Naturalism is not an argument against God

Jeff Lowder of the secular outpost writes against a highly conservative Christian apologist named Anna Marie Perez.[1] He is especially incensed by her comment:

Atheism is a religion. Atheists act like Dracula confronting a cross when faced with the fact that their beliefs rely solely on faith. They hate the word faith, even though it’s all they’ve got. They try to make the claim that their religion is based on science, although actual science doesn’t support their claims any more than science can prove the existence of God. When they are called out for having faith, they’ll say something like, “An absence of belief isn’t faith,” yet their claim of an absence of a belief is a lie.

Lowder quips, "Atheism is a religion in the same sense that baldness is a hair color." Very droll.  Of course he doesn't believe atheist is a religion. I find this a lot, the answer is logical and simple. it's not a religion it's a religion substitute. What are they doming with it? They are replacing God in their lives with a concept called "atheism" that concept sways that here is no God and other concepts that help make that one work for them. Therefore it's a religion substitute. In some way it can resemble religion but it's not one.

Then he turns to her use of the term "faith."

 If she’s defining the word “faith” the same way as the Biblical book of Hebrews does (“confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see”), then she’s wrong to assume that “atheists,” without qualification, hope that no God or gods exist and that there is no afterlife. Yes, there are some atheists who hope for those things, but there are other atheists who hope for the opposite, and many more atheists who are indifferent. But if she’s defining the word “faith” to mean “belief without evidence” or even “belief against the (weight of the total) evidence,” then she’s mistaken.

I would like to deal with that issue at greater length but I don;t have time,I will point out however that faith does not mean accepting things without evidence, Faith is a complex concept it can't defined by one verse from the Bible. Look it up in Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology.[2] Nor will it do to use an ordinary dictionary, There is really no excuse for not using the Westminster (as often a these people argue with Christians). That would be like teaching a philosophy class and never using Flew's Philosophical Dictionary.[3]

"Let’s start with some definitions:

naturalism (N) =df. The physical exists and, if the mental exists, the physical explains why the mental exists.

supernaturalism (S) =df. The mental exists and, if the physical exists, the mental explains why the physical exists.

Actually I think his definition of SNism is really Idealism. SNism would say something like "there is a higher level consciousnesses of God to which God will raise the individual by the power of his Holiness.

Naturalism (N) and supernaturalism (S) are mutually exclusive: they cannot both be true. But they are not jointly exhaustive: they can both be false. To account for the possibility that both N and S are false, we can introduce a third, ‘catch-all’ option:
otherism (O) =df. Both N and S are false.

That is not necessarily true  if one does not define SN in the way he talks about. The basic problem from my perspective of belief is that God is not a being it's not like there;s a stable of SN beginnings running about and god is one of them. God is the basis of reality, being  itself, the  ground of being. Thus one might understand physical reality as the result of natural processes started in motion by the ground of being. Of course it's probably true that people use the tern naturalism to specifically exclude religious answers and thus they would apply it to gainsay any belief in God. Ideas like those of Tillich or process theology of Hartshonre of Whithead may be compatible with naturalism at least technically[4]

If N is true, then atheism is true by definition because N denies the existence of all supernatural beings, including God. So one way to defend atheism is to defend N. And one way to defend N is to present evidence which is more probable on the assumption that N is true than on the assumption that theism (T) is true. 

I'm having trouble seeing exactly what that proves. Its not demonstrating the truth of naturism, it's only showing the propositioning are more probable if we assume  naturalism. is more probable if we assume naturalism s true, it's not like these are true because naturalism is more probable. Why should we assume naturalism? Surely not because the propositions are probable since we have to assume naturalism to make them seem more so, why should we do it?

If we assumes these propagandists are more probable if naturalism is true, therefore. if they are probable naturalism is true. Is that not affirming the consequent or something? If it rains the streets are wet, the streets are wet therefore it rains. But we used to have street washers so there could be counter causes. Still I don't think Dr. Lowder would make such a mistake so I must not understand it. Still I'm going to argue with certain ones of them. I can't do all of them.

I am going to use SN operationally the way Jeff does so as to not harp on the same soap box again. I just ask that the reader be aware there is another view point. He presents the proportions to show their probable nature. I will not be able to deal with them all. I will group  all those that I think can be answered with one liner. I'll present that list in the comment section


Here is his first one:

1. The Existence of the Universe

The universe–which may be defined as the sum total of all matter, energy, space, and time–exists. This fact is entailed by N: if N is true, then by definition the physical universe exists. But, although logically consistent with T, this fact is not entailed by T. If T is true, God could create the universe, but God could also choose not to create the universe. Thus, contrary to the claims of both the Leibnizian and kalam versions of the cosmological argument, the existence of the physical universe is more probable on N than on T.[1]In formal terms, the argument may be formulated as follows. If we let B be our background information; E be the existence of the universe; then the explanatory argument is as follows:(1) E is known to be true, i.e., Pr(E) is close to 1.(2) T is not intrinsically much more probable than N, i.e., Pr(|T|) is not much more probable than Pr(|N|).(3) Pr(E | N & B) =1 > Pr(E | T & B).(4) Other evidence held equal, T is probably false, i.e., Pr(T | B & E) < 1/2.

There are a couple of problems  I see here. Mind you I may not understand it.I'm just doing my best in my little mine sweeper against his battle ship. First, "God could create the universe, but God could also choose not to create the universe. Thus, contrary to the claims of both the Leibnizian and kalam versions of the cosmological argument, the existence of the physical universe is more probable on N than on T." I think that would only be true if the universe is deterministic and had to be. We don't know that ,Moreover, we don't know why there is a universe. No reason to think the universe had to be. Davies says it didn't. [5] Cosmological arguments are optional. They are not mandatory so if it's a choice between God or the cosmological argument we can throw the argument away. But that's not necessary because the universe is not necessary.


2. The “Anti-Creation Ex Nihilo Argument”

This argument may be summarized as follows:

(1) Everything that had a beginning comes from pre-existing material.

(2) The universe had a beginning.(3) Therefore, the universe came from pre-existing material.Now I think it is far from certain that (2) is true. Let’s make a distinction between:(2a) The expansion/inflation of the universe had a beginning.and:

(2b) The universe itself had a beginning, viz., the universe began to exist.It appears that (2a) is accepted by the vast majority of cosmologists. So let’s assume not only that (2a) is true, but that we know (2a) is true with certainty. It doesn’t follow that (2b) is true. In fact, as far as I can tell, (2b) does not enjoy the same widespread consensus among cosmologists as (2a) does. So there is reasonable doubt about (2b). But (2), like its theistic counterpart in the kalam cosmological argument, requires that (2b) is true. Because there is reasonable doubt about (2b), there is also reasonable doubt about (2).

But what if both (1) and (2b) are true? In that case, it would follow that (3) is true. But (3) entails the universe was not created ex nihilo, viz., created from (absolute) nothing. The falsity of creation ex nihilo is entailed by N (and physical reality’s existence is factually necessary and uncreated), but extremely unlikely (if not impossible) on T (and physical reality was either created ex nihilo or created ex deo [out of the being of God]).

