Argument from Laws of Nature

If you recall last time I posted a prolegomena to an argument from laws of nature. In other words, an argument for existence of God based upon laws of physics and nature. That article was just thinking getting ready to make such an argument, Here I am making it. I encourage the reader to go back and read the article fist if you haven't already. The point is two fold:  the folks on Secular Outpost were so dubious of any such argument  and the presentation that set them off so deserved their ire (designed by Campus Crusade for Christ) [1], that I felt like I had to try to (a) prove to the atheists there is a potential argument there and show my fellow Christians how to find it, at to offer  direction in which to move.

The bad argument on the website was purely a "god of the gaps" argument:

How is it that we can identify laws of nature that never change? Why is the universe so orderly, so reliable?"The greatest scientists have been struck by how strange this is. There is no logical necessity for a universe that obeys rules, let alone one that abides by the rules of mathematics. This astonishment springs from the recognition that the universe doesn't have to behave this way. It is easy to imagine a universe in which conditions change unpredictably from instant to instant, or even a universe in which things pop in and out of existence."[2]

The only rational upon which the argument turns is the mystery concerning how laws work. That is a god of the gaps argument by definition, textbook. My arguments begins by stating a rational that, while it may hard to prove, is at least not a gap in knowledge, at least not only a gap. The problem with gaps is that they close up. Yet if we can demonstrate that mind is a more solid basis for the seeming law-like regularity of the universe that night make for a better explanation.[3] The argument:

1) mind is the most efficient and dependable source of ordering we know,

(2) Random ordering is usually inefficient and the odds are against it's dependability.

(3) The Universe Displays a Law-like efficiency and dependability in the workings of it's natural machinations.

(4) Such efficiency and dependability is indicative of mind as ordering principle (from 1,3), therefore, it is logical to assume mind as the best explanation for the dependability of the universe..

(5) A mind that orders the universe fits the major job description for God, Thus mind is the best explanation, assuming the choices are mind vs random chance.


Notice I said nothing about law implying a law giver. The rational for mind is not based upon analogies to law. This does raise the one real sticking point, premises 1-2. Can we prove that mind is the best explanation for law-like regularity? I'm going to assume that it's pretty obvious that (P3) universe displays like-like efficiency. Also I don't think it will be such a struggle to prove 4-5 linking a mind that orders the universe with God. Therefore I wont bother to argue those here. Thus I will concern myself primarily with P's 1-2.

Certain schools of philosophy hold that an inference to the best explanation is a valid argument. That is if one amid a variety of explanations has a more significant likelihood of coming true, and is more in line with prevailing theory and serves to explain more of the data then that hypothesis can be warranted as "the best explanation,"[4] Ratzsch goes on to quote Peter Lipton: "According to Inference to the Best Explanation … [g]iven our data and our background beliefs, we infer what would if true, provide the best of the competing explanations we can generate of those data (so long as the best is good enough for us to make any inference at all)."[5]

That complexity and efficacy are indicative of mind as an organizing principle might be hard or impossible to pull off but it makes sense on one level. Through complexity and fitedness one might deduce purpose or telos, and mind might be indicted in that sense.

 

All the richness and diversity of matter and energy we observe today has emerged since the beginning in a long and complicated sequence of self- organizing physical processes. The laws of physics not only permit a universe to originate spontaneously, but they encourage it to organize and complexify itself to the point where conscious beings emerge who can look back on the great cosmic drama and reflect on what it all means."

...The laws that characterize our actual universe, as opposed to an infinite number of alternative possible universes, seem almost contrived-fine-tuned, some commentators have claimed-so that life and consciousness may emerge. To quote Dyson again: it is almost as if "the universe knew we were coming." I cannot prove to you that this is design, but whatever it is it is certainly very clever][6]

 

Now the secularist skeptic might argue evolution demonstrates an organizing principle producing great complexity and in mindless fashion, While that might be the case the problem is evolution is surely the product of the law-like regularity and not it's cause. Presumably then we need laws to make evolutionary processes work and so we have not explained anything. even so the skeptic can always fall back on the fact that we don't have a world that we know is or is not designed by a mind to which we compare our own world. Even though P1 might make sense there is no way to prove it. Not having an undesigned universe to compare may mean that we can't prove the existence of God by the argument here advanced, It does not necessarily mean the argument is not a good one. If we forget about proof and talk about warrant: it may not be proof but it is probably the best explanation and that may warrant belief.

