Probability and Resurrection

 

 

,,,,I oppose efforts to reduce religous belief and experience to calculations of probability. I oppose trying to say that the resurrection is probable or improbable. I don't even want to argue for the resurrection by showing it to be probable, or trying to. I certianly do not believe that showing it to be improbable disproves it. A few weeks ago I posted on the CADRE blog an essay on Bayes Theorem and why I think it can't be applied to a probability of God's existence.That was attacked by Secular Web founder Jeff Lowder. I answered him in two parts, part 1 here, part 2 here. Now I apply this to the resurrection. I want to say at the outset in the comment section of Lowder's blog someone ask about applying BT to arguments like fine tuning. I'm for that because that's a matter of empirical proof..

 ...I dont' really think I "beat" Jeff Lowder. I don't put good discussions into such crass terms. Here's why if we were debating in a tournament situation with a judge and possibility of winning or losing, I might have a good chance of winning: he never actually answered my major issue, that being, the inappropriate nature of reducing the dynamic of ultimate trnasformative experience to probabilistic calculation. On the other I may have been misleading in the way I approached it. I did not do it to be tricky but it my be my fault. I created the impression that I thought Bayes doesn't work by talking about it's nefarious reception among mathematicians and math professors. I wasn't trying to mislead. I didn't mean to say that the track record among Mathematics professors proves it doesn't work, only that it's not fool proof it's not absolute, it doesn't apply for everything.

....I'm all for it in terms of empirical evidence. Things are a lot more tricky when you try to team up God and empirical evidence.My major point was that no new information about God is going to come forth in manner that can be subjected to scientific scrutiny. God is not part of the domain of science. One must simply accept it. To bleieve in God is think there terms that are beyond the pale of scientific reductionism. Now that may strengthen the ideology of atheism becuase they are going to say "ah ha! see, ah ha! God can't be proved scientifically?" But in the long run it threatens to destroy the ideology of atheism, because it means that the area under the (supposed) control of atheist thinking can't be the only from of knowledge, thus the ideology is totally defeated then and there. The atheist ideology asserts that scinece is the only form of knowledge, once that is disproved then the whole ideology is automatically false a prori.

....Science itself is not defeated because science is not about these dippy games of "defeating" the other side. Science will go on finding facts about he physical workings of the world and leave those areas of knowledge beyond its scope to other areas of endeavor. For the ideology that attaches itself to science and tries to ride on it's coat tails the tails will be cut off. Lowder assumed that I don't like Bayes which is not true. He also assumed that we can compere belief and unbelief as competing hypothesis. My point was that we can't. Belief in God is not a competing explanation for the workings of the physical world, it's a complete world view. It's a world view unto itself but for the bit about the physical workings of the observable world it assumes the findings of scinece. Rather it leaves science to the proper domain.

....It has to be understood in terms of own inner logic and it has to be taken on its own terms. It's comparing apples and oranges. In terms of the resurrection one must compare things that are meaningful to compare to make a probability. We can't assume that it's meaningful to compare a miracle with naturalistic events because the miracle is supposed to be impossible. Naturally it is improbable. Being improbable doesn't mean it's not so. It means you have to take it on it's own terms.the thing about arguing for the resurrection, like with God argument I never argue for proof. It can't be proved that the resurrection hapepned. It can be argued that there's good reason to think it did. The evidence allows for that conclusion, meaning it doesn't disprove it. It doesn't prove it either.The proof is always going to be in the experiencing of God's reality in your life. 

 ....In arguing for the resurrection as an event in history one is not arguing matheamtical probablity but a  "reasonable status." There is good reason to believe X happened. It's not a matter of subjecting the possiblity to a calculation. Most of the standard arguments for the resurrection (such as McDowell's for example) work by ascertaining deduction based upon the circumstances of the evidence then eliminating alternate possibilities logically. It's not a matter of chances or odds. I'm not saying you can't attach a number based upon how alternatives one excludes, but there's no need to. The point is not "this is worth believing becuase it's the most likely thing that happened." It's not, it's the least likely thing. Who would think God would raise someone from the dead to undo what had beeb done and thus redeem the world from sin? While I'm not opposed to calculating probability for empirically determinable events, it doesn't make since to subject the resurrection to such calculation.