(1) if by "Material" we mean matter, p1 is fallacious. We don't know the cause of the universe. 
(2) fallacy of composition; just because all the individual bits are produced by matter that doesn't mean the whole is. 

We could also think about this argument in non  Christian ways, I'ts Christian doctrine that says creation is ex nihilo that does not mean that doctrine is necessary for all belief in God. Then it's just as matter of what we mean by natter, Is energy natter? We don't really know what matter is made of.[6] we don't know what the singularity was made of it may be that a naturalistic origination yield naturalism.

Don't forget to check out the comments where I answer a bunch of hsi 25 I'll do more next time.




Sources


[1]Jeff Lowder, "25 Lines of evidence Against st theism," Secular Outpost, (June 26,2016) online blog URL - See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/06/26/pererz1-25-evidences-against-theism/#sthash.PsSPRwSt.dpuf

[2] "Faith" The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology,Philadelphia: Westkmnster [ress Alan Richardson and John Bowden ed. 1983


[3 ] Anthony Flew, A Dictionary of Philosophy,St. Martin's Griffin; Revised edition, 1984

[4], "Process, Theology,"  The Westminster Dictionary of Christian... op cit 467-468God is diboplar. What is real of God and not merely potential is in process.God is changing alomng with creation, That put's gpd cpomsequnt pol owthin the naturalistic peocess.
[5]First Things: Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address (1999)

[6] Joseph Hinman, "Can Science Really Prove The Basis of Modern Physics." Metacrock's Blog

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 01, 2016  http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2016/02/can-science-really-prove-basis-of.html access 6/27/16

Science and Supernatural:Atheist Misconception about Sciene and Fortress of facts

 


 The whole point of this essay is to illustrate the point that religious thinking is not stuck in the ancient world. Modern religious people can and do think scientifically and modern atheist don't always understand what scientific thinking is about. The atheist straw man understanding of faith chalks belief up to stupidity and calls it "faith" while assuming that scinece is an ultimate form of proof that can't e questioned. All of these assumptions are wrong headed.

CARM discussion: a thread by "The Tide" called "The absurdity of Christianity."
 Argument about the origin of the universe.  The atheist has made the claim that there is no empirical evidence for God. I have said no empirical evidence for multivariate and string theory and things atheists re willing to base their views upon. Mathematical models are no better my God arguments i say. MarkUK says:

Originally Posted by MarkUK

 Mathematical models are supplemented by empirical evidence; they aren't Genesis.

Originally Posted by Metacrock

they are not! there is no such evidence. we have no empirical evidence of a multivariate and probably never will. I wonder do you understand what mulitiverse is?we have no empirical evidence that proves the origin of the universe. when scientist assert that we will find it someday and it wont be about God they are expressing faith. just because they are priesthood of knowledge doesn't mean they know everything or that they don't use faith.you might as well open your eyes and learn, scinece is a human thing ti's done by humans and humans make mistakes. Science is not god its not even the only form of knowledge.

 Originally Posted by Whatshisface

So, you have faith the origin of the universe is God's doing, scientists, according to you, have faith it will be a natural explanation. As stated by you both positions are contradictory, so faith seems a poor way to get at the truth. The thing is, science gets round this by having a system to weed out faith, prejudice, mistakes etc. It may not be perfect, but for finding things out its the best thing wev'e got. If you disagree, please point to anything else that has science's track record.

Meta

 Now probably by "faith" he means the  atheist straw man of faith which is "believing things for no reason."That will become apparent when he seems to contrast this "faith" with the reasons he thinks he has in science. the truth is reason means placing confidence in a hypothesis even though it may be particularly proved. It does not mean believing things without evidence. Faith is a complex concept that can be summed or understood easily. In this context it deals with belief, and there is no reason to dismiss it as something stupid like "believing things for no reason" or "without evidence." Because I make a rhetorical rejoinder to his pejorative about faith he thinks that means there's a contradiction and it proves faith is bad. No, the contradiction is in his view becuase he has faith that means he must think at some point faith is good. It just depends upon what one has faith in. The atheists clearly expressing faith in science when they assume that the models are backed by empirical proof even though there is no such empirical proof for multiverse.

His assertion that scinece weeds out faith and mistakes shows not  only that it's the straw man version of faith he's going by but also the total misconception about the nature of science. That assumes that scinece is proof, becuase if it's not resting on faith at some point then it must provide absolute proof. Science is not about proof. I've already discussed, the views of Philosopher of science Karl Popper. Popper is highly respected among scientists. If we assume that faith is not being stuipd, it is not accepting things for no reason or not ditching critical faculties, then there's no reason to think science has anything over faith. Both are apt for their given tasks. They don't do the same things, there's no reason we can't use them both. This is one of the most fallacious assumptions atheist make is the idea that religion is stuck back in the ancinet word and it can never evolve with that times.

Whatshisface goes on:

Every time we find out about something that we once thought had a supernatural explanation we find a natural explanation, its never the other way round which is why a natural explanation of the universe is a reasonable expectation, not faith. The only way you can redress the balance is to point to examples where the supernatural explanation has turned out to be true, to the same confirmed, evidential standard that natural explanations have. Can you do this? I don't think so.

 That's using the atheist straw man concept of supernatural. As I've discussed before supernatural is empirical. It's something we know for a fact exists, it's mystical experience,that was the original concept (see my essay). The enlightenment philosophies changed the idea to unseen realms and magic powers and so forth in order to ridicule the notion. He argues that the only way to reinstate the balance. This talk of a balance comes from the assumption that there's some kind of competition and scinece is winning. There can only be competition if these concepts do the same things. They don't do the same things, they dont' cover the same aspects of reality, there can't be a completion. There's way to say that striking a blow for the truth of one counts on the same scale as the blows of truth for the other. So being to prove 47 different kinds of arthropods might not be anywhere near as important as one concept of spiritual reality. Of course he's assuming the straw man concept. In terms of the true concept, where supernatural is mystical experience then that is proved to be real and well documented with a huge body of scientific work of over 200 empirical studies from academic journals. The scientific studies document the transforming effects of these experiences. I do not have a complete bibliography of the 200 studies as yet reading on the net. I have them assembled but not on the net. There's an excellent article that sums up many of the studies and provides an excellent bibliography, although it's only partial. Krishna Mohan's article on spirituality and well being. See also my article on doxa.

 As Abrham Maslow said in his book on Peak Experience:

Now that may be taken as a frank admission of a naturalistic psychological origin, except that it invovles a universal symbology which is not explicable through merely naturalistic means. How is it that all humans come to hold these same archetypical symbols? (For more on archetypes see Jesus Chrsit and Mythology page II) The "prematives" viewed and understood a sense of transformation which gave them an integration into the universe. This is crucial for human development. They sensed a power in the numenous, that is the origin of religion."