 In arguments of this type, superior explanatory virtues of a theory are taken as constituting decisive epistemic support for theory acceptability, warranted belief of the theory, and likely truth of the theory. There are, of course, multitudes of purported explanatory, epistemic virtues, including the incomplete list a couple paragraphs back (and lists of such have evolved over time). Assessing hypotheses in terms of such virtues is frequently contentious, depending, as it does, on perceptions of ill-defined characteristics, differences in background conceptual stances, and the like. Still, in general we frequently manage rough and ready resolutions...[7]

The argument does turn on the premise of a design argument but it could be considered more than that. Hawking ascribes the origin of the universe to the laws of physics, particularly gravity He certainly seems to indicate that they are more than just descriptions of what happens. Yet he makes no attempt to explain where these laws come from. In the sense mind offers a more complete explanation it could be the "best."

Stephen Hawking wrote a book, The Grand Design. in which he argued that gravity accounts for the existence of everything else:

If the total energy of the universe must always remain zero, and it costs energy to create a body, how can a whole universe be created from nothing? That is why there must be a law like gravity. Because gravity is attractive, gravitational energy is negative….Bodies such as stars or black holes cannot just appear out of nothing. But a whole universe can….Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing in the manner described in Chapter 6. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.[8]

Edger Anders discusses the problem with this approach:

So gravity is God. Unfortunately the authors have no time to tell us who created gravity (earlier they rule out God because no one could explain who created him). Nor can they tell us why matter and gravity should pop out of nothing, except to argue that ‘nothing’ undergoes quantum fluctuations. However, this requires that (like gravity) the laws of quantum mechanics pre-existed the universe and that ‘nothing’ possesses the properties of normal space, which is part of the created order and cannot be its antecedent.[9]

Were I involved in a debate ageist a seasoned great thinker or some professional philosopher this is not the argument I  would use. I think it is a valid warrant for belief, the best explanation for law-like regularity.


Sources


[1] Bradly Bowen, Adamson's Cru [de] Arguments for God part 1, Secular Outpost, (April 25, 2016) blog URL:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/04/25/adamsons-crude-arguments-for-god-part-1/
accessed April 28, 2016

[2] Marlyn Adamson, "Is There a God," Every Student, Published by Campus Crusade for Christ
On line resource, URL: http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html
She sites fn 11:Dinesh D'Souza, What's So Great about Christianity; (Regnery Publishing, Inc, 2007, chapter

[3] I recently posted on criteria by which to judge best explanation.

[4] Ratzsch, Del and Koperski, Jeffrey, "Teleological Arguments for God's Existence", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/teleological-arguments/>.

[5] Peter Lipton, Inference to the Best Explanation. 1st Edition. London: Routledge (1991, 58): quoted in Ratzsch, Ibid.

[6] ."Paul Davies, "Physics and the Mind o God; Templeton Award Address, First Things ON LINE URL
http://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24 accessed 1/1/16

Paul Davies is Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Adelaide in Australia and the twenty-fifth recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, which he received on May 3, 1995 at Westminster Abbey. His books include The Mind of God, God and New Physics, The Cosmic Blueprint, Superforce, and Other Worlds.



[7] Ratzsch, Ibid.