....What's the ultimate point of it all? If we calculate the resurrection and we find it's improbable, which we must because it's a miracle, that's supposed to mean it didn't happen, or that we shouldn't believe it happened because it's unlikely? How likely would it be to find a seminarian in a major liberal seminary who is a communist supporting the Sandinista, and at the same time a charismatic Christian who speaks in tongues? The probability is against it, yet in the late 80s I was that guy. Or I should say "comrade?"

 ,,,,Religion is about ultimate transformational experience. It's a dynamic of world view and understanding that culmenates in existential and phenomenological overhaul. It's on a different scale of both value and reality from the calculations of scientific reductionism. Trying to put it into those terms is only going to lose the phenomena and reduce the experience to something that can be charted and graphed but it's going to lack the phenomenological dimension that makes religion work. It's not something that can be predicted. That's not to say that there is predictive power in hypothosies drawn from study of the phenomena. We can predict things based upon the use of the M scale. But there's a huge difference in predicting a behavior and actually grasping the existential import of it. In the human era (1960s) people expressed a tentative acceptance and kind of distrust of computers with the phrase, drawn form instructions about old fashioned computer cards, "do not fold, spindle or mutilate." A lot of people made a metaphor about of that as though they were the computer card. Don't fold, spindle, or mutilate me, or the human spirit. The same applies to the human experience that is wrapped up on religious experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There Cannot Not Be a God

I have a standard sort of God argument that I used to make all the time. It began as an version of the cosmological argument and I called "cosmological necessity."

(1) The Universe is contingent upon "prior" conditions (conditions that existed "prior" to our understanding of space/time:

(a) Prior condition being space/time, or gravitational field.

Matter, energy, all physical phenomena stem from 'gravitational field' the prior condition of which is he big bang, the prior condition of which is the singularity, the prior condition of which is...we do not know.

(b)All naturalistic phenomena are empirically derived, thus they are contingent by their very nature.

"There is not a shred of evidence that the universe is logically necessary. Indeed, as a theoretical physicist I find it rather easy to imagine alternative universes that are logically consistent, and therefore equal contenders for reality." First Things: Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address (1999)

(2) By definition the "ultimate" origin cannot be contingent, since it would reuqire the explaination of still prior conditions (a string of infinite contingencies with no necessity is logical nonsense;the existence of contingent conditions requires the existence of necessary conditions).

(3) Therefore, the universe must have emerged from some prior condition which always existed, is self sufficient, and not dependent upon anything "higher."


(4) Naturalistic assumptions of determinism, and the arbitrary nature of naturalistic cosmology creates an arbitrary necessity; if the UEO has to produce existents automatically and/or deterministically due to naturalistic forces, the congtingencies function as necessities

(5) Therefore, since arbitrary necessities are impossible by nature of their absurdity, thus we should attribute creation to an act of the will; the eternal existent must be possessed of some ability to create at will; and thus must possess will.

Corollary:


(6) An eternal existent which creates all things and chooses to do so is compatible with the definition of "God" found in any major world religion, and therefore, can be regarded as God. Thus God must exist QED!

Over time it began slowing to run together with the Tillich idea of begin itself and I began to argue it quite differently form a cosmological argument. Then when I began to take Tillich's views on the cosmological argument seriously (he didn't like it) I sort of slipped over the line and turned it into another argument I was already making about Tillich. So now it became this:

Argument: Based loosely upon Tillich's ideas. He never advanced argument like this.

