something, and this something serves to fix what at bottom one is. Those who are good align with it; those who are evil rebel. But no matter if it is a pole from which we flee or a pole to which we flee, it is the pole around with our lives revolve.
This gets to the root of my objection to materialism. It makes us out to be much smaller than we in fact are. It would seek to reduce us to just a bit of matter. It would seek to say that our existence is circumscribed by a tiny little bit of space-time.
But we are more than this. We can know - indeed we can some into fundamental accord with - the infinite, and this shows that there's something of the infinite in us. (For as the Greeks knew, only like can know like.)
Yes, we are embodied. Yes, we carve out a path through space-time (both the individual and the species). But our boundaries are greater than that. We can reach out in thought and in emotion to the infinite source of our being, and there we can find rest.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
From Nothing Nothing Comes: Objections
In a prior post - a post in which I rehearsed a version of the so-called Cosmological Argument - I promised to return later and consider objections. I'll list all the objections of which I know. Any suggestions about how to supplement my list are most welcome. Some are from Hume. Some are from the good doctor. Some are my own invention.
I'll add to the list as new objections occur to me.
1. If one thinks that there's a need to posit a necessary being, one might as well assume that the sum of all so-called contingent beings (and this sum is perhaps simply the material universe) is itself necessary. If one does this, there is no need to posit an entity outside that sum and thus there is no need to posit any kind of god.
2. The term "necessary" is applicable only to propositions, and when applied to one the result is true just when that proposition is a conceptual or logical truth. (An example of the former: triangles are polygons. An example of the latter: either triangles are trilaterals, or they are not.) Thus one simply cannot say of some entity or other that it is necessary. "God necessarily exists" is, in all strictness, nonsense.
3. To explain the existence of the sum of all contingent beings, one only need explain each contingent entity individually. But to explain a contingent entity individually, one need only cite a prior contingent entity that brought it into existence. Thus contingency suffices to explain contingency by an unbroken chain of cause of effect that leads back infinitely in time.
4. Causes must precede their effects in time. Thus if one speaks of a cause of the universe (and this I do attempt to do in my argument), one must assume that that cause exists prior to it. But time is itself merely a feature, or an aspect, of the universe. Thus nothing can exist prior to the universe. The upshot: the universe cannot have a cause.
5. The argument assumes the truth of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. (The PSR says this: for every state of affairs that obtains, there exists a sufficient explanation of the fact that it obtains.) But science has shown that the PSR is false. There are certain quantum events - like for instance the decay of a radioactive atom - for which there exists no sufficient reason (at least no sufficient reason to explain why they occurred just when they did). Moreover, there is no prima facie absurdity in the denial of the PSR; and indeed there is no way for the defender of the Cosmoligical Argument to prove its truth. Thus an objector is quite free to assume that it does not hold universally.
I'll add to the list as new objections occur to me.
1. If one thinks that there's a need to posit a necessary being, one might as well assume that the sum of all so-called contingent beings (and this sum is perhaps simply the material universe) is itself necessary. If one does this, there is no need to posit an entity outside that sum and thus there is no need to posit any kind of god.
2. The term "necessary" is applicable only to propositions, and when applied to one the result is true just when that proposition is a conceptual or logical truth. (An example of the former: triangles are polygons. An example of the latter: either triangles are trilaterals, or they are not.) Thus one simply cannot say of some entity or other that it is necessary. "God necessarily exists" is, in all strictness, nonsense.
3. To explain the existence of the sum of all contingent beings, one only need explain each contingent entity individually. But to explain a contingent entity individually, one need only cite a prior contingent entity that brought it into existence. Thus contingency suffices to explain contingency by an unbroken chain of cause of effect that leads back infinitely in time.
4. Causes must precede their effects in time. Thus if one speaks of a cause of the universe (and this I do attempt to do in my argument), one must assume that that cause exists prior to it. But time is itself merely a feature, or an aspect, of the universe. Thus nothing can exist prior to the universe. The upshot: the universe cannot have a cause.
5. The argument assumes the truth of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. (The PSR says this: for every state of affairs that obtains, there exists a sufficient explanation of the fact that it obtains.) But science has shown that the PSR is false. There are certain quantum events - like for instance the decay of a radioactive atom - for which there exists no sufficient reason (at least no sufficient reason to explain why they occurred just when they did). Moreover, there is no prima facie absurdity in the denial of the PSR; and indeed there is no way for the defender of the Cosmoligical Argument to prove its truth. Thus an objector is quite free to assume that it does not hold universally.
Why Do I Write?
It's curious - I don't know why I write.
I don't write for recognition. I know that I'll get little of that.
I don't write because I'm convinced of the truth of what I say and feel that I must share that truth with the world.
I don't write simply because I find it pleasurable. (On occasion, I'm infuriated by it.)
But I do feel a need to write. It is at present my sole creative outlet, and for a reason that I don't at all understand, this is important to me.
I don't write for recognition. I know that I'll get little of that.
I don't write because I'm convinced of the truth of what I say and feel that I must share that truth with the world.
I don't write simply because I find it pleasurable. (On occasion, I'm infuriated by it.)
But I do feel a need to write. It is at present my sole creative outlet, and for a reason that I don't at all understand, this is important to me.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Science and its Relation to Philosophy
Revolutions in science - like that one replaced Newtonian absolutism with Einsteinian relativity - seem to have profound consequences for our view of the world. Before Einstein, both time and space were absolute; after both were relative. Before Darwin, species were changeless, and there were no relations of descent among species; after species were in constant flux (whether quick or slow), and all present species arose from other prior species.
But are revolutions in science over? Has the last already come and gone? I doubt it. Let us consider the case of physics. It is now dominated by two theories - Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics. The former comes into play in investigations of the very big, and the latter in investigations of the very small. But as of yet they have not been integrated into a single comprehensive theory, and thus the search for the so-called Grand Unified Theory continues on.
If GUT ever arrives (and this of course is a very real possibility) we should expect it to effect a significant change in our view of the world. (Why? Scientific revolutions have done this is the past, thus we should expect them to do the same in the future. A very simply inductive inference, this.) Thus I think it quite risky to take present physics and attempt to derive from it a philosophical view of the world, for it's a very real possibility that that view will be overturned.
Of course I mean to speak only of the present situation. It seems possible to me that, at some future time, there will be no cleavages in scientific theory of the sort that divides RT from QM. Perhaps at some future time there will emerge a single, unified theory that explains all phenomena, and if this should come to pass, science might well serve as a firm foundation for philosophical argument. But we are not there yet, and so I find it unlikely that present science is such a firm foundation. Philosophy must assert its independence of science until such time as the house of science is put in good order.
But are revolutions in science over? Has the last already come and gone? I doubt it. Let us consider the case of physics. It is now dominated by two theories - Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics. The former comes into play in investigations of the very big, and the latter in investigations of the very small. But as of yet they have not been integrated into a single comprehensive theory, and thus the search for the so-called Grand Unified Theory continues on.