"In Appendix I and elsewhere in this essay, I have spoken of unitive perception, i.e., fusion of the B-realm with the D-realm, fusion of the eternal with the temporal, the sacred with the profane, etc. Someone has called this "the measureless gap between the poetic perception of reality and prosaic, unreal commonsense." Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere (54), and in Appendix I, fromPeak Experience (online copy of the book)

 Whatshisface

BTW, the past is littered with statements that say, we will never find that out, that's impossible, etc, that have been proven wrong. I am slightly taken aback by your dim view of science. Remember, all science is is a disciplined way of finding out about things. You can't brush it under the carpet as if it doesn't count. And re the origin of the universe, science is the only way we will find out about it.

 That's charming but irrelevant becasue nowhere have I said that. The idea that religion says this in general just by the nature of what it is is part of the ideological propaganda and the myth of the enlightenment. There's no actual reason why religious people have to think this way. This is assuming a God of the gaps mentality. Atheist assume that becuase they think everything is about scientific explanations. They can't understand the concept  of having other kinds of explanations that matter more. "Science is a disciplined way of finding out about things" but what he says after that shows what he really means to say is "scinece is the only way to find out about things. It's not. It's not a way to find about ultimate reality or God. The only way to do that is to experience God.

 Originally Posted by MarkUK

Never, in the history of humanity, has a scientific explanation been supplanted by a non-scientific one; there is an embarrassment of riches of it going the other way.

Science sticks around, or is turned over by more science.

That assumes that religion is about ancinet world thinking and it can't ever update. If you try to update atheists will say "that's not Christianity." Christianity to them is thinking stupidly and in a very old fashioned unscientific way. The modern scientific study of religious experience confirms the turth of religoius belief. Atheists known nothing about social sciences as a general rule an the shameful and silly way they have tried to find all manner of means of destroying confidence in the studies, everything but read them, proves this. They are not scientific thinkers. They are totally and totally opposed to scientific thinking when it doesn't back their ideology of anti-God propaganda. We can see modern scientific thinking in process theology which has been the major trend in theology throughout the twentieth century. We can see it in the acceptance of evolution as a fact of scinece, and we can see it in the understanding of science and relative value expressed in so many major theologians in the last century such as Pannenberg and Molatmann.

Answeing Jeff Lowder, part 1: Demograsphics of Salvation

When I was a kid growing up in the Church of Christ in Dallas Texas I was always told you have to follow Jesus and be a Christian to be saved. That meant being baptized (which entailed total immersion in water) and it had to be in a Church of Christ, or you would go to hell. Even as a small child I would ask "what about the people born in China who never hear of the Church of Christ, would they go to hell? That issue alarmed me as early as I can remember. When that issue came up they would say "God is merciful he will take that into account." That's what we want ot hear. I still always wondered if it meant he would really let them off the hook. They weren't willing to thin it through to that extent. Still, when I went back to God and was born again at age3v23, after having been an atheist for about seven or eight years that seed was there and has formed the foundation if my adult apologetic and theological answer. Now the guys at the Secular Outpost have an argument (ala Jeff Lowder) [1] it's really against William Lane Craig,' in the comment section the troops are all enthused. They think they have a dynamite argument Christians can't answer. I think I did answer it but they just aren't listening. So I'm going to have to spell it out. The argument is not exactly about this issue but it does have a bearing. I think my answer to the issue also answers Lowder's argument.



The demographic aspects are not very prominent, they made more of a splash in the comment section. I still find it more logical to deal with that stuff first. The major part of the article is about are there sincere seeking  people who never accept Jesus but aren't resisting the Gospel. Of course most Christians say there are no true atheists. So everyone kno0ws at some level there's a
god amd they just resisting. Atheists of course claim otherwise and are offended by the idea that they are lying or self deluded. Before I deal with that it makes more sense to me to deal with the question "what happens to people who die never having had a chance to hear of Jesus?" I am going to do the wired thing and deal with that issue first then in part 2 deal with the main brunt of the article. Lowder mentions the possibility of isolated non Christians and their eternal fate as a final subpoint to his major point three in which he sights Schellenberg:

The prima facie evidence of isolated nontheists. Schellenberg defines these individuals as “those who have never been in a position to resist God because they have never so much as had the idea of an all-knowing and all-powerful spiritual being who is separate from a created universe but related to it in love squarely before their minds–individuals who are entirely formed by, and unavoidably live their whole lives within, what must, if God exists, be a fundamentally misleading meaning system” (238). [2]

I wont quibble we know it's possible that some people have never heard of Jesus so the question is still valid. I find it hard to believe that anyone would not have heard of "God" in some sense. American atheist like to say that Buddhism is atheistic, it is not. Buddhists from Asia don't think that way. They don't have a "God" per se but they do have the Buddha mind which is much like Tillich's notion of the ground of Being (the Christian concept of God ala Platonic Christianity of the 5th century). Be That as it may I will Just deal with the Gospel. Before getting on with that I have a disclaimer. Nothing I say should be taken as saying that we don't need Jesus to be saved or that we can worship Krishna as Jesus or anything of that nature. I believe Jesus is Lord and if anyone is saved it's Jesus who saves them.

Having said that I don't believe that all people need to know it's Jesus who is saving them to be saved. Cyprian said there is no salvation outside the church, he said that in about 300A.D., What they believe before that? There is nothing in the Hebrew scriptures to the effect that if you are not a Jew you are going to hell. Now it's true that the Bible lambasts the worship of idols but the OT had no concept of hell. This is widely known in most seminaries., Every thing translated as "hell" in OT is using the term "Sheol" meaning the grave. This explains Paul's words to the Greeks on Mars Hill (Acts 17--I'll get to it).

I have been assuming that experience of God is at a subliminal level. Since we all experience it that way we can experience it and not even know. Thus to talk about the inklings of ideas of God that we get and about any actual known experiences we have, we must filter that through cultural constructs. The reason is obvious, because culture is langue and it's through the constructs of culture that we interpret the world. God is beyond our understanding. Even those who experience God directly and so powerfully that they know it is real, are still confronted with a phenomenon of which they cannot speak directly. To make sense of it and to communicate it to others we must filter it through constructs. That means that our understanding of God is largely metaphor (at least our intellectual understanding).

Given this framework I've come to a slow conclusion over the last couple of decades that the same reality stands behind all faiths. That doesn't mean that I see Krishna or Bhudda as Jesus, but it does mean that I see God as the motivating instigator of religion as a whole and of belief in God in particular. I see God as working in all cultures. I see God as having interaction with all faiths, but not filling the blanks as other gods. I see a basis for my view in the Bible.

Paul said

To those who through persistance seek glory, honor and immortality he will give eternal life.But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the good and follow evil there will be wrath and anger...first for the Jew and then for the gentile; but glory honor and peace for everyone who does good. For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will perish apart form the law and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.Indeed when Gentiles who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirement of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences bearing witness and their hearts now accusing, now even defending them..." (Romans 2:7-15).[3]

 New American Standard and other translations say "their hearts accusing, now excusing them..." Most Christians are afraid of this conclusion and they down play this verse. Often Evangelicals will come back and say "he makes it clear in the next passage that no one can really follow the law on their hearts." Well, if they can't, than they can't. But if they can, and do, than God will excuse them. God knows the heart, we do not. The verse clearly opens the door to the possibility of salvation (although by Jesus) thorugh a de facto arrangement in which one is seeking the good without knowing the object one is seeking (Jesus). In other words, it is possible that people in other cultures who follow the moral law written on the heart know Jesus de facto even if they don't know him overtly. Paul backs up this conclusion in Acts 17:22-30 [2] Paul goes to Athens as is asked by the Athenian philosophers to explain his ideas to them.

These were pagan followers of another religion. Paul stood up and said to them, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious for as I walked around and observed your objects of worship I even found an alter with this inscription 'TO AN UNKOWN GOD' Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."He basically says that they are worshiping God, they just don't know who he is. That's why he says "I will make it known to you." He doesn't say "you have the wrong idea completely." Most Evangelicals dismiss this as a neat rhetorical trick. But if we assume that Paul would not lie or distort his beliefs for the sake of cheap tricks, we must consider that he did not say "you are all a bunch of pagans and you are going to hell!" He essentially told them, "God is working in your culture, you do know God, but you don't know who God is. You seek him, without knowing the one you seek. He goes on,(v27)"God did this [created humanity and scattered them into different cultures] so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him though he is not far form each one of us." This implies that God not only wants to work in other cultures, but that it is actually his paln to do things in this way. Perhaps through a diversity of insights we might come to know God better. Perhaps it means that through spreading the Gospel people would come to contemplate better the meaning of God's love.

In any case, it does mean that God is working in other cultures, and that God is in the hearts of all people drawing them to himself. Of their worship of idols, Paul said "in past times God overlooked such ignorance but now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (v30). Now what can this mean? God never overlooks idolatry or paganism, in the OT he's always commanding the Israelite to wipe them out and expressly forbidding idolatry. It means that on an individual basis when God judges the hearts of people, he looks at their desire to seek him, to seek the good. That their status as individuals in a pagan culture does not negate the good they have done, and their ignorance of idolotry does not discount their desire to seek the good or the truth. IT means that they are following Jesus if they live in the moral life, even though they follow him as something unknown to them. IT also means that all of us should come into the truth, we should seek to know God fully, and when we do that we find that it is Jesus all along.

One thing this might change is our understanding of the chruch. It was the theologian Cyprian (200-258) who said there is no salvation outside the chruch. This doctrine is called extra ecclesiam. He was born in Carthage around 200. He was made Bishop of Carthage in 248, died in 258. In his most important work, "De unitate ecclesiae."  he states: "He can no longer have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother; . . . he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church scatters the Church of Christ" (vi.); "nor is there any other home to believers but the one Church" (ix.).[4] Cyprian should not come across as a bad guy even though he makes this exclusivity statement. For one thing he favored reinstating (after suitable intervals of probation and penance) those who fell away under persecution recognizing the extreme hardship they were under. He also faced sickness in order to stay in the city and care for plague victims. He was falsely accused and put to death by the very church which he so ardently defended.[5]

This is in the third century. Christianity had been going for a long time before this formal declaration that there is no salvation outside the chruch. Of course this doesn't mean they had not been saying it here and there all along. Yet they were pretty far removed from the understanding of Paul way back there in the late 50s of the first century was telling the Greeks they already knew God but needed to know more about him. Not only had a lot happened, Christianity became a religion prosecuted religion of martyrdom, but also thoroughly gentile so that the perspective of Judaism was forgotten. Jews reject idols but they did not see pagans as damned merely for being who they were. Modern Jews still largely hold to that preservative.

One problem with extra ecclesiam is I'm a protestant! That began as a Catholic doctrine, when the split came with the east the Roman Catholics continued the idea, it's a Roman catholic notion. Though many protestants passionately accept the Father's as gospel the teachings of the Apostolic fathers became the teachings of the Catholics and are acted upon as though they exclude protestants. At least before Vatican II. While I am passionately defending extra ecclesiam a bunch of Catholics are looking at me and saying "but you are outside the church yourself!" So I have to re think this business of the nature of the church. First of all I have to see the church as the tool, not the point of the mission. It is Christ's mission not the church's mission. As Motlmann says "The Mission has a church."[6]  Meaning, the Gospel, being the light of the world, is the mission of Christ, the church is a tool belonging to that mission. I also no longer see the church as the agent of salvation. Christianity has tended to make the Church the point, and membership in it and Christ became a tool of the church.Membership in the church is not what saves us. It maybe valid, it may be necessary but it's not the saving agent. Christ's atoning sacrifice is what creates the ground upon which forgiveness is possible. The church just preaches the message.

Finally, the great commission ("go ye therefore into all the world and preach the Gospel, Baptizing everyone (or 'all nations')" that is not a command. It is not in the imperative. It really should be "where you are going preach the gospel." It's not in the imperative mood so it's "go ye!" but "where you are going." More on all of this in comment section.

A poster in the comment section of Lowder's article says:

In addition to the excellent points made in the article, I think that there is very strong evidence against the Sincerity Denial Hypothesis in the form of facts about the distribution of non-belief, as well as from facts about human psychology (particularly, the fact that most people prefer not to be tortured forever).For example, belief in Christianity spread throughout the world in a way that is perfectly consistent with Naturalism but slightly baffling on Craig's views. There are no known Native American Christians prior to the arrival of European settlers. But on Craig's view the Native Americans MUST have been, on some level, willfully rejecting the belief in Christ, which one CANNOT do unless one is on some level aware that Christ is a thing that can be accepted or rejected.

Of course that assumes conscious joining of the Church as a man made institution. If as Paul suggests anyone following the moral law upon the heart is seeking Christ defacto then there is no inconsistency. If as Paul says the Athenians guessed right that there is an unknown God they need to get to know then "great spirit" of the native Americans points to the creator. Then they weren't all necessarily lost nor where they all guilty of rejecting. Nor where they necessarily not following Christ, even though they didn't  know it was Jesus they followed. All gods point to God! They are not all God but they point to God.

That same poster goes on:

Rival belief systems like Islam seem to correlate with certain areas in ways that suggest the surrounding culture was a significant contributing factor in the propagation of those beliefs. But on Craig's view one's rejection of Christ is entirely independent of one's culture, so it's a sheer coincidence that the really stubborn people who happen to find Islam more convincing, tend to be found in Islamic cultures. For whatever reason sincere believers all seem to live in the same places and those places are much less likely to be places where the dominant culture is Islamic and absolutely never places to which Christianity has yet to spread through naturalistic means at all.

Christians don't live where Christianity has not spread, that's a  tautology. But it's all over the world now. It's becoming major in China, Africa, and Japan. Did you know it's been in India since the Time of Christ? No the spread of Christianity is not in line with what naturalism would predict. Naturalism would predict it would die out shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus.

Additionally, Craig is committed to a fairly traditional conception of Hell and one in which a consequence of not accepting Jesus is eternal torment. Now, Lord knows there are some stubborn atheists out there but is it plausible to believe that not only all atheists but all non-Christians in the history of the world are so stubborn that they would prefer to be tortured in a lake of fire for eternity than believe something that Craig thinks is the most wonderful, life-changing thing that anyone can believe in?

That could cut both ways because it does not prove their denial is due purely to intellectual matters.



Sources


[1] Jeffery Jay Lowder, "WLC Denies That Anyone Has Ever Died a Sincere Seeker Without Finding God" Secular Out Post, January 2, 2016 (blog URL)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/01/02/wlc-denies-that-anyone-has-ever-died-a-sincere-seeker-without-finding-god/  Accessed 1/10/16


[2] Jeff Lowde  paraphrasing John Schellenberg (in his recent book The Wisdom to Doubt - See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/01/02/wlc-denies-that-anyone-has-ever-died-a-sincere-seeker-without-finding-god/#sthash.h28GcHgr.dpuf

[3] Romans 2:6-14/Acts 17:22-30

[4] "Cyprian," Wikipedia,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprian accessed 5/13/14.

[5] James E. Keifer, "Cyprian of Carthage, Bishop and Martyr." Bibliographical sketches of Memorable Christians of the Past. Online source: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/242.html
accessed 5/13/14.

[6] Jurgen Motlmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ As the Foundation of Criticism of Christian Theology. Fortress Press; 1st Fortress Press ed edition (September 1, 1993) 105.

Mission is rooted in the identity of God himself. God is on a mission, and Jesus is the embodiment of that mission. Jesus identifies himself as being sent more than forty times in the gospel of John. Then, near the end of the gospel of John, he says, ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’ (John 20:21). The church is sent on mission by Jesus. It’s not that the church has a mission, but rather that the mission has a church. We join Jesus on his mission.

 

The Abductive Version of The TS Argukment (1 of 3).

The abductive version of the argument can proceed with no references to Derrida whatsoever, although understanding him would no doubt help. The abductive argument


Terms: TS = transcendental signifier. The Signifier is a written word or a sign of some kind that depicts a word.

Transcendental - the aspect of a system that is fundamental to or sumkmarizes the whole; Trancendental Signifier, there fore, refers to words that sum up the whole system of knowledge, they are universal and not culturally constructed, such as matehematics or God.

TSED = the reality to which the TS refers. While Math is a real thing its only the TSED if it is responsible for everything. These are all Derridian terms. Derrida.

(1) Organizing principles are necessary to development of complexity and systems

(2) understanding of organization is necessary, therefore, for explanatory power

(3) Organizing principles are all-pervasive

(4) no property of physicality is known or theoretically plausible to explain either the necessity or all pervasive nature of these transcendental aspects.

(5) Therefore, no one organizing principle explains the whole as do TS's.

(6) Given the all-pervasive and necessary nature of the TS, the fact of a real TSEd best explains the all-pervasive and necessary nature o the OP's and the TS

(in chapter one I establish the link from TSED to God(Deductive argument premises -6-7). Abduction is a form of inference like deduction and induction:

Abduction or, as it is also often called, Inference to the Best Explanation is a type of inference that assigns special status to explanatory considerations. Most philosophers agree that this type of inference is frequently employed, in some form or other, both in everyday and in scientific reasoning. However, the exact form as well as the normative status of abduction are still matters of controversy.

[1]

An example given by Douven: two friends have a falling out. Then they are seen jogging together..[2] You assume they must have reconciled. This assumption is not mandated by the logic of the case. There could be any number of reasons why people who have a falling out would jog together. In deductive reasoning the premises mandate the conclusions. If we know the meaning of the terms and we know the

premises are true the conclusions must be true if they are logically derived. All A's are B. a is an A. Therefore, a is a B. With induction, the premises are not true by definition, but are usually derived as a matter of probability. With abduction the premises may be probable but the real warrant for inference is the explanatory power of the idea not probability per se.[3]Explanatory power is not proof, but it is a guide to inference, as Peter Lipton tells us.

Setting up criteria for understanding “best explanation”

According to Lipton not all induction is probability. He draws the line between deductive and inductive at the point where it is no longer impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusions false; when that's the case its deductive. Inductive is weighing probability not proof.[4]Inductive considerations arise out of indeterminism. It is because outcomes are not necessitated that we can have probability. In assessing the nature of the best explanation, Lipton finds that justification supports explanatory power because with indeterminism we can only go by likelihood. If likelihood were the only guide abduction reduces to induction, or a form of it. Rather he finds that we can't construe best as likeliest alone, but we should view abduction as a guide to inference, not as proof. He urges us to see explanatory factors as guides to illuminating likelihood rather than the other way around.[5]To use my own examples: suppose someone argues that its not likely that the former friends are jogging together because they made up; the former friends could be jogging together so that they can insult each other. That doesn't seem believable because one hates conflict, the other is too mature. Thus that is a less likely explanation than the theory that they made up. How would likelihood work with the question of God? How to establish probability of an issue such as the reality of God, where there is an inability to produce empirical proof? Such a discussion could not help but be dominated by prior convictions. Yet if we value explanation and we have reasonable parameters for what needs explaining the explanatory power might give a clue to likelihood. This means we are still left with how to establish “best.”

Gabby and Woods offer a rule to determine explanatory power. The rule sets up a criterion of comparison between hypothesis. At least one element must be more plausible in given hypothesis than its counter parts in competing hypotheses.[6]They develop much more complex statistical theorems. The problem is, even though setting up criteria of comparison is a god idea, we still can't just assert the likelihood of God, or even the unlikelihhod. The individual must decide the values by which to set parameters for comparison. For example if we value explanations that assume a “why” to the universe then God as explanation seems more likely. If we assume flat out there can be no why then we have already eliminated God from consideration. The problem in making a God argument is that God is not given in sense data. Thus God can't be the subject of empirical investigation, not directly. What we can do is to specify parameters and criteria that prepare us to make educated decisions about belief. In other words, we can't draw a picture of the hole in a doughnut, but we can draw the doughnut around the hole. In the case of God that means rational warrant justifies belief. Rational warrant means that a given belief is possible and plausible, thus not irrational.

We might be able to say that the best explanation would account for all the data or account for the most crucial data than other explanations. We could also stipulate that the explanation be the most simple as long as we don't confuse conceptual simplicity with absence of data, or simplicity of structure. For example when Dawkins argues that God would have to be more complex than the universe he creates, he's assuming the laws of physics apply to God.[7]He's ignoring conceptual simplicity. Most of the great apologists such as Aquinas saw God as conceptually simple.[8]In other words God is not made up of physical parts. This raises the issue of Occam's razor and parsimony. Parsimony is a principle akin to abductive reasoning used in science where direct empirical data is lacking. It was based upon Occam's razor but the two are not identical. Atheists have, on occasion, taken Occam's razor as a means of ruling God out of the equation. They either assert that God is not necessary, thus Occam's dictum about not multiplying beyond necessity applies to God, or they think Occam said take the simplest of two hypotheses.[9]

They are also confusing Occam's razor with Parsimony. Occam was a priest and he believed in God he didn't think the razor got rid of God. For that reason I've always been somewhat peeved by their use of this argument. Moreover, what the razor really says is that we should not multiply entities beyond necessity.[10]Atheists assume that since they don't believe in God then God is not necessary. This is begging the question. They are asserting the lack of a God and using that position to deny the God argument.

To understand what Occam was really talking about we must understand his nominalism.

three senses of nominalism:

(1) Denial of metaphysical universals: applies to Occam.

(2) reduce one's ontology to bare minimum, streamline categories: applies to Occam.

(3) Nix abstract entities, depending upon what one means; here Occam may or may not have been a nominalist in this sense. he did not believe in mathematical entities but he did believe in abstraction such as whiteness, or humanity.

Ockham removes all need for entities in seven of the ten traditional Aristotelian categories; all that remain are entities in the categories of substance and quality, and a few entities in the category of relation, which Ockham thinks are required for theological reasons pertaining to the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Eucharist, even though our natural cognitive powers would see no reason for them at all. As is to be expected, the ultimate success of Ockham's program is a matter of considerable dispute.[11]He was not getting rid of God. Occam's razor never allows us to deny what Spade calls "putative entities" which would definitely include God.[12]It merely bids us refrain from positing them without good reason. Of course our atheist friends would tell us there is no good reason to assert God, but answering that is the point of making God arguments. In fact for Occam humans can't really know what is necessary. "For Ockham, the only truly necessary entity is God; everything else, the whole of creation, is radically contingent through and through. In short, Ockham does not accept the Principle of Sufficient Reason.."[13]This is not a contradiction because all the razor says is refrain form multiplying entities without good reason, not “rub out of existence all concepts that can't be empirically verified.” Note that he includes God as the only truly necessary entity. Thus atheist are violating Occam's razor in trying to use it on God. Of course there is equivocation in the of the term “necessary.” Atheists making the argument applying the razor to God speak of causal necessity while believers rest their ontological arguments upon ontological necessity.

An example of how “best explanation” should be considered:

This example is based upon the multiverse argument. The idea of the multiverse is taken seriously in science, even though it is the stuff of comic books and science fiction. The notion is what it sounds like: reality is divided into an infinite array of parallel universes. The argument is used to answer the fine tuning argument for God. The fine tuning argument says that the attributes of the universe that make life possible are so unlikely the game must be fixed. That's a good reason to believe in a planing intelligence as a creator. Our atheist friends say “not so fast.” There are infinite universes, thus infinite chances for life bearing. With infinite chances the odds of hitting life bearing are not so remote so there is not such a good reason to assert the need of a God. There are good answers to this, the argument is defensible. I wont defend it here because its not relevant. I am not asserting fine tuning to save the TS. My purpose in raising it is to make a point about how to consider best explanation. The multiverse argument illustrates how the assumptions we make change the kind of explanation we seek. Is the multiverse necessary? It's a matter of empirical investigation and there may be empirical evidence to support it. Claims have been made of hard data proving Multivese, but when investigated they evaporate. Here's a physicist who opposed string theory and multiverse. He argues that his evaluation of the papers finds irresolvable problems.

In recent years there have been many claims made for “evidence” of a multiverse, supposedly found in the CMB data... Such claims often came with the remark that the Planck CMB data would convincingly decide the matter. When the Planck data was released two months ago, I looked through the press coverage and through the Planck papers for any sign of news about what the new data said about these multiverse evidence claims. There was very little there; possibly the Planck scientists found these claims to be so outlandish that it wasn’t worth the time to look into what the new data had to say about them. One exception was this paper, where Planck looked for evidence of “dark flow.”

[14]

If hard evidence turns up for it then we have to deal with that on it's own terms. Until that time Multiverse should be shaved with Occam's razor. We don't need it to explain reality, it's only advanced to keep from having to turn to God. It's naturalistic so it's an arbitrary necessity at best. Arbitrary necessitates are logical impossibilities, contingent things jumped up to the level of necessity to answer a God argument. It's not that we are going to disprove the unnecessary entity (multiverse) but we are going to refrain from advancing it's existence as an assumption until such a time that real empirical evidence makes it empirically undeniable. We can make that kind of ruling about the multiverse because its an empirical matter, even though it may be undetectable; God is not an empirical matter because God is both transcendent and transcendental. Therefore, Multiverse should be taken out of the issues of God arguments, yet we can't make that ruling about God. That's an example of what I meant when I said we can fill in the doughnut around the hole. If we find empirical evidence of multiverse we may have to re-think a couple of God arguments, In the mean time God might be the best explanation for the uniqueness of our world. In any case parsimony is perhaps the best point of inference for abduction.

Most philosophers believe that, other things being equal, simpler theories are better. But what exactly does theoretical simplicity amount to? Syntactic simplicity, or elegance, measures the number and conciseness of the theory's basic principles. Ontological simplicity, or parsimony, measures the number of kinds of entities postulated by the theory. One issue concerns how these two forms of simplicity relate to one another. There is also an issue concerning the justification of principles, such as Occam's Razor, which favor simple theories. The history of philosophy has seen many approaches to defending Occam's Razor, from the theological justifications of the Early Modern period, to contemporary justifications employing results from probability theory and statistics

[15]

Again we have to distinguish between conceptual simplicity as opposed to mere ignorance of the case, or simple structure. In other words Dawkins treats God as a big man who must have more parts than the universe he creates (see above). That is simplicity in terms of structure, the physical structure of God. That is a case we just don't know about. We can't judge that. We can think of God as the simpler concept in terms of the economy of relations. First we can think of God as mind, not brain. We do not know that minds are complex. Brains are complex but we know nothing about mind. On the other hand we might posit that mind is simpler than brain because it's not a set of biological parts, but at least theoretically might be akin to the spirit. In any case God's relation to the whole is simple: one mind which thinks the universe. One mind that in the act of perceiving sets all meaning, creates all that is, and judges all moral value. That is more simple in terms of economical relations between all parts than a multiverse. A multiverse would multiply the problems of fine tuning and something from nothing by every universe.

To spell out the criteria by which we might judge a “best” explanation, not just simplicity alone but conceptual simplicity, we must be able to make comparisons between hypotheses. We can't compare hypotheses if they don't compete for the same results. Belief in God is not a scientific hypothesis, thus it does not compete with science. Thus belief cannot be reduced to the simplicity of “the best science.” For this reason we can call the kind of parsimony of the abductive version as parsimony of elegance. In other words not just take the simplest idea, but take the truly elegant hypothesis. By “elegant” is included conceptually simple in terms of relation to the whole theory, as well as consistant, competitive, and complete (accounts for most data, and most crucial data). To make a list of qualities of an elegant hypothesis. Above I quote Baker as saying elegance is number and conciseness of the theories basic principles. Ontological simplicity is the number of kinds of entities. By that measure God would be both eligant and ontologically simple: one kind and its concise. To that I add the notion of bang for the buck; not just fewer kinds and more concise but accomplishes more for less.

Criteria for choosing the best explanation:

I. Simple (elegant and ontologically simple).

Focus is on God's relationship to all aspects of the universe and reality. It's not about issues like what is God made of or does he have parts. The relation itself of the God concept to the universe is what is at issue. One concept that props up every thing is simpler than trying to account for everything through loose ends. That's why they want a grand unified theory. More concise and bang for the buck.

II. Competitive:

Does the explanation compete with other explanations? In a sense no, the other explanations are not scientific. Science and religion have different domains they are meant to do different things. God and science don't compete. Yet the question is not one of science vs. God but of world views. While science makes up a large part of the world view of scientists and skeptics (and believers too at times) if we think of atheism as a world view there's more to it than just science. Atheism consists of actively cutting out the kinds of existential and phenomenological explanations that are part of the believer's world view. So belief in God answers the questions abou8t life at a more philosophical level, to my way of thinking a more profound level. Science tells us how the physical world works. God tells us why there is a physical world. Of course there are limits to how much we are told. That's the job of Theological to figure out what God tells us and what God does not tell us. Belief in God competes with other philosophical level questions. Religions are often thought of as competing with each other for believers, even though they all point to the TSED as a generic object of faith. This is not to say they are all the same or that it doesn't matter, but for the sake of the TS argument I'm going to bracket that for now. Atheism and belief in God Compete directly because the farmer seeks to explain the world by removing the explanation of the latter. While most atheists turn to science for explanatory power they often embrace an ideological version of science that is tuned to screen out religious explanations.xvi God transcends our understanding and our observations. Thus God belief can't compete with science's answers of how the universe works; nor does it need to. It does answer the why, the best atheism can do is to assert that there is no why. To the extent that both world views seek to account foe ultimate origins.

So the issue is not one of science vs. belief in God, but belief vs. atheism. In other words given equal embrace of science which world view best explains the world? Some will claim that science rules out God because there's no necessary place for God in a world of modern science. That just depends upon what kind of explanation we seek. The believer must not allow the skeptic to pull a bait-and-switch whereby the workings of the physical world are put over as the best explanation just because they are the most certain.

III. Logically consistent with self and world:

No internal contradictions in theory, and if it does contradict what we think we know it has to re-explain it in a way so as to account for the apparent contradiction.

IV. Complete:

Explains more of the data than other hypotheses, and coordinates the answer to all other areas or more other areas than do other hypotheses. Example. God not only explains something from nothing but also accounts for ethics and meaning. The totality of data is all aspects of existence. It can't be limited to just empirical data but all aspects of human being and the nature of existing.

V. Must be a Philosophical or metaphysical answer

The hypothesis should be philosophical in that it considers the phenomena on a higher level than just the physical workings of the universe. We have to be careful, however, not to set up the criteria in such a way that God is the only valid answer because nothing else applies. God must be the best explanation because other alternatives are eliminated. To demonstrate that I have not just set things up to favor my argument, I will, when the time comes to eliminate other alternatives, show alternatives that also fit the criteria. Why a philosophical answer? Why not just content ourselves with the physical universe and how it works? That approach would rule God out before one got started thinking about that question. By Metaphysical I mean in the sense Wiltshire uses it, talk about talk about the world (glossery). Or to put it another way, thinking about how to think about the world. That answer must proceed from a transcendental perspective, analyzing the system of thought itself. The answer must be on a transcendental or metaphysical level but need not involve God. Does we must manufator a reason for things? No but there is a fine line. The answer can't content itself with pure physics and no more, but it can't demand a purposive reason as the only option. The explanation (sans God) on the metaphysical level might involve just dealing with the consequences of a purposeless world. We have to face the possibility that there is no purpose, but by the same token the skeptic must respect a subjective sense as the justification for seeking purpose. It's true that this criterion asks one to acept positions that perhaps can't be proven, but we don't have to prove the actual reality of God to produce a rational warrant for belief. Even a subjective sense can be analyzed and subjected to forms of verification see my first book, The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief, available on Amazon).

These five qualities taken together are what I call “the best explanation.” The conclusion of the argument posits a TSED which can logically be understood as a generic God Concept. That conclusion has to meet the criteria. I will defend the premises as true statement based upon best educated judgement then show how the proposed conclusion meets the criteria as best explanation for the phenomena sited.

sources

1 Igor, Douven, "Abduction", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . Accessed 8/3/15.

2 Ibid

3 Ibid

4 Peter Lipton, Inference to The Best Explanation. New York: Routledge, International Library of Philosophy, 2nd ed.,2004, 6.

5 Ibid., 207-208.

6 Dov M. Gabby and John Woods. A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems: Vol 2, The Reach of Abduction...Amsterdam, The Neatherlands.:Elsevier B.V., 2005, 160.

7 Dawkins 747 thing

8 Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas Second and Revised Edition, 1920Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican ProvinceOnline Edition Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Knight Nihil Obstat. F. Innocentius Apap, O.P., S.T.M., Censor. Theol.Imprimatur. Edus. Canonicus Surmont, Vicarius Generalis. Westmonasterii.New Advent Catholic Encyclopidia, URL:http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm#article1 accessed 8/28/15.

9 “How to Reason: Section 8, Ocam's Razor,” God Would be An Atheist. URL: http://www.godwouldbeanatheist.com/0reason/008occam.htmn 8, Occam's Razor,” , accessed 8/6/15

This is a website for atheism, it is not a scholarly site. In fact there is no listing of an author.. I quote it as an example of popular misconception.The site says: “Occam's Razor: in any situation offering two or more explanations, the simpler or simplestexplanationis always best.” Documentation of atheists using Occam to disprove God: Robert T. Carroll, “Occum's Razor,”The Skeptic's Dictionary. Url:http://skepdic.com/occam.html. Accessed 8/6/15

What is known as Occam's razor was a common principle in medieval philosophy and was not originated by William, but because of his frequent usage of the principle, his name has become indelibly attached to it. It is unlikely that William would appreciate what some of us have done in his name. For example, atheists often apply Occam's razor in arguing against the existence of a god on the grounds that any god is an unnecessary hypothesis. We can explain everything without assuming the extra metaphysical baggage of a divine being.

10 C.K. Brampton, "Nominalism and the Law of Parsimony." The Modern School Men, Volume 41, Issue 3, (March 1964), 273-281.

11 Paul Vincent Spade and Claude Panaccio, "William of Ockham", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Fall 2011 (substantive content change) [new author(s): Spade, Paul Vincent; Panaccio, Claude] on lin resourse URL: http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question30.html accessed 8/18/15.

12 Spade, et al, Ibid.

13 Ibid,

14 Peter Woit, “Hard Evidence for Multiverse Founjd, But String Theory limits Space Brain Threat,” Not Even Wrong,(May 22, 2013 ) online resourse: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/ accessed 8/26/15.

15 Alan Baker, "Simplicity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . Accessed 8/6/15

Atheists Confuse Logic and Argument, with Science

 
 Toulmin Argument Diagram


Many atheists don't know that arguments are constructed out of  lines of reason and that their function is to persuade us that there a particular conclusion that we should to. Many of them confuse logic with scientific experiment. they think an argument should start with evidence, then unbiasedly  observe to see the facts rather than making petition for a particular view point. Of cousre in saying this they are not being open ended and unbiased as they would have us believe. They are destroying arguments that give us reason to believe in God and replacing them with their own biased view point int he fortress of facts.

Some examples of atheists doing this and saying these things can be seen on carm. Pseudoexpat can be seen on carm making a post on top down logic in response to Royce's post attacking a "special kind of top down logic" that he can't name or describe but it's found in God arguments. Here is Royce's original thread. My responding thread on "atheist double talk on top down reasoning," and "atheists privilege doubt."


In Pseudoexpat's thread and in response to his OP (which is an excellent refutation of Royce's original nonsense)Pixie says:


Originally Posted by Pseudoexpat

As Royce puts it, top-down reasoning's first and most important characteristic is that it will say anything in defence of a claim, no matter how crazy. Ok, if this is as far as it goes, then of course we should never do it. Saying anything in defence of a claim is transparent lunacy.

Pixie:

I think the point is that an argument should go from evidence to reasoning to conclusion. So-called top-down reasoning in contrast starts with a conclusion, then attempts to contrive the reasoning and evidence to support it. It is motivated reasoning because is is based on a motivation to prove the desired (and pre-determined) conclusion. I do not think you really address this properly.

He has an argument starting from evidence and preceding to conclusion as though it's observing the evidence to see what happens. He condemns reasoning that "is based on a motivation to prove the desired (and per-determined) conclusion." That's what arguemnt is. He's thinking of a scientific experiment that has to be open ended.Logical arguments are not open ended. Their function is to guide us to a specific point through showing the reasoning takes us there. The confusion with scinece is expressed in an even stronger fashion by an atheist who chimes in to agree with this guy:Fanghur. He says:

Right, and the premises of any argument should always be based on the empirical evidence we currently possess, not on blind speculation regarding things that are currently beyond our ability to test, and hence which we have zero basis to make any sort of probability estimation regarding.

Premises need not be based upon emprical evidence. The reason he thinks so is because he thinks it's like a scientific experiment. That's a bad understanding of science as well argument. The true nature of science is not to prove things but to disprove. Science does not work by observing what ahpepns objectivley then recording facts.Yes that is done to an extent but not in all cases. That's not the true aim. The true aim is to disprove bad bad hypothesis and from that to offer an adequate explanation, which by virtue of it's status as the only hypothesis still standing is accepted as default. At least that's according to Popper. [1] Compare this with a web definition of argument:

a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong.

"there is a strong argument for submitting a formal appeal"

synonyms:

reasoning, justification, explanation, rationalization; More[2]

The Toulmin model of argument presents the parts of an argument:

The Toulmin Model

1. Claim: the position or claim being argued for; the conclusion of the argument.
2. Grounds: reasons or supporting evidence that bolster the claim.
3. Warrant: the principle, provision or chain of reasoning that connects the grounds/reason to the claim. 
4. Backing: support, justification, reasons to back up the warrant.
5. Rebuttal/Reservation: exceptions to the claim; description and rebuttal of counter-examples and counter-arguments.
6. Qualification: specification of limits to claim, warrant and backing.  The degree of conditionality asserted. [3]

None of that is about observing nor is it open ended. It may or may not begin by presenting data, but that is a matter of impersonation not logic.


When Fanghur says that arguments should be based upon data and "not on blind speculation regarding things that are currently beyond our ability to test, and hence which we have zero basis to make any sort of probability estimation regarding," he is telling us that he thinks arguments are scientific experiments. He says it even more blatantly in a second post: "Pat, the point is that when one is trying to determine what the most logical explanation for something is, all presuppositions other than those that are logically inescapable should be set aside right from the get go; that is one of the defining necessities of scientific discovery and thinking, and something that Craig categorically does not do." He compares arguments to scinece, implies that their purpose is discovery, and asserts that arguments that argue for something are seen as "ciruclar reasoning." Never mind the fact that all atheist seem to start form the point that there can't be a God and any evidence for God is not evidence but must be wrong. That's not ciruclar, but it's circular if you are know what you are arguing for?

I suggest that science itself can't survive without "top down reasoning." they are confusing form of argument with the nature of logic. and the nature of logic with science. It's a truncated ideologically bound form of scinece that is calculated form the Atheist truth regime. Top down reasoning means that a top of the metaphysical hierarchy determines the bottom terms. So that a premise determines a conclusion is part of top down reasoning.

This whole discussion is predated upon the atheist assumption that there can't be anything but physical causes in reality. That physical causes are facts and have only to be observed to be understood clearly. They are totally in the dark as to the framed nature of any understanding of interpreted data. In other words is the no pure data objectively observed that is free from interpretation and frame work. They are privileging doubt about God. They can't beat the God arguments when logic is used fairly and in its classical sense, so they have to destroy logic as we know it and reduce it to quasi scientific experiment in order to get around the kind of logic that beats their arguments in defense of belief. No God argument that I use or that I know of begins with the assumption "God has to exist." The Kalam argument begins with the assumption that everything that is, and that exists contingently, has a cause that necessitates its existence. Then it assumes that anything coming into existence must have a cause. This is predicated upon the concepts of necessity and contingency. That is "top down" because it assumes that one term is at the top of the metaphysical order and it necessitates terms that are below it, or that dependent upon it for their existence. These are the assumptions they don't want us to make.

They read those as assumptions that there must be a God. They are not the assumptions of God, they are assumptions from which we can derive the conclusion that there must be  a God. That is fair and logical, provided we can pull it off in the nature of the argument. They object because it doesn't privilege their view. That's the only way know to do logic is to privileged their own view. The assumption that things need causes is not unfair nor is it illogical. It's mere the result of all of our experience. We have no counters to that experience. Even quantum particles don't coutner that experience because as David Albert showed in his brilliant review of Krauss's book (the Universe from Nothing) nothing is not really noting, it comes form prior conditions and prior particles which must still be expalined.[4] They are causes of more particles. thus everything we know is the product of a cause and thus it is not illogical that all things that are contingent need cause. Of course that doesn't mean God means a cause since God is not contingent. The rub is that this is in line with the atheist assumption that they can only buy logic that's based upon empirical assumptions. This is an empirical assumptions, it's i line with all our observations. Confronted with an empirical assumption they refuse to accept it and try to make it seem unfairly privileging belief in God.

That's because they can't stand the logical conclusion that flows from it, that there must be a God. Thus they rebel agaisnt logic itself.







Sources

[1] Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London, New York:Routledge Classics, original English publication 1959 by Hutchison and co. by Routldege 1992. On line copy URL: http://www.cosmopolitanuniversity.ac/library/LogicofScientificDiscoveryPopper1959.pdf digital copy by Cosmo oedu visited 2/6/2012, p4

[2] https://www.google.com/#q=what+is+an+argument

[3] Rohan, "The Toulmin model of Argument." Website by Sandiego State University: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~digger/305/toulmin_model.htm

[4] David Albert, “On the Origin of Everything ‘a Universe form Nothing’ by Lawrence Krauss,” New York Times Sunday Book Review (March 23, 2012). On line version URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html visited June 20, 2012. David Albert also has a Ph.D. in theoretical phsyics.

see also my article form this blog on Albert's review of Krauss.  
Metacrock's Blog,"Review and Debnucking of Lawrence Krauss's A Unvierse From Nothing,"
 Thursday, January 10, 2013, URL: http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-and-debnucking-of-lawrence.html