Understanding Necessity In Arminianism And Calvinism

The concept of necessity is one that, on the one hand, seems really simple, and yet proves itself to be rather difficult to track. When talking about theology, we usually are referring to the concept of ontological necessity, or what must exist. Another way of thinking about it is that it is impossible for necessary things to not exist.

In Christianity, there exists only one necessary thing: God. Everything else is what we call contingent, that is reliant on something else. The belief that God is the only necessary thing is called aseity, that  God exists a se, or "by Himself". Now the question that I want to ask here is how does this affect Arminianism and Calvinism?

Now I wrote a post a while ago called The Teological Argument For The Existance Of Libertarian Free Will, and the point I'll be making here will cover some common ground. But rather than simply arguing for the existance of LFW, I am instead seeking to explore the effect of compatibilism and necessity.

What In God Is Necessary?

So the first question is, what is it that makes something necessary? The answer is that something is necessary if it must exist. In other words, it is impossible for it not to exist. This would be true of God. This would also need to be true of any of God's essential attributes. After all, it would be nonsense to say that God exists necessarily, but He could be someone and something completely different than He is. Rather, we need to also affirm those aspects of God that make God God. For instance, God is necessarily omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect, incorporeal, and eternal. He is necessarily tri-personal, which grounds His essential goodness. Without these properties, God would simply not be God.

But there are divine attributes that God need not have which He does. Those are any attributes that define God's relationship to something outside of Himself. For instance, God is not necessarily creator, for He could have chosen not to create. God is not necessarily the God of Israel, for Israel need not exist. God is not necessarily just, for God does not need to be in the company of sinners (though He is necessarily righteous/good).¹ So even though God is necessary, it does not entail that everything we can say about God is also necessary.

What Will The Will Do?

This brings us to the most important question. Are God's choices necessary? Now the Arminian clearly says no. This is because the Arminian believes that God possesses LFW, and thus His choices are not necessary since that is basically what LFW means.

But what about compatibilism? This is a bit more difficult since I've heard half a dozen different definitions of compatibilism. One basic one is that compatibilism is the belief the free will and determinism are compatible, which isn't particularly helpful. One holding to this definition without any further development could simply say that God's choices are not necessary but couldn't have been anything else. Because they said so. This has always struck me as saying "I believe in A and not A".

However, most Calvinists that I have met generally argue that by compatilibilism they mean that one acts in accordance to one's nature. That is, you chose what you chose because it is in your nature to make that choice, and because it is YOUR nature, it rightly belongs to you. Thus your will is free. To be frank, this actually makes perfect sense to me. This is basically how I understand the operation of the wills of animals.²

So for God, these compatibilists will argue that the choices that God makes He makes because they are the natural result of His nature. So because God is perfect, and good, etc... He inevitably creates the universe. Therefore, if God did other than what He has done, He wouldn't truly be God!

Problems

However there are problems when applying this understanding to God. If God's decisions are the expression of God's nature, and God's nature is necessary, than logically all of God's choices are necessary. God could not have acted other than He has.

However, if all of God's choices are necessary, the effects or those choices are equally necessary. This would collapse the distinction I made in the above section. God would necessarily be Creator, so He would need to create. God would necessarily be the God of Israel, so He would need to commission Israel. God would necessarily just, so He would need to be in the company of sinners to judge them.

The fundamental result is that everything is necessary, and nothing is contingent. This makes God dependent on His creation, since He needs to create it. It is not dependent like I am dependent on my heart, but dependent like I am dependent on eating: I must do it or I cease to be. This strikes me as a challenge to divine aseity, and a diminishing of God's glory.

I find this to be ironic since most compatibilist think that they are bringing God glory through their theology. However, I believe it is quite the opposite. Compatibilism makes God smaller, mechanical, and dependent on His creatures. While the idea of making human actions necessary may sound appealing to the Calvinist, a flat our rejection of libertarian free will makes that extend to God as well, diminishing His glory and  honor.