If GUT ever arrives (and this of course is a very real possibility) we should expect it to effect a significant change in our view of the world. (Why? Scientific revolutions have done this is the past, thus we should expect them to do the same in the future. A very simply inductive inference, this.) Thus I think it quite risky to take present physics and attempt to derive from it a philosophical view of the world, for it's a very real possibility that that view will be overturned.
Of course I mean to speak only of the present situation. It seems possible to me that, at some future time, there will be no cleavages in scientific theory of the sort that divides RT from QM. Perhaps at some future time there will emerge a single, unified theory that explains all phenomena, and if this should come to pass, science might well serve as a firm foundation for philosophical argument. But we are not there yet, and so I find it unlikely that present science is such a firm foundation. Philosophy must assert its independence of science until such time as the house of science is put in good order.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
From Nothing Nothing Comes
I've begun to think in greater depth about a certain argument for God's existence. It is often called the Cosmological Argument, and it concerns the source of contingent being.
Contingent being, let us say, is the sum of all things whose existence is not necessary. It is, then, the sum of all things that, though they exist, might yet not have existed. I am part of this sum, as are you. I might have failed to exist, and so too might have you. God and the number two (if such objects there be), on the other hand, are not contingent. If they exist, they cannot not have existed.
I take it as obvious that there's such a thing as contingent being. So let us take its existence for granted and inquire into the source of its existence. A number of possibilities present themselves. (1) There is no source of contingent being. (2) There is a source of contingent being, and that source is itself contingent. (3) There is a source of contingent being, and that source is a necessary being (or beings).
These three possibilities seem both exclusive and exhaustive.
2 can be ruled out immediately. For if there is a source of contingent being and that source is itself contingent, then it must be its own source, for contingent being includes all contingent beings. But I think it obvious that nothing that has a cause of its being can be the cause of its own being.
So that leaves us with possibilities 1 and 3. Let us consider 1. It would have us say that the existence of contingent being is a great accident, a great random event for which no explanation at all can be given. Now, I do not think that I can conclusively establish that such a thing cannot be, but to say that contingent being has no explanation at all seems quite ridiculous.
Let us say that you sit at your desk, as do I. The house begins to shake. A pencil rolls off your desk and hits the floor. Might it be that there's no explanation at all for these events? Would you be content with the supposition that these events had no cause at all? Of course not. You'd search for a cause (earthquake perhaps) and you'd not be content until you'd found it. If it should come to pass that you couldn't find a cause, you'd still be certain that there was one. There just has to be some reason why the house shook. It didn't just happen.
But if that couldn't just happen, why think that contingent being could just happen? Indeed it would seem to be an even greater absurdity to assume that all of contingent being could just happen. (I suspect that those who reject the Cosmological Argument ignore there own common-sense insistence that the events they encounter must have causes. Like the rest of us, they assume the existence of causes of all they encounter, but for a reason that remains opaque to me, they hold that it's quite rational to give up this common-sense belief when it's brought to bear in a certain argument for God's existence. Two-faced, say I.)
Thus we must reject the claim that contingent being has no source at all. But that leaves us with but one possibility - that the source of contingent being lies in necessary being. Of course we're not yet at the conclusion that God exists. There exists quite a gap between the claims
There is necessary being
and
God exists
But the conclusion that there exists necessary being is still of great interest. It as it were opens the door to theism.
Next time: reply to objections.
Contingent being, let us say, is the sum of all things whose existence is not necessary. It is, then, the sum of all things that, though they exist, might yet not have existed. I am part of this sum, as are you. I might have failed to exist, and so too might have you. God and the number two (if such objects there be), on the other hand, are not contingent. If they exist, they cannot not have existed.
I take it as obvious that there's such a thing as contingent being. So let us take its existence for granted and inquire into the source of its existence. A number of possibilities present themselves. (1) There is no source of contingent being. (2) There is a source of contingent being, and that source is itself contingent. (3) There is a source of contingent being, and that source is a necessary being (or beings).
These three possibilities seem both exclusive and exhaustive.
2 can be ruled out immediately. For if there is a source of contingent being and that source is itself contingent, then it must be its own source, for contingent being includes all contingent beings. But I think it obvious that nothing that has a cause of its being can be the cause of its own being.
So that leaves us with possibilities 1 and 3. Let us consider 1. It would have us say that the existence of contingent being is a great accident, a great random event for which no explanation at all can be given. Now, I do not think that I can conclusively establish that such a thing cannot be, but to say that contingent being has no explanation at all seems quite ridiculous.
Let us say that you sit at your desk, as do I. The house begins to shake. A pencil rolls off your desk and hits the floor. Might it be that there's no explanation at all for these events? Would you be content with the supposition that these events had no cause at all? Of course not. You'd search for a cause (earthquake perhaps) and you'd not be content until you'd found it. If it should come to pass that you couldn't find a cause, you'd still be certain that there was one. There just has to be some reason why the house shook. It didn't just happen.
But if that couldn't just happen, why think that contingent being could just happen? Indeed it would seem to be an even greater absurdity to assume that all of contingent being could just happen. (I suspect that those who reject the Cosmological Argument ignore there own common-sense insistence that the events they encounter must have causes. Like the rest of us, they assume the existence of causes of all they encounter, but for a reason that remains opaque to me, they hold that it's quite rational to give up this common-sense belief when it's brought to bear in a certain argument for God's existence. Two-faced, say I.)
Thus we must reject the claim that contingent being has no source at all. But that leaves us with but one possibility - that the source of contingent being lies in necessary being. Of course we're not yet at the conclusion that God exists. There exists quite a gap between the claims
There is necessary being
and
God exists
But the conclusion that there exists necessary being is still of great interest. It as it were opens the door to theism.
Next time: reply to objections.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Discipline
Culture is not something easily achieved. If left on their own, children will not be fit to carry it on and will suffer horrendously when it collapses. But how are we to make them fit to carry it on? Here we must never forget that children are a mix - a mix of nascent good and of nascent evil. The good must be nurtured, the evil extinguished.
Education today (at least public education in the U.S.) seems to foster only the former. Indeed the assumption seems to be that, if we but do the former well enough, all discipline problems will disappear. This is simply false, and until strict discipline is again introduced into the home and the school, education in the U.S. will continue its long slow decline. Teacher and parent and must be, above all else, instructors in virtue, and to do this they must compel students to act virtuously even when then do not wish to do so.