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(1) For many people, the “sense of the numinous” evokes feelings of religious devotion. [Premise 1]

(2) For [some of(?)] those people, this “sense of the numinous” results from a perception of the juxtaposition of the finite nature of ourselves and the infinite nature of the universe, and contemplation of the “special nature of being” which is rationally inferred on the basis of these perceptions. [Premise 2]

(3) This “special nature of being” refers to the necessary existence of a “ground of all being” or “being itself” as the basis of reality. [Premise 3]

(4) These perceptions and the inferred “special nature of being” meet our criteria of epistemic judgment. [Premise 4]

(5) If certain perceptions or inferences meet our criteria of epistemic judgment, then it is rationally warranted to conclude that the perceptions, and that which is inferred on their basis, accurately represents the nature of reality. [Premise 5]

(6) For many people, feelings of religious devotion are evoked by that which results from contemplation of the “ground of all being” or “being itself” as the basis of all reality, which they are rationally warranted in taking to accurately represent the nature of reality. [From 1~5]

(7) For these people, the “ground of being” or “being itself” is itself the object or source of the evoked feelings of religious devotion. [Premise 6]

(8) Whatever is the object or source of feelings of religious devotion can be reasonably defined as “God”. [Premise 7]

(9) There are people who are rationally warranted in concluding that reality contains as its basis that which we can reasonably call "God".
[Conclusion, from 6, 7, & 8]

If the reader would care to notice the real difference in these two is that the first one connects to God through concept of explaining the eternal nature of existence and the distinction between naturalistic (temporal, consent) being and 'the divine' (known by it's ontologically necessary nature). The second one turns upon and connects to God through the nature of the eternal and the way that triggers the religious nature of humans. There's an implied syllogism here.

Only God is a fit object of worship

Whatever evokes the sense of the numinous must be a fit object of worship becuase worship is a response to the sense of the numinous.

Eternal necessary being triggers the sense of numinous, thus it must be a fit object of worship, therefore, it must be divine (becuase only the divine is a fit object of worship).

the corollary: Only God is divine, therefore, if eternal necessary being is divine, Eternal necessary being must be God.

Atheists have responded to this, (the whole thing but mainly the newer version) by saying "you are just things are the way they are"). That's a clumsy way to put it. It's easy to dismiss in that form becuase I usually just say "that's because the way things are is that God must be." They see as circular becuase they don't get the implied steps in the syllogism. I've made them explicit now and then but the point is not to carp about atheist understanding, after it's also very likely that's my inability to communicate.

I got to thinking, that answer to the issue assumes they put the argument in a clumsy way. What if they put argument in an adroit way. Would be able to answering it? I always did have this realization in the back of my mind, if they ever got serious about answering that aspect of it it might be hard to come back on it. I decided to make the best argument I could on their behalf. That would be this, not to make a straw man argument to really try and challenge myself. That's how one blocks out arguments, it's making straw man because you don't claim "this is really their argument," just a "what if they said this what would I say?"

The what if I see out there no one has put this way but, what if they said, "suppose this eteranl necessary aspect of being did not evoke the numinous, suppose it had nothing special about it but was "naturalistic," how else could it be but eternal and necessary?" In other words isn't the real difference between my concept of God and their concept of naturalism just an attitude one takes toward nature? That's tricky because if they put that tag on it "an attitude toward nature" then it's easy to get out of. I can say "no" because I'm not thinking of "nature" which is anything form rocks and trees to the laws of physics, but "being itself" which is literally the raw nature of what it means to be whatever you are, rocks, trees, gold fish, laws of physics, or whatever. It's not nature that I'm expounding but the eternal necessary aspect of Being.

So the hypothetical atheist needs to refine his work. He needs say "isn't the difference in their view, which is naturalistic, and my view, that is "religious" just a matter of attitude toward what it means to be? All I'm doing is doubing an aspect of nature as "a special form of being" because it makes me feel a certain way? If that's the argument, one must ask "what real negating power does it hold over the argument?" It reduces the sense of the numinous to the atheist ideology and declarers victory becuase it refuses to take seriously the ultimate transfomrative power of religion. Yet that an arbitrary gain saying of an attitude that differs from their own.