So to my Calvinist friends, I suggest that you embrace the notion of LFW for God, just as I embrace the notion of CFW for animals. Then we can quibble and argue over the free will of humans.
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¹ For more on this, see my post: http://jcfreak73.blogspot.com/2014/06/essential-attributes-verses-relational.html
² Though, of course, animals are not moral agents.This is why I do not believe it would make sense with humans or angels who are moral agents.

Naming A Few Fallacies

I've been thinking about the kind of conversion I typically see on-line, and in light of that, I've spotted a couple of fallacies that are commonly made that do not seem to have names. And so, I have named them. I offer them to the internet in the hope that people can recognize these as fallacious and, hopefully but not likely, improve the quality of internet conversation. They are

1. Same Mind Bias
2. Opposite Fallacy
3. Misplaced Proposition Fallacy
4. Counter-argument Fallacy
5. Leading Counter-argument Fallacy
6. Transubstantiation Fallacy
7. Analogy/Allegory Confusion

Same Mind Bias

This is similar to the bias known as the False-Consensus Effect, where someone believes that more people agree with them than they actually do. However, this isn't connected to knowledge, but to thought process.

The assumption here is that people usually think the same way that you do, and when they come to different conclusions than you, you make assumptions about how they got there. In reality, of course, people have radically different ways of thinking, and even sometimes come to the same conclusion for entirely different reasons. However, this generally doesn't stop people from generally assuming that people think in the same manner.

A couple of examples are in order. First would be the well established Historian's Fallacy, where you judge a decision that someone made in the past based off of modern sensitivities. Another is the tendency for an empathetic person to think that someone doesn't care about others, because that person isn't being as sensitive, when in reality that person may care a lot, but is focusing on helping the person's practical needs. A third example is the expectation that someone would come to believe the same as you do, if they are presented with the same evidence and arguments which convinced you, and then become incredulous when they do not. Often, in the last scenario, one assumes the other person is ignoring you, or is uninterested in truth, but the possibility that the person may simply be ingratiated by a different kind of evidence rarely comes up.

All of this is a lead up to the first fallacy I named here:

The Opposite Fallacy¹

This is a fallacy that is based off of the Same Mind Bias and a specific example of an Appeal to Motivation. This is when someone has an opposite opinion of you, so you assume that they have opposite premises or motivations. Therefore, you are assuming that they are thinking the same way that you do, even though their conclusion is different.

My favorite example of this is the abortion debate. Many times, people who are pro-choice assume that those who are pro-life are somehow "against women", which is strikingly odd. Pro-life people are quite open about the fact that we are motivated by belief that fetuses are children, and thus shouldn't be unceremoniously killed. But because pro-choice people are motivated by women's issues, they are assuming that those who disagree with them have opposite motivations. In reality both the pro-life and the pro-choice movements have a greater variety of beliefs thaN either side typically acknowledges.

Definition The Opposite Fallacy: The assumption that if one has an opposite opinion, they also have opposite motivations.

Misplaced Proposition Fallacy

I honestly don't know why this isn't already a named fallacy, and perhaps it is but simply listed in places of which I am unaware. The concept is fairly simple. In the midst of a debate, a person misunderstands a particular claim's role in the other person's argument, or misunderstands the role of their own claim. When an argument is laid out mathematically like this:

1. p -> q
2. p
3. therefore, q

the role of each proposition is quite clear. But in more complex arguments, and especially ones couched in colloquial speech, it is often easy to lose track what exactly an argument is doing. Therefore, it is quite common for people to just simply misunderstand what it is that is going on.

The most famous example of this is the fallacy fallacy. This is the mistake that your counterargument works as an argument against the person's position. I can make a bad argument for something that is actually true. For instance, I could claim that everything that is made of water is blue, the sky is made of water, therefore the sky is blue. Neither of those premises is true, yet the conclusion is. Proving the argument wrong does not mean that the conclusion is wrong. It would simply mean that I will have to justify the conclusion for different reasons. But fundamental to this mistake is a misunderstanding of the role of counter-argumentation. What follows are some other examples of this kind of mistake.

Counterargument Fallacy

This fallacy is actually intimately connected with the Fallacy Fallacy. Indeed, it is essentially its opposite. The counterargument fallacy is when someone discounts a counterargument due to it being insufficient to counter to person's position.