Education today (at least public education in the U.S.) seems to foster only the former. Indeed the assumption seems to be that, if we but do the former well enough, all discipline problems will disappear. This is simply false, and until strict discipline is again introduced into the home and the school, education in the U.S. will continue its long slow decline. Teacher and parent and must be, above all else, instructors in virtue, and to do this they must compel students to act virtuously even when then do not wish to do so.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Fear of Death
It would seem that we should not fear death. For either we survive death, or we do not. If we do not, then after death we simply do not exist and thus can suffer nothing. But of course if there is no possibility that we suffer, there is nothing to fear. If, on the other hand, we do survive death, there might well be something after death that should be feared. But even if this is so, it is not death that should be feared. Rather it is that which follows.
(I grant that one might well fear the pain that so often accompanies death. But we must distinguish that fear from the fear of death. Fear of pain that accompanies death is not itself fear of death.)
This argument seems decisive to me. It seems to decisively prove that there is nothing in death to fear. But yet the fear of death persists. I feel it, as do most others. Why is this? What is the source of this deep-seated irrationality? I have a suggestion. It is that we are not are own, that there are forces in us that use of for purposes that extend past the boundaries of our lives. If we were solely our own, if all our desires concerned only ourselves and our ends, we would not fear death. But if there is something greater than us, something outsides us that uses us for a purpose greater than that of the individual human life, then it might have implanted in us a fear of frustration of that greater purpose. I think that the fear of death is such a thing. The higher purpose concerns our species. It is, in a word, the health of that species. The species is in us in a way that is now obscure to me. It uses us for its own ends. It uses us to insure its own health. Thus it makes us fear death, for once dead we cannot serve it.
A strict individualism on which we are concerned only with our own little lives is simply false. (Indeed it is perhaps necessarily false.) We are more than ourselves, and this is reflected in our most deeply seated desires. Human being is not being unto death. It is rather being past death. The human essence looks past the end of the individual human life to the life of the species of which it's part.
(I grant that one might well fear the pain that so often accompanies death. But we must distinguish that fear from the fear of death. Fear of pain that accompanies death is not itself fear of death.)
This argument seems decisive to me. It seems to decisively prove that there is nothing in death to fear. But yet the fear of death persists. I feel it, as do most others. Why is this? What is the source of this deep-seated irrationality? I have a suggestion. It is that we are not are own, that there are forces in us that use of for purposes that extend past the boundaries of our lives. If we were solely our own, if all our desires concerned only ourselves and our ends, we would not fear death. But if there is something greater than us, something outsides us that uses us for a purpose greater than that of the individual human life, then it might have implanted in us a fear of frustration of that greater purpose. I think that the fear of death is such a thing. The higher purpose concerns our species. It is, in a word, the health of that species. The species is in us in a way that is now obscure to me. It uses us for its own ends. It uses us to insure its own health. Thus it makes us fear death, for once dead we cannot serve it.
A strict individualism on which we are concerned only with our own little lives is simply false. (Indeed it is perhaps necessarily false.) We are more than ourselves, and this is reflected in our most deeply seated desires. Human being is not being unto death. It is rather being past death. The human essence looks past the end of the individual human life to the life of the species of which it's part.
Monday, August 06, 2007
What is Faith?
For a long time now - long before I became Christian - I've wondered what precisely is the content of that faith that saves. As those who've followed my arc of my argument know, I have deep reservations about the Evangelical view. Before I became Catholic, I had concluded that the Catholic view is superior. Now I wish to take up the question again. My contention is that the Evangelical view, if thought through, unfolds into the Catholic . The faith that saves is not merely an emotional or cognitive state separated from the rest of oneself. It is rather a profound transformation of the self that extends into all facets of one's life.
Let us begin. My Evangelical brethren tell me that all anyone needs to gain salvation is faith. Faith saves, they say. But faith is always faith in something. Moreover, it is faith that the thing will behave in a particular way. I had faith long before I had faith of a religious sort. I had, for instance, faith in my wife. I had faith that she would remain with me and her children, and that she would act to insure their welfare; and here, as in all examples of faith, faith is always faith in, and it is always faith that.
So what is the faith that saves in. What is it faith that? (From here on "faith that saves" will be "fts". Surely you didn't think that I could write an entire post and not make an abbreviation?) The first answer is easy. The fts is faith in Christ. The second is not so easy. But of course it has to do with the salvific power of Christ's life and death. Perhaps then we should say this: the fts is the faith that by his life, and his death, Christ secured for us all that is necessary for our salvation. (I'll not here take on the issue of just how Christ secured it. Opinions divide on the issue, and it is not my purpose here to defend one over the others.)
Let us then reflect upon this faith. It is like a flower bud. It seems simple, but is really complex. So let us begin to unfold what it is in it. Assumed in this faith is our impotence to obtain salvation for ourselves. Assumed moreover is that the gift of salvation is freely given and is not demanded by our merit. The fts knows the impotence of humanity, knows what it lacks, but accepts the free and unmerited gift of salvation.
Now what, I ask, is the natural response to one who freely gives us such a gift as this? What is the natural response to one who dies to give us the gift of salvation? Gratitude, certainly. But in addition to gratitude, we must say that love is the natural response. Those who have faith in Christ - not a mock-up but the real thing - also love Christ.
This is our first conclusion. The fts is never just faith in Christ. It is also love of Christ. But the love that grows from the fts does not end in Christ. It must extend to the whole of humanity. For Christ died not only for one. He died for all. Thus did he show his love for all, and if we love Christ we will come to love what he loves. If we love Christ, we will come to see the infinite value, the infinite potential, in all that we attribute to ourselves when we say that Christ died for us. (Christ died for sinful creatures. He did not die for worthless ones. Christ died for creatures deficit of virtue. He did not die for ones who had no potential to grow in virtue.) Thus the fts includes not only love of Christ. It also includes love of humanity.
(One could say the same about hope too. If one has faith in Christ, and one knows him for who is his - the risen son of God - one will inevitably have hope for the life to come.)
The fts thus unfolds into a love a God and of neighbor. It is there in it, perhaps implicitly at first, but it the faith grows and becomes more secure, so too will the love. Faith without love is an impossibility, as it deep faith without deep love.
But what has this to do with works? (One would assume that I meant to end with a word about works, for to start I said that the Evangelical view unfolds into the Catholic view.) The answer of course is as simple as it is obvious. There is no love without works. If I say that I love my children but do not care for them, you know that I lie. If I say that I love the Lord but do not do as He commands, you know that I lie. It is not that love often or even always gives birth to works. Rather it is that works are love made manifest. They are the public face of love, and as such are not something distinct from it. Love is loving, and loving is seeing after.
I contend, then, that faith has an internal and necessary connection to works. They are in the end not something separate from it; they are not even something distinct from it to which in time it gives rise. They are the fts's public face. So when one says that it is not by works but by faith that one is saved, one is guilty of error. Of course the works one does prior to, and in independence of, faith do not save. But the works of faith - the works in which the love entailed by faith live - do save, for they are faith, and so love, made manifest.
Faith saves. Works save. This is no contradiction because works are faith in action.