Of course by this time the real atheists reading this will be saying "it's more than just disagreement about how to approach being, it's a matter of God not being real, God being a big sky man unicorn what have you." Those who say that are not tumbling to the fact that when I say "God" and they say "God" we mean two totally different things. My idea of God is an aspect of being that is eternal and necessary, it need NOT be viewed as a father figure, it is not a big man in the sky, it doesn't have a white beard or sit on a literal throne. Atheists always get angry here and demand that stop this nonsense, everyone knows that religious people believe in a big man in the sky and God has to be that or it's not God. They often reveal the most bizarre assumption that popularity makes right by demanding that since the majority of theists believe God is a big man (which is a gross oversimplification) then of course that's the only way to be a Christian. If you beileve in God you must believe popularity makes right. Yet they are atheists. Surely they know they are in the minority? Although I've seen some rationalize their way around that in shameless and idiotic fashion. The most appealing one was a guy who tried to narrow liberal theology down to just me. I'm a minority of one so there are more atheists than there are any particular branch of Christianity (to pull that off he had to declare that Hindus are atheists--then all polytheists are atheists).

I don't even wont to dignify such philosophical clowning with an answer.In a sense the hypothetical atheist is right, the actual atheist is wrong. The hypothetical one is righ tin that the argument is really a matter of the attitude one takes toward begin in a certain sense. The actual atheist is wrong in thinking that the impersonal view of God cannot be considered a valid theological view point even from a Christian perspective. Process theology has been taken in by liberal Christianity. That is not to say that I agree with such a view. I think God is the source of consciousness and is conscious, although in a way that is beyond our understanding. There's no point in trying to draw an analogy between God and biological life, but that's another issue. The point is this "impersonal" ground of understanding sort process notion of God is my default assumption, that is it's the basic level one needs to call it "God."

The better question would be to ask, what would the situation with being look like without God? Since we can expect a naturalistic universe to also be laden with eternal necessary being, under that means, by the default described above, there can't fail to be a God as long as anything at all exists. It's the total victory of God over any doubt that this situation musters, I am sure, that cause complete ire on the part of atheists. So what would things be like if there were not God? Just becuase the conditions can't obtain logically doesn't mean that such conditions as one might suggest would not be the negation of the God concept. For example, if the world sprang up out of nothing for no reason, even though logically we should assume that can't happen, that would be a condition such that were it proved to have been the case might indicate no God. That's too easy because we could still say it's the product of God. The problem with having nothing that could count against belief is that it means there's nothing counts for it either.

The criteria do exist, however, to falsify belief in the Tillichian concept of God as being itself. The major one would be if being has no depth. If being is merely surface level and the surface nature of being were transparent. It's the depth aspect of being that creates the situation in which we can have faith. What would a "shallow" universe be like? For one thing the nature of the eternal would not trigger the sense of numinous. In fact we might well posit there would be no sense of the numinous. I'm bracketing the issues brain chemistry for now, that doesn't mean we can't discuss them. I feel I should point that the situation is not anywhere near the "done deal" that atheists thin it is, vis brain chemistry and religious experience. If being had no depth it would be a done deal. There would be no recourse and no hard problem of consciousness. So a world without God would probably be a world of philosophical zombies. A Philosophical Zombie is David Chalmer's* hypothetical concept for getting across the idea of the hard problem. Unlike their Hollywood counter parts, the philosophical variety don't. Wonder about with too much make up and holding their arms in front of them with a glassy stare, they just don't have the sorts of inner feelings we do. Other than that you can't tell them from ordinary people.

Non falsifiability is the concept we are working here, the idea that if there are no circumstances under which something can be proved false then it can't be proved either. That concept is only applicable to the empirical side of proof. It doesn't apply to arguments that are subjective nd personal anyway,such as existentially based arguments. It doesn't apply to deductive reasoning either such as the ontological argument. So, while the argument I am discussing has some falsifiable aspects, it doesn't really need them. It's not a proof it's a ratioanl for personal assurance, or rational warrant perhaps. When Atheists say "there's no proof for your God" I say "I have something better than proof." The sort of deep knowledge (personal assurance) that the phenomenological/existential approach offers, when it's real and it's life changing, is much stronger and more reliable also less demonstrable than empirical scientific proof. I'm sure that in itself is a proposition that gals atheists becuase it flays in the face of their God substitute, their own er zots science. The actual situation is there can't not be a God. Being has to be eternal and necessary and grounded and God is the eternal and necessary ground of being.



*I don't know if he invented them, but he uses the concept and made it famous. Chalmers loves to clown and in a hilarious spoof sings a little Jazz beat tune about "Zombie Blues" on You tube. this is Chamlers himself.