[8] Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, New York: Bantum Books, 2010. 180

[9] Edgar Andres, “Review: the Grand Design,” Challies'.com, Tim Challies, on line reouce, URL:
http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/the-grand-design acessed 10/4/15
Andres is Emeritus professor University of London. Physicist and an expert on large molecules. Born 1932

 

Traces of God: Answering the Reverse Design Argument

Atheists have an arugment that seeks to reverse the design argument. It does exactly what the design argument does, which is probably reason enough to disregard it; it reasons form the apparent state of the world to the probable non existence of God. If it is illogical to reason form the wrold to God, it is equally illogical to reason from the world to not God. For this reason I swore off design arguments years ago. I have violated that oath twice, but for good reason (I'll get to those in a minute). In any case, there is a great deal wrong with this argument, and in figuring up all the many problems I see it I began to think of two things:

(1) Perhaps it would be instructive to delineate the cases under which one can argue from the state of the world to the existence of God.

(2) In pondering this question, I began to think about perhaps what might be the ultimate God argument.


The problem is that really if you think about it almost all probabilistic arguments are really arguing from the state of the world to the probable existence of God. But somehow this seem less drastic in some cases than others. I know there are those who just turn off at any kind of God argument. But for us Connoisseurs of God arguments, this should be a thorny issue. After all, what's the real difference between arguing form the contingency of the world, and arguing from the design of the world? Well, off hand the real difference is that one can be compared to something, the other can't. That's one of the major problems with this atheist argument, which was advanced at one point by Richard Carrier at one time. We do not have a designed universe to compare outs to, so we don't know what we are observing, design or random devleopment?

The argument says if we were to consider a random universe that came about by accident, you couldn't do better than our own. It really looks accidental. Life is precarious and rare, the universe is very hostile to it. It's vast, far more vast than it has to be. On the one tiny oasis we know of where life took root it blossomed into something as glorious as Richard Carrier's ego, we have no really obvious clue that God exists. If we were to consider what a puroespful logical creator would do we should expect sign posts to his existence everywhere, right? Well, maybe. maybe not. That's the problem the argument is nothing more than begging the question. It assumes we know what God would do, and after constructing a straw man God who behaves the way we want him to, we just assume we know what he would do and than access the tragic fact that it hasn't been done. So by golly, there must not be a God, because this non God doesn't' follow my advice! Of course the model for his straw God is fundamentalism.  Athens are so afraid to take on liberal theology honestly, but it's because they are all secretly fundamentalists. What I mean by hat is they are the "tails" to the fundies "heads." Like communist and anti-communists, they are both parts of the same thing.

The difference in this argument and one that actually has something to compare, a base line from which to work, should be obvious. The atheist who argues for Carrier's idea must forge his own base line by setting up a straw man (um, God) and then priviliating his assumptions about the nature of religion in such a way that he just nixes the possibly of any other kind of theology. That's not a real comparison. The fine tuning argument can compare fine tuning to lack thereof, compare target levels to the actual hitting of same. The contingency arguments (quantum and other forms of cosmology) can compare contingency to necessity. Religious experience arguments are drawn from the results of experience, they compare experience to non experience. The two instances in which I do use design arguments are those in which comparisons can be made between the nature of the world and state of existence known to lack that attribute as known non designed reality; the use of the "God Pod" as evoking innate ideas. We can compare reactions to God talk to other kinds of talk and see that our brains only react to God talk in the way that they do. Thus we can compare the innate ideas of God to reactions to other ideas. The other instance is the fine tuning arugment,which has already been explained. But the Carrier reverse design argument has nothing to compare except Richard's ego. With that as the standard for assumptions, we have no basis upon which to draw conclusions about the nature of God from the state of the universe.

This argument does have one other troubling application. It could be a "possible defeater" for proper basically. To be properly basic an idea must be logically apprehended as it is, with no possible alternative explanations, or  "defeaters." The argument is a possible defeater only if we understand it to be indicative the kind of universe God would not make. But we can't make that assumption beause we can't pretend to know all the things God would do. Once can find many alternative theological explanations that involve both Evangelical views of God and non Evangelical views. The most obvious non Evangelical view is that of process theology. The atheist can only think of God as a big man upstairs. This is the basic image they rebel against. The will of the father is their Kryptonite. They foresee a big man on a throne who decides and deliberates such a potentate wants to be served, they reason, and thus must make a universe in which he is known commonly to all. So we should expect the universe to be smaller, easier to navigate, easier to understand, filled with sign posts of God. No disease, no problems and everyone automatically given tons of faith so the world would be a paradise. If some serpent spoiled it, it should be put right immediately so that we can go on in our little heavens, where no doubt we get to listen to Richard Dawkins directing the chores of angels.

The God of process theology, on the other hand, is more like the Hegelian dialectic, or like some organizing principle. This is not a God deliberates and decides. this is a God who is potential in one realm, and who micro manages (literally) creation in the other; almost a law of physics, changing with creation, bringing subatomic particles into being and ushering them out of being. This is more of a stage director in the play of the universe (and in other dipolar structure stage director and producer) than a big king on a throne. Such a God would start the process of life and allow it go where it will, then embrace (to whatever extent possible) any beings that evolve sufficiently to come up to its level.

Another version would be my own idea of God as being itself (Tillich's idea--). This version of God is much like the process God, but I fell that God is too sacred a mystery to pin down to dipolar structures or to analyze all of "his" ("her," "its") doings. God is the great wholly (Holy) other. WE cannot know except through mystical union what God is doing. But such a God is the basis upon which being proceeds into concrescence and the basic reality of the Platonic forms. Such a God does not design or make plans, but the whole of creation is a non deliberating plan in the sense of being an expression of God's charter indwell; yet not necessity the result of raciocentination. Thus God starts a principle of life emerging from the nature of being, because that's what being does it spreads the beings, it "let's be" (John Mcquarrie). The evolutionary course that is followed may be assisted in an automatic sort of way, not as a plan, not as a deliberate gesture, but as the result of a nature that has to manifest itself creatively. This being doesn't' say "I will make men, and men will serve me." But men evolve out of the storm and the wastes of the abyss and they naturally come to find God because theta's he nature of beignet is there to be found in the sense of the numinous. When humanity reaches a point where it comprehends the numinous, to seeks God and finds God.

Humanity finds God in a million different places. It finds God in flowers and trees, in brooks (and in books), in grass, in each other. It finds God in storms and scary things, and in the night. It finds God in the sky and the stars in the darkness of a vast and endless expanse. It reaches out for what is there because it has been put into it to do so; not because God sat and said "I will make men and men will seek me" but because God provided for the reality of the Imago Dei to evolve and develop in whatever species reached the point where humanity has come to. God did this automatically as an aspect of self expression, as an outgrowth of consciousness. This kind of God would make a universe of the type we see around us. This type of God would also place in that universe hints so that whatever species reaches that level that God's manifestation would be waiting to show them God's solidarity with them. God would plant a thousand clues, not as a matter of deliberation like one plants Easter eggs, but as the result of being what God is--self communicating and creative. Thus we have design arguments and fine tuning arguments, and contingencies and necessities and the lot. We can find the God Pod in our heads that lights up when it hears God ideas. We can do studies and determine that our religious experiences are better for us than unbelief, because the clues are endless because the universe bears the marks of its creator.

Yet these marks are sublet for a reason. This is where the Evangelical view of God can also be a sophisticated view. The Evangelical God can also be the God of Tillich and the God of process, after all, these are all derived from the same tradition and the Evangelicals have as much right to escape anthropomorphism as anyone. The Evangelical God seeks a moral universe. This God wants believers who have internalized the values of the good. We do not internalize that which we are forced to acknowledge. Thus God knows that a search in the heart is better to internalizing values than is a rational formally logical argument, or a scientific proof. Thus we have a soteriological drama in which we can't tell if there is or is not a God just by looking at the nature of nature. That must remain neutral and must illud us because it is not given to us to have direct and absolute knowledge of God. Knowledge of God is a privilege. We must seek it through the heart, that's where it isthmian to be found. It's a privilege but faith is a gift.

Do we Priviledge God in a God argument?

 

This is a Spin-off from the piece I did on Atheist Watch yesterday, an answer to atheist blogger Christopher Hallquist on his thing "there are no good God arguments." The discussion I'm having about that is with Fleetmouse on my boards.

Here I want to UN-brackett one issue that's mentioned in that piece on AW and that is privileging God in a God argument. The atheist argument says if we as "why is there something rather than noting" there's an implicit understanding that says "because God created it." Or if we say how did the universe get here we  are just assuming "who made the universe?" as the basis of the question. Here is my exchange with Fleetmouse (aka Magaritte).

Magritte wrote:

Metacrock wrote:(4) He asserts that God arguments privilege the Hypothesis.

Metacrock, I'm going to quote the part about "privileging the hypothesis" because it applies strongly to your Pascal's Wager argument -

Privileging the hypothesis

The mistake that’s so common in arguments for the existence of God is what Eliezer Yudkowsky called “Privileging the hypothesis” [6] He explains by way of an example:

[iSuppose that the police of Largeville, a town with a million inhabitants, are investigating a murder in which there are few or no clues—the victim was stabbed to death in an alley, and there are no fingerprints and no witnesses.

Then, one of the detectives says, “Well… we have no idea who did it… no particular evidence singling out any of the million people in this city… but let’s consider the hypothesis that this murder was committed by Mortimer Q. Snodgrass, who lives at 128 Ordinary Ln. It could have been him, after all.”[/i]

Meta:
we have particular evidence. I give it all the time. it has never answers, most of it has never been read. I have a lot of it I talk about it a lot and 90% of the objections to it are about me not the evidence.

Yudkowsky claims that if the detectives do this, they are not only guilty of bad reasoning, they’re violating Mortimer’s rights. He elaborates a little further:

Meta:
first of all I think we have right to privilege the God hypothesis. we are 90% of humanity, we have a ton of evidence, and it's a fundamental revitalization. ti's not just a mild dispute about one more item in the universe it's a profoundly person existential view point of life and the meaning of it. It's something of which others can't disprove and have no right to critique.


Mag (siting Halq)

It’s human nature to look for confirmation rather than disconfirmation.

Meta:
that is as much true in your disbelief especially if one believes that the existence of X entails "I will burn forever." that's a pretty powerful motive to see the evidence in a certain light.


Mag

Suppose that three detectives each suggest their hated enemies, as names to be considered; and Mortimer is brown-haired, Frederick is black-haired, and Helen is blonde. Then a witness is found who says that the person leaving the scene was brown-haired. “Aha!” say the police. “We previously had no evidence to distinguish among the possibilities, but now we know that Mortimer did it!”

How does this apply to religion?

Meta:
it doesn't. it (You) assume all believers are apologists and all they want is to win arguemnts. there is no realization that i was an atheist. I would still be one if had not found dramatic hard hitting undeniable evidence that I could not dispute. this is part of privileging atheism the fact of not making this assumption, refusing to make (the assumption that I have a good reason) is part of privileging atheism.

you and he want to assume all believers are idiots, we have no good reasons to believe we just doing it cause your parents told us to. when you hear the dramatic story your immediate habit to assume 'this can't be true becuase it contradicts what I define as "reality." then "but I'm pillaging my position." that's that the term means. you are doing that.

Mag:

This is just the same fallacy committed, on a much more blatant scale, by the theist who points out that modern science does not offer an absolutely complete explanation of the entire universe, and takes this as evidence for the existence of Jehovah. Rather than Allah, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or a trillion other gods no less complicated—never mind the space of naturalistic explanations!

Meta:
I pointed this out in my thing you didn't notice it this answer is given (the one about scinece above) in regard to the atheist fortress of facts, not as a proof of God. the atheist everything is a proof. arguments are built piece by piece.

moreover we find the usual atheist divide and conquer BS. They want to confuse different traditions with having different gods. then to assume since these are different Gods the evidence for one can't support the evidence for the other. yes they can if we talking about the creator, eternal necessary, creating, that's why I said they don't get the triangle arguemnt. See any triangle is a triangle it doesn't matter if it' red or green or blue or yellow or if it's made out play do or one of those triangle pool things or a triangle in a ranch house one rings as a dinner bell, they are all about the same shape. the triangle shape is the same one no matter what form it takes.


Mag:

To talk about “intelligent design” whenever you point to a purported flaw or open problem in evolutionary theory is, again, privileging the hypothesis—you must have evidence already in hand that points to intelligent design specifically in order to justify raising that particular idea to our attention, rather than a thousand others…

Meta:
that only applies to one argument (one I dont' use). He has it that if you clear away the clutter by not using bad arguments then somehow you are saying there are no good arguments. that dosent' follow. the existence of bad arguments doesn't invalidate good arguments.

Mag:

Someone who spends all day thinking about whether the Trinity does or does not exist, rather than Allah or Thor or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is more than halfway to Christianity. If leaving, they’re less than half departed; if arriving, they’re more than halfway there.

Meta:
I covered that. I don't you read my post Fleet. did you? (if he spends all day thinking about maybe he has a good reason to think it's true. you say that as though ti's a shameful thing that puts him in a position of ridicule "O he spends all his time thinking about silly things" as it were. Then maybe after thnking about them all the time he would know they are not so silly.

Mag

We can make an even analogy to the detectives who wrongly focused on Mortimer, Frederick, and Helena when they really needed to pick the culprit out of the million people in Largeville. Imagine someone trying to figure out what the world is like, but completely ignoring countless possibilities, and instead focusing all their attention on Christianity (as expounded by their beloved pastor Mike), atheism (as expounded by Professor McInfidel) and Islam (as expounded by their beloved pastor Mike).

Meta:
When one proposes open ended ideas about the universe to atheist they mostly scoff and say "O tha's just made up stuff." We want emprical evicdnece, emprical is the only way to know things. Then when the need arises we don't need empirical we can be open ended with it suits atheism. Materialists and science make the same assumptions about the rules being the same everywhere. It is certainly possible to conceive of God in Chrsitains outside the box. That's what I've been about for several years now.

Mag

I don’t know that anyone ever explicitly reasons that way, but terrible arguments for the existence of God like O’Reilly’s start to make a bit of sense if people are doing something like this on some level. If Pastor Mike’s account of Islam seems unattractive and Professor McInfidel can’t explain where the moon came from, that’s a win for Christianity According to Mike… if you started off with only those three options.

Meta:
O'Rilie is an idiot and we should not expect his arguemnts to be good. this is clearly guilt by association. he's trying to taint the use of Hartshonre with this doufous. he wants the reader to say "O O'Riely is not good so I guess this Aquinas guy is no good either."

Mag

Or, as I pointed out in chapter 1, disproving philosophical views like naturalism doesn’t prove there are any gods. But if you wrongly consider too few options at the start, disproving naturalism can look like a big win for Christianity According to Mike, since Professor McInfidel is a naturalist.

Meta
yes actually it helps to. Its' not proof in itself but it establishes a framework in which God would be a more likely answer than naturalistic answers.

Mag:

A third big offender of this sort is the argument from design, which claims that we can somehow show that the life on Earth and/or the universe was designed, and from there infers God. The most obvious problem with this argument is that there’s no reason a designer would have to be much like the God of Christianity, Judaism or Islam. But privileging the God hypothesis makes the mistake understandable.

Meta:
  Halquist doesn't deal with fine tunning. That is important becuase it gives us a way around the typical design argument prboelm. I usually don't use design arguments becuase we don't have a designed universe to compare it to. With the fine tuning argument, however, we have the target levels and all that is not the target level that enables comparison. Moreover, the whole thing is really the same as the scientific assumption that the rules are everywhere the same. Without that assumption they can't theorize about string theory or multiverses. They have no empirical proof of these things.

 So point of all of this being that we are privileging God in a God argument no more so than scinece is privileging an ideology of materialism or than atheists privilege atheism, and maybe we have a right to make some assumptions.