Let us begin. My Evangelical brethren tell me that all anyone needs to gain salvation is faith. Faith saves, they say. But faith is always faith in something. Moreover, it is faith that the thing will behave in a particular way. I had faith long before I had faith of a religious sort. I had, for instance, faith in my wife. I had faith that she would remain with me and her children, and that she would act to insure their welfare; and here, as in all examples of faith, faith is always faith in, and it is always faith that.
So what is the faith that saves in. What is it faith that? (From here on "faith that saves" will be "fts". Surely you didn't think that I could write an entire post and not make an abbreviation?) The first answer is easy. The fts is faith in Christ. The second is not so easy. But of course it has to do with the salvific power of Christ's life and death. Perhaps then we should say this: the fts is the faith that by his life, and his death, Christ secured for us all that is necessary for our salvation. (I'll not here take on the issue of just how Christ secured it. Opinions divide on the issue, and it is not my purpose here to defend one over the others.)
Let us then reflect upon this faith. It is like a flower bud. It seems simple, but is really complex. So let us begin to unfold what it is in it. Assumed in this faith is our impotence to obtain salvation for ourselves. Assumed moreover is that the gift of salvation is freely given and is not demanded by our merit. The fts knows the impotence of humanity, knows what it lacks, but accepts the free and unmerited gift of salvation.
Now what, I ask, is the natural response to one who freely gives us such a gift as this? What is the natural response to one who dies to give us the gift of salvation? Gratitude, certainly. But in addition to gratitude, we must say that love is the natural response. Those who have faith in Christ - not a mock-up but the real thing - also love Christ.
This is our first conclusion. The fts is never just faith in Christ. It is also love of Christ. But the love that grows from the fts does not end in Christ. It must extend to the whole of humanity. For Christ died not only for one. He died for all. Thus did he show his love for all, and if we love Christ we will come to love what he loves. If we love Christ, we will come to see the infinite value, the infinite potential, in all that we attribute to ourselves when we say that Christ died for us. (Christ died for sinful creatures. He did not die for worthless ones. Christ died for creatures deficit of virtue. He did not die for ones who had no potential to grow in virtue.) Thus the fts includes not only love of Christ. It also includes love of humanity.
(One could say the same about hope too. If one has faith in Christ, and one knows him for who is his - the risen son of God - one will inevitably have hope for the life to come.)
The fts thus unfolds into a love a God and of neighbor. It is there in it, perhaps implicitly at first, but it the faith grows and becomes more secure, so too will the love. Faith without love is an impossibility, as it deep faith without deep love.
But what has this to do with works? (One would assume that I meant to end with a word about works, for to start I said that the Evangelical view unfolds into the Catholic view.) The answer of course is as simple as it is obvious. There is no love without works. If I say that I love my children but do not care for them, you know that I lie. If I say that I love the Lord but do not do as He commands, you know that I lie. It is not that love often or even always gives birth to works. Rather it is that works are love made manifest. They are the public face of love, and as such are not something distinct from it. Love is loving, and loving is seeing after.
I contend, then, that faith has an internal and necessary connection to works. They are in the end not something separate from it; they are not even something distinct from it to which in time it gives rise. They are the fts's public face. So when one says that it is not by works but by faith that one is saved, one is guilty of error. Of course the works one does prior to, and in independence of, faith do not save. But the works of faith - the works in which the love entailed by faith live - do save, for they are faith, and so love, made manifest.
Faith saves. Works save. This is no contradiction because works are faith in action.
Between Augustine and Pelagius: A Middle Way
This post at He Lives led me to think again about Pelagianism.
I have a dirty little secret to admit. I have some sympathy for Pelagius.
Pelagius, a contemporary of Augustine, rejected the doctrine of original sin. He held instead that each human being is born innocent and without taint of sin. A consequence of this is that each of us has within himself the resources to resist temptation and thus live a sinless life. Thus for Pelagius we are born as were Adam and Eve in the garden. Neither our will nor our intellects are corrupt when we are born. Rather we all have within us the ability both to know the good and to follow it always.
Why would a Christian say such things as this? Pelagius' reason was simple. He held that, if we come into the world with a nature ruined by Adam's sin, our later sins are inevitable and thus not culpable. The plausibility of this is difficult to deny. Do we hold someone responsible for something that could not help but do? Do we punish them when their act was inevitable?
I do agree with the claim that we are not culpable for that which we cannot ourselves help but do. Thus I think that a just God would not punish us for our sins if they grow out of an innate sin-nature. But am I forced to reject the doctrine of original sin? I am not. I embrace it. (Indeed I think that, of all bedrock Christian doctrines, this is the one whose truth is most clearly visible in the world around us. We are ruined creatures, as is plain to see.) But how then do I avoid the conclusion that God punishes those who could not help but sin? My answer is simple: in the end all are saved, and God punishes no one.
I am a universalist. Salvation is not only held out to all. Salvation is given to all. (Of course it is not given to all in this life. Thus I hold that it is possible to gain salvation in the life to come.)
To my universalism, I conjoin an Augustinian account of grace. Only by God's grace are we able to escape our sin-nature, and that grace is a free gift no one ever merits. We either accept that grace, or we do not. If accepted, we begin the upward path of sanctification. If not, we remain mired in sin.
Thus I should say that I am mostly Augustinian with a bit of Pelagianism mixed in. With Augustine, I hold that original sin is only too real, and that only by grace do we escape it. With Pelagius, I hold that God would not punish us for our sin-nature and the sins that inevitably follow from it. Thus I reject an assumption made by both Pelagius and Augustine, the assumption that some are damned. Pelagius held that all have within themselves the ability to live sinlessly and that God punishes those who freely chose to disobey God's commands. Augustine held that no one has within himself the ability to live sinlessly, and that God extends the gift of grace to only some and damns the rest. (I always found this bit of Augustine morally repugnant.) I hold that no one has within himself to live sinlessly and that only by God's grace do we escape sin. But I hold that, in the end, all receive God's grace and thus that, in the end, all are saved.
How, then, do we preserve that bit of Pelagianism that is plausible (the bit that denies culpability where there is no freedom to refrain from sin) but embed it in an Augustinian view of grace? We become universalists. (I've expressed my attraction to universalism before. See here for instance. It is my one little bit of unorthodoxy.)
I have a dirty little secret to admit. I have some sympathy for Pelagius.
Pelagius, a contemporary of Augustine, rejected the doctrine of original sin. He held instead that each human being is born innocent and without taint of sin. A consequence of this is that each of us has within himself the resources to resist temptation and thus live a sinless life. Thus for Pelagius we are born as were Adam and Eve in the garden. Neither our will nor our intellects are corrupt when we are born. Rather we all have within us the ability both to know the good and to follow it always.
Why would a Christian say such things as this? Pelagius' reason was simple. He held that, if we come into the world with a nature ruined by Adam's sin, our later sins are inevitable and thus not culpable. The plausibility of this is difficult to deny. Do we hold someone responsible for something that could not help but do? Do we punish them when their act was inevitable?
I do agree with the claim that we are not culpable for that which we cannot ourselves help but do. Thus I think that a just God would not punish us for our sins if they grow out of an innate sin-nature. But am I forced to reject the doctrine of original sin? I am not. I embrace it. (Indeed I think that, of all bedrock Christian doctrines, this is the one whose truth is most clearly visible in the world around us. We are ruined creatures, as is plain to see.) But how then do I avoid the conclusion that God punishes those who could not help but sin? My answer is simple: in the end all are saved, and God punishes no one.
I am a universalist. Salvation is not only held out to all. Salvation is given to all. (Of course it is not given to all in this life. Thus I hold that it is possible to gain salvation in the life to come.)
To my universalism, I conjoin an Augustinian account of grace. Only by God's grace are we able to escape our sin-nature, and that grace is a free gift no one ever merits. We either accept that grace, or we do not. If accepted, we begin the upward path of sanctification. If not, we remain mired in sin.
Thus I should say that I am mostly Augustinian with a bit of Pelagianism mixed in. With Augustine, I hold that original sin is only too real, and that only by grace do we escape it. With Pelagius, I hold that God would not punish us for our sin-nature and the sins that inevitably follow from it. Thus I reject an assumption made by both Pelagius and Augustine, the assumption that some are damned. Pelagius held that all have within themselves the ability to live sinlessly and that God punishes those who freely chose to disobey God's commands. Augustine held that no one has within himself the ability to live sinlessly, and that God extends the gift of grace to only some and damns the rest. (I always found this bit of Augustine morally repugnant.) I hold that no one has within himself to live sinlessly and that only by God's grace do we escape sin. But I hold that, in the end, all receive God's grace and thus that, in the end, all are saved.
How, then, do we preserve that bit of Pelagianism that is plausible (the bit that denies culpability where there is no freedom to refrain from sin) but embed it in an Augustinian view of grace? We become universalists. (I've expressed my attraction to universalism before. See here for instance. It is my one little bit of unorthodoxy.)
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Little Green Jesus
This little piece by Paul Davies explores the impact that discovery of an alien intelligence would have on the Christian faith. Here's a snippet.
Suppose, then, that E.T. is far ahead of us not only scientifically and technologically but spiritually, too. Where does that leave mankind’s presumed special relationship with God? This conundrum poses a particular difficulty for Christians, because of the unique nature of the Incarnation. Of all the world’s major religions, Christianity is the most species-specific. Jesus Christ was humanity’s savior and redeemer. He did not die for the dolphins or the gorillas, and certainly not for the proverbial little green men. But what of deeply spiritual aliens? Are they not to be saved? Can we contemplate a universe that contains perhaps a trillion worlds of saintly beings, but in which the only beings eligible for salvation inhabit a planet where murder, rape, and other evils remain rife?
Those few Christian theologians who have addressed this thorny issue divide into two camps. Some posit multiple incarnations and even multiple crucifixions – God taking on little green flesh to save little green men, as a prominent Anglican minister once told me. But most are appalled by this idea or find it ludicrous. After all, in the Christian view of the world, Jesus was God’s only son. Would God have the same person born, killed, and resurrected in endless succession on planet after planet? This scenario was lampooned as long ago as 1794, by Thomas Paine. “The Son of God,” he wrote in The Age of Reason, “and sometimes God himself, would have nothing else to do than to travel from world to world, in an endless succession of death, with scarcely a momentary interval of life.” Paine went on to argue that Christianity was simply incompatible with the existence of extraterrestrial beings, writing, “He who thinks he believes in both has thought but little of either.”
I'm curious to know what my readers think.
Myself, I have only a few thoughts.
First, Davies seems to assume that the Logos must incarnate in the form of each intelligent species. I'm unsure why this should be the case. The Incarnation was necessitated by the Fall, but the Fall itself was not necessary. Perhaps some intelligent species experienced no Fall. I've heard say that Christ would have come even if there had been no Fall, but that the manner of his life would have been quite different. This seems to me mere speculative theology. I admit its possibility, but I don't think it something that we can know. So I say too that we cannot know whether the Logos would incarnate in worlds where there was no Fall.
But for those intelligent species that did Fall (and I don't think we can rule out the possibility that there's more than one), I can think of no reason to deny that the Logos became incarnate in their form. Let us adopt Augustine's view of the matter. Sin was introduced into the human world by Adam and Eve (and let us understand that Adam and Eve are stand-ins for an early generation of human beings), and it was transmitted to their descendants via the procreative act. It was this original sin, this inherited stain, that was wiped clean by Christ (here understand as the Logos' union with human flesh). Christ died not for all intelligent creation. He died for humanity. (Of course, the Christian already knew this. Christ did not die for the angels.) Might it not be the case then that the Logos, in a radically different physical form than the one we know, also died so that another intelligent species might be saved?
Should we suppose that human flesh is special in some way and that the Logos could unite with only it? Of course not. The Logos could become incarnate in any species made, like humanity, is the image of God. Should we suppose that the Logos could become incarnate only once? Of course not. If it can be done once, it can be done more than once. Should we suppose that the Incarnation need happen only once? I won't say "Of course not". Matters are not so clear as that. But it would seem that it might need to happen more than once. For if another intelligent species fell, and the sins of prior generations were passed to later ones, it seems that Christ would need to incarnate in the form of that species.
On objector is likely to brush aside what I've said and assert this:
The Incarnation was the crux of universal history. It was God in the flesh, and thus we cannot suppose that its efficacy was anything less than universal. It sufficed for the salvation of all creation, for it lacked nothing whereby salvation might be gained. Do we suppose that God would need to do again what had already achieved its goal? Do we suppose that the Incarnation had only limited efficacy? The Incarnation was, rather, once-for-all; and its power is cheapened if we suppose that it need be done again and again.
I admit that this does have some force. (At least I feel that it does - even though it really only amounts to a single assertion made again and again.) My reply is, it seems to me, a bit underhanded. But it just might do the trick. Let us suppose that by "Incarnation" we mean not a particular event. Suppose rather that we mean a kind of event. The Incarnation, let us say, is God united with the body of some creature no matter where on when this might happen. The Incarnation is thus a universal; it is multiply instantiable. Once this shift in terminology is made - the shift from talk of the particular to the universal - the point that the objector wishes to make can be embraced. The universal incarnation is the crux of history. Its efficacy is universal.
Let me end with a bit of autobiography. I for one am not troubled by the idea of multiple Incarnations (or multiple instantiations of a universal Incarnation). Indeed now that I've had time to live with the idea, I've come to like it. Wouldn't it stand as an even greater testament to God's love for his creation? (One also thinks here of John 3:16. "For God so loved the world . . . " The Greek word translated as "world" is "kosmos". Thus "world" here doesn't mean only Earth. It means the whole of the universe. Thus if there existed non-human intelligent species, it would seem that God would love them just as he loves us; and if this is so, he would as much desire that they commune with him as he desires that we commune with him.)
Addendum. I realized that my title might be thought to poke fun at Christ or at the Incarnation. It most certainly does not. The possibility of multiple Incarnations is serious matter, and I take it seriously. But I do think it possible that the Logos have become little and green, for there might be little green aliens who need salvation just as much as do we.
Suppose, then, that E.T. is far ahead of us not only scientifically and technologically but spiritually, too. Where does that leave mankind’s presumed special relationship with God? This conundrum poses a particular difficulty for Christians, because of the unique nature of the Incarnation. Of all the world’s major religions, Christianity is the most species-specific. Jesus Christ was humanity’s savior and redeemer. He did not die for the dolphins or the gorillas, and certainly not for the proverbial little green men. But what of deeply spiritual aliens? Are they not to be saved? Can we contemplate a universe that contains perhaps a trillion worlds of saintly beings, but in which the only beings eligible for salvation inhabit a planet where murder, rape, and other evils remain rife?
Those few Christian theologians who have addressed this thorny issue divide into two camps. Some posit multiple incarnations and even multiple crucifixions – God taking on little green flesh to save little green men, as a prominent Anglican minister once told me. But most are appalled by this idea or find it ludicrous. After all, in the Christian view of the world, Jesus was God’s only son. Would God have the same person born, killed, and resurrected in endless succession on planet after planet? This scenario was lampooned as long ago as 1794, by Thomas Paine. “The Son of God,” he wrote in The Age of Reason, “and sometimes God himself, would have nothing else to do than to travel from world to world, in an endless succession of death, with scarcely a momentary interval of life.” Paine went on to argue that Christianity was simply incompatible with the existence of extraterrestrial beings, writing, “He who thinks he believes in both has thought but little of either.”
I'm curious to know what my readers think.
Myself, I have only a few thoughts.
First, Davies seems to assume that the Logos must incarnate in the form of each intelligent species. I'm unsure why this should be the case. The Incarnation was necessitated by the Fall, but the Fall itself was not necessary. Perhaps some intelligent species experienced no Fall. I've heard say that Christ would have come even if there had been no Fall, but that the manner of his life would have been quite different. This seems to me mere speculative theology. I admit its possibility, but I don't think it something that we can know. So I say too that we cannot know whether the Logos would incarnate in worlds where there was no Fall.
But for those intelligent species that did Fall (and I don't think we can rule out the possibility that there's more than one), I can think of no reason to deny that the Logos became incarnate in their form. Let us adopt Augustine's view of the matter. Sin was introduced into the human world by Adam and Eve (and let us understand that Adam and Eve are stand-ins for an early generation of human beings), and it was transmitted to their descendants via the procreative act. It was this original sin, this inherited stain, that was wiped clean by Christ (here understand as the Logos' union with human flesh). Christ died not for all intelligent creation. He died for humanity. (Of course, the Christian already knew this. Christ did not die for the angels.) Might it not be the case then that the Logos, in a radically different physical form than the one we know, also died so that another intelligent species might be saved?
Should we suppose that human flesh is special in some way and that the Logos could unite with only it? Of course not. The Logos could become incarnate in any species made, like humanity, is the image of God. Should we suppose that the Logos could become incarnate only once? Of course not. If it can be done once, it can be done more than once. Should we suppose that the Incarnation need happen only once? I won't say "Of course not". Matters are not so clear as that. But it would seem that it might need to happen more than once. For if another intelligent species fell, and the sins of prior generations were passed to later ones, it seems that Christ would need to incarnate in the form of that species.
On objector is likely to brush aside what I've said and assert this:
The Incarnation was the crux of universal history. It was God in the flesh, and thus we cannot suppose that its efficacy was anything less than universal. It sufficed for the salvation of all creation, for it lacked nothing whereby salvation might be gained. Do we suppose that God would need to do again what had already achieved its goal? Do we suppose that the Incarnation had only limited efficacy? The Incarnation was, rather, once-for-all; and its power is cheapened if we suppose that it need be done again and again.
I admit that this does have some force. (At least I feel that it does - even though it really only amounts to a single assertion made again and again.) My reply is, it seems to me, a bit underhanded. But it just might do the trick. Let us suppose that by "Incarnation" we mean not a particular event. Suppose rather that we mean a kind of event. The Incarnation, let us say, is God united with the body of some creature no matter where on when this might happen. The Incarnation is thus a universal; it is multiply instantiable. Once this shift in terminology is made - the shift from talk of the particular to the universal - the point that the objector wishes to make can be embraced. The universal incarnation is the crux of history. Its efficacy is universal.
Let me end with a bit of autobiography. I for one am not troubled by the idea of multiple Incarnations (or multiple instantiations of a universal Incarnation). Indeed now that I've had time to live with the idea, I've come to like it. Wouldn't it stand as an even greater testament to God's love for his creation? (One also thinks here of John 3:16. "For God so loved the world . . . " The Greek word translated as "world" is "kosmos". Thus "world" here doesn't mean only Earth. It means the whole of the universe. Thus if there existed non-human intelligent species, it would seem that God would love them just as he loves us; and if this is so, he would as much desire that they commune with him as he desires that we commune with him.)
Addendum. I realized that my title might be thought to poke fun at Christ or at the Incarnation. It most certainly does not. The possibility of multiple Incarnations is serious matter, and I take it seriously. But I do think it possible that the Logos have become little and green, for there might be little green aliens who need salvation just as much as do we.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Birth Control
I've struggled for some time with the Catholic Church's rejection of all artificial means of birth control. It is not dogma, that is, it isn't something about which the Church has taken itself to speak infallibly. But the Church does recommend the rejection of birth control. It recommends its rejection strongly.
Let me take a few moments to explain (humbly, ever so humbly) why I think that the Church is mistaken about the matter. I'll be as concise as I can be.
The Church (and by "Church" here, I mean the sequence of theologians, ordained or not, whose views have been adopted by the Church) derives its view from the so-called "Natural Law Ethic". This ethic looks to the natural purposes of things and seeks to derive from them moral dictates about how the thing can and cannot be used. It is natural (or so it is said) for a man to marry a woman and remain with her so long as both live. Thus it is concluded that it is right for a man to marry only a woman; and it is right for them to remain together so long as either lives.
The variety of NLE promulgated by the Church is of course the theistic variety. The natural purposes of things were implanted in them by God, and this divine act thus serves to define for human beings what they ought and ought not do. (For Thomas, it does not define all that they must do, for he claimed that there were duties of a higher sort, spiritual duties to God and neighbor, that come to us only by revelation and are not, as it were, written into our natural constitution.)