I often hear these kinds of arguments when dealing with the arguments from God's existence. For instance, if an atheist argues that God doesn't exist because of the existence of evil, I could counter with the simple point that God could have justifications for the allowance of evil. It is unfortunately not uncommon for an atheist to then say, "That doesn't mean that God exists!" Well, yes. It doesn't mean that. My point wasn't that therefore God exists, but that your argument is merely insufficient to prove His non-existence.

I actually run into this a lot and, again, I am amazed that no one has named this fallacy already.

Definition The Counterargument Fallacy: The rejection of a counterargument because it is insufficient to defeat the whole position.

Leading Counterargument Fallacy

This basically is an example of the Fallacy Fallacy, but usually when we think of the Fallacy Fallacy, we think of it in terms of the middle of a debate, where someone names a fallacy, and thinks that that is sufficient to win the argument. However, a bit more confusing is when someone starts the conversation with a counterargument.

The most famous example of this is when an atheist argues, "If God created the universe, then who created God." Many use this as a stand alone argument against God's existence, which is simply confusing. The argument, as presented by Dawkins, was a counterargument against the teleological argument. But I could simply reject the teleological argument, or believe in God for other reasons, and the point because irrelevant. Now I don't think that it is a good argument even in that respect, but when an atheist leads with this, it is merely confused.

Definition Leading Counterargument Fallacy: When a person leads a discussion with a counterargument.

Transubstantiation Fallacy

Now the name here is actually a pun, and has nothing to do with the Catholic view of the Eucharist. Rather the Transubstantiation Fallacy is where a person thinks of a substantiating argument as a major argument. So for instance, one could present the Kalaam Cosmological Argument as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist must have a cause
2. The universe began to exist
   
   1. An infinite amount of anything cannot exist in the real world
   2. If the universe were eternal, then it there would have been an infinate amount of seconds
3. Therefore the universe must have a cause

Now above are basically two arguments. One is the main argument which are propositions 1, 2, 3. But under premise 2 is a separate argument which argues for premise 2. This is a substantiating argument since it is arguing for the soundness of the premise rather than for the final conclusion. Whenever you present an argument, it must be both valid and sound. A valid argument is one where the conclusion logically follows from the premises while a sound argument is a valid argument whose premises are true. The process of showing that the premises are true is called substantiating your premises. Hence the name "substantiating argument".

 OK, so what do I mean by Transubstantiating Fallacy? It is where someone takes a substantiating argument to be part of the main argument. So, using the above example, if I were to argue that the universe cannot be infinitely old, because an actual infinite cannot exist, they may reply, "OK, but that doesn't prove anything! That doesn't mean that God created the universe!" Correct. It doesn't prove that. All it proves is that the universe must have begun to exist. That is why there is more to the argument.

Definition The Transubstantiation Fallacy: When someone takes a substantiating argument to be part of the main argument.

Analogy/Allegory Confusion 

 I am someone that uses a good deal of analogical thinking as I reason through things. As such, I have found it extremely frustrating when using analogies in debates. This is because people often over-extend the analogy, claiming that it fails because it doesn't do what it isn't designed to do. Part of the problem is that analogies require effort on the opponents part to understand. They are fantastic at explaining concepts, but only if the other person actually wants to understand. If a person is simply trying to defeat you, they can easily pick apart even the best analogies.

 There's an old saying about the Trinity: all analogies fall short. I find this saying to be a tad obtuse though. Of course all analogies fall short of explaining the Trinity. This is because all analogies fall short of explaining anything. After all, if an analogy worked perfectly, it wouldn't be an analogy, but an example. At its core, an analogy is a kind of metaphor, and metaphors work by talking about something different, but has a tiny sliver of overlap, as a way of isolating that sliver. Analogies, by their very nature, are trying to merely explain part of an idea, rather than the whole thing. To say that an analogy doesn't work because it fails to take into account the rest of the discussion is a mistake. The entire point is to isolate the concept away from the rest discussion in the first place.

 Now part of this is because people also have a tendency to use analogies poorly. This is because people often mistake what the role of an analogy in a discussion is. Many think of an analogy as a kind of argument