How might the NLE (of the theistic variety) be put to use to condemn the use of birth control? The defenders of NLE would ask us to consider the act of copulation. What, they would ask, do we find its purpose to be? They answer (and not implausibly) that its purpose is procreation. (We'll return in a moment to the question of whether this is the whole of its purpose. But let us pass by that for now.) If this is the right answer, then the NLE licenses the conclusion that copulation ought to be allowed to bring about its natural purpose. But of course birth control does not allow copulation to bring about its natural purpose, and thus we seem forced to say that its use ought to be rejected. (I've sometimes heard that the Church condemns birth control because of the intent of those who use it. This is a mistake. The moral error for the Church does not derive from the intent of those who use birth control. One is allowed to act with the intent to prevent pregnancy, for instance in an extended period of celibacy. For the Church, the moral error derives from the very nature of the act itself. When birth control is used, the natural purpose of copulation is impeded, and this alone - not the intent - makes it wrong.)
But let us return to the question of the purpose of copulation. How might we find what that purpose is? As with the purpose of any natural object or act, we look and see. (I don't ask you to go peep in the neighbor's window. Instead I ask you to reflect upon what your experience, and reports of the experience of others, have taught you. The question is to be answered empirically.) What do we find? We find that copulation seems to have a second purpose in addition to procreation. It creates an emotional bond between man and woman (or, if that bond is already in place, it renews or strengthens that bond).
Now we must ask what is the relation of these two purposes. (Call "procreation", "P". Call "creation of emotional bond", "B".) One might hold that B is subordinate to P. This would be so, presumably, if the bond between man and woman is important solely insofar as it creates the proper environment into which a child will be born. But is this so? Are man and woman to become bonded emotionally only so that they might make a good home in which to bring up a child? I think not. I do not deny that the emotional bond between man and woman is in part important for this reason. But I do not think that it is important for that reason alone. The emotional bond between man and woman is a good in its own right, i.e. it is good to have it even if it were not to bear the fruit of a well brought up child. Indeed, if anything, I would think that P is subordinate to B. We bring children into the world so that we might love, and be loved by, then. Procreation, then, is for the new emotional bonds that new life makes possible.
What has this to do with the NL ethic? That ethic, recall, tells us that we must not so act that we subvert the natural purposes of things. But a certain possibility has now emerged - the possibility that copulation should achieve its first, or higher, purpose even when birth control is used. For B is surely independent of P. It can be achieved even if all possibility of P is precluded. (Indeed the Church itself admits this possibility. The so-called "rhythm method", if carefully followed, cements an emotional bond though it will not lead to conception.) Moreover, as said above, B is the higher, or better purpose. It expresses that which P is ultimately for.
What, in light of this conclusion, would the NL ethic tell us about an act of copulation in which (i) birth control is used, and (ii) man and woman, already within the bonds of marriage, serve thereby to strengthen those bonds? Surely it would have to say that it's permissible. When an act has two independent purposes, and one is higher or better than the other, surely it is permissible to act in accordance with the higher alone. Of course on the NL ethic it would be wrong to act in a way contrary to both B and P. This would be a genuinely disordered act. But so long as one is pursued - in particular so long as the higher is pursued - there is no disorder.
Notice that my conclusion concerns only a single act of copulation, and what it says about that it need not say about the set of every act of copulation between man and wife. Procreation is a very great good, and one not, I think, except perhaps in quite extraordinary circumstances, always so act to preclude its possibility. But that one not always do this does not imply that one ought never do it.
Let me end with a word about B. (What I'll say is a series of impressions only. There's no tight argument. I hope to remedy that flaw later.) Marriage is, in part, the deep emotional bond that secures man to wife. Thus, I would think, copulation is the marital act. Copulation, with greater speed and efficacy than any other act, binds a man to a woman (at least when not disordered). Copulation (at least when not disordered) thus creates a marriage. This explains why Christ said that only adultery can destroy a marriage. Copulation creates a marriage and thus only it has the power to destroy it.
Let me take a few moments to explain (humbly, ever so humbly) why I think that the Church is mistaken about the matter. I'll be as concise as I can be.
The Church (and by "Church" here, I mean the sequence of theologians, ordained or not, whose views have been adopted by the Church) derives its view from the so-called "Natural Law Ethic". This ethic looks to the natural purposes of things and seeks to derive from them moral dictates about how the thing can and cannot be used. It is natural (or so it is said) for a man to marry a woman and remain with her so long as both live. Thus it is concluded that it is right for a man to marry only a woman; and it is right for them to remain together so long as either lives.
The variety of NLE promulgated by the Church is of course the theistic variety. The natural purposes of things were implanted in them by God, and this divine act thus serves to define for human beings what they ought and ought not do. (For Thomas, it does not define all that they must do, for he claimed that there were duties of a higher sort, spiritual duties to God and neighbor, that come to us only by revelation and are not, as it were, written into our natural constitution.)
How might the NLE (of the theistic variety) be put to use to condemn the use of birth control? The defenders of NLE would ask us to consider the act of copulation. What, they would ask, do we find its purpose to be? They answer (and not implausibly) that its purpose is procreation. (We'll return in a moment to the question of whether this is the whole of its purpose. But let us pass by that for now.) If this is the right answer, then the NLE licenses the conclusion that copulation ought to be allowed to bring about its natural purpose. But of course birth control does not allow copulation to bring about its natural purpose, and thus we seem forced to say that its use ought to be rejected. (I've sometimes heard that the Church condemns birth control because of the intent of those who use it. This is a mistake. The moral error for the Church does not derive from the intent of those who use birth control. One is allowed to act with the intent to prevent pregnancy, for instance in an extended period of celibacy. For the Church, the moral error derives from the very nature of the act itself. When birth control is used, the natural purpose of copulation is impeded, and this alone - not the intent - makes it wrong.)
But let us return to the question of the purpose of copulation. How might we find what that purpose is? As with the purpose of any natural object or act, we look and see. (I don't ask you to go peep in the neighbor's window. Instead I ask you to reflect upon what your experience, and reports of the experience of others, have taught you. The question is to be answered empirically.) What do we find? We find that copulation seems to have a second purpose in addition to procreation. It creates an emotional bond between man and woman (or, if that bond is already in place, it renews or strengthens that bond).
Now we must ask what is the relation of these two purposes. (Call "procreation", "P". Call "creation of emotional bond", "B".) One might hold that B is subordinate to P. This would be so, presumably, if the bond between man and woman is important solely insofar as it creates the proper environment into which a child will be born. But is this so? Are man and woman to become bonded emotionally only so that they might make a good home in which to bring up a child? I think not. I do not deny that the emotional bond between man and woman is in part important for this reason. But I do not think that it is important for that reason alone. The emotional bond between man and woman is a good in its own right, i.e. it is good to have it even if it were not to bear the fruit of a well brought up child. Indeed, if anything, I would think that P is subordinate to B. We bring children into the world so that we might love, and be loved by, then. Procreation, then, is for the new emotional bonds that new life makes possible.
What has this to do with the NL ethic? That ethic, recall, tells us that we must not so act that we subvert the natural purposes of things. But a certain possibility has now emerged - the possibility that copulation should achieve its first, or higher, purpose even when birth control is used. For B is surely independent of P. It can be achieved even if all possibility of P is precluded. (Indeed the Church itself admits this possibility. The so-called "rhythm method", if carefully followed, cements an emotional bond though it will not lead to conception.) Moreover, as said above, B is the higher, or better purpose. It expresses that which P is ultimately for.
What, in light of this conclusion, would the NL ethic tell us about an act of copulation in which (i) birth control is used, and (ii) man and woman, already within the bonds of marriage, serve thereby to strengthen those bonds? Surely it would have to say that it's permissible. When an act has two independent purposes, and one is higher or better than the other, surely it is permissible to act in accordance with the higher alone. Of course on the NL ethic it would be wrong to act in a way contrary to both B and P. This would be a genuinely disordered act. But so long as one is pursued - in particular so long as the higher is pursued - there is no disorder.
Notice that my conclusion concerns only a single act of copulation, and what it says about that it need not say about the set of every act of copulation between man and wife. Procreation is a very great good, and one not, I think, except perhaps in quite extraordinary circumstances, always so act to preclude its possibility. But that one not always do this does not imply that one ought never do it.
Let me end with a word about B. (What I'll say is a series of impressions only. There's no tight argument. I hope to remedy that flaw later.) Marriage is, in part, the deep emotional bond that secures man to wife. Thus, I would think, copulation is the marital act. Copulation, with greater speed and efficacy than any other act, binds a man to a woman (at least when not disordered). Copulation (at least when not disordered) thus creates a marriage. This explains why Christ said that only adultery can destroy a marriage. Copulation creates a marriage and thus only it has the power to destroy it.
The Highest Good
We pursue many perceived goods. (Whether what will call "goods" are really so I will not consider.) But we do not think that all the goods we pursue are of equal worth. A full belly is, in times of want, more important than a glass of wine. The happiness of my children is more important to me than my own. Aristotle thought the contemplation of eternal verities more important than any other intellectual act.
But though we rank goods, must we place one above all others? There are two ways that we might attempt to avoid this. (i) We might rank a number of goods the same, and place their set above all others. Each will be surpassed by none, but will be equaled by some. (ii) We might make each of our goods so time- and place-relative that they will forever change places in the rank-order. One might be highest for a time, but if it is, it will not remain so.
I contend that neither is acceptable. The first renders moral action either impossible or a matter of arbitrary decision. For it is quite possible that two or more of the goods we place above all others - the "super set" we might all it - will come into conflict with one another, and if they do, then since there exists no good outside the super set to guide us, we will be without guide. Without guide, we will either not act, or we will arbitrarily choose to act in one way instead of another.
The second - the claim that no good can forever remain at the top of the rank-order - seems to imply that moral judgment has no place in the determination of the rank-order of goods. For if moral judgment did have such a place, it would derive its judgments from commitment to some vision of the good; and that vision of the good would then itself constitute a fixed highest good.
So it seems, then, that at least insofar as our moral house is in good order, we must posit a highest good. The highest good will be that which, if it does not guide us at a particular moment, at least holds veto power over anything we do. If, on reflection, you can find in yourself no commitment to a highest good, I contend that, at least at times, you act arbitrarily and without guide.
What for me is the highest good? The community of all sentient beings bound together by a perfect love of one another and a perfect love of God. Though I often fall short of the ideal implied is this good, I still project it as a guide (or at least a veto) to all that I do. My continual prayer is that I should be made fit for life in such a community.
But though we rank goods, must we place one above all others? There are two ways that we might attempt to avoid this. (i) We might rank a number of goods the same, and place their set above all others. Each will be surpassed by none, but will be equaled by some. (ii) We might make each of our goods so time- and place-relative that they will forever change places in the rank-order. One might be highest for a time, but if it is, it will not remain so.
I contend that neither is acceptable. The first renders moral action either impossible or a matter of arbitrary decision. For it is quite possible that two or more of the goods we place above all others - the "super set" we might all it - will come into conflict with one another, and if they do, then since there exists no good outside the super set to guide us, we will be without guide. Without guide, we will either not act, or we will arbitrarily choose to act in one way instead of another.
The second - the claim that no good can forever remain at the top of the rank-order - seems to imply that moral judgment has no place in the determination of the rank-order of goods. For if moral judgment did have such a place, it would derive its judgments from commitment to some vision of the good; and that vision of the good would then itself constitute a fixed highest good.
So it seems, then, that at least insofar as our moral house is in good order, we must posit a highest good. The highest good will be that which, if it does not guide us at a particular moment, at least holds veto power over anything we do. If, on reflection, you can find in yourself no commitment to a highest good, I contend that, at least at times, you act arbitrarily and without guide.
What for me is the highest good? The community of all sentient beings bound together by a perfect love of one another and a perfect love of God. Though I often fall short of the ideal implied is this good, I still project it as a guide (or at least a veto) to all that I do. My continual prayer is that I should be made fit for life in such a community.
Dewey on Truth
I've just completed a draft of a paper titled "Dewey on Truth". (John Dewey was the great American educator and philosopher of the early 20th century. His philosophical outlook - so-called "pragmatism" - dominated the American philosophical scene for roughly the first third of the 20th century.)
The paper is available here. Its aim is to present and then refute Dewey's theory of truth. Dewey's view - roughly put - is that a proposition is a plan of action and that it is only judged true when that plan of action has proven successful when put into action. The paper ends with the suggestion that Dewey ought to follow later pragmatists and become a truth-eliminativist.
If you're curious about current philosophical debates about the nature of truth, you might just find the paper worth your time.
The paper is available here. Its aim is to present and then refute Dewey's theory of truth. Dewey's view - roughly put - is that a proposition is a plan of action and that it is only judged true when that plan of action has proven successful when put into action. The paper ends with the suggestion that Dewey ought to follow later pragmatists and become a truth-eliminativist.
If you're curious about current philosophical debates about the nature of truth, you might just find the paper worth your time.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Luck or Power?
For what should we wish, the power to resist temptation or the good fortune never to encounter it? The result will be the same: we will not sin. But the quality of the man will not be the same. A man able to resist is better than one who is merely lucky.
This is why I am puzzled when, in the Lord's Prayer, we are told to ask that we not be led into temptation. Shouldn't we ask for the power to resist it instead?
This is why I am puzzled when, in the Lord's Prayer, we are told to ask that we not be led into temptation. Shouldn't we ask for the power to resist it instead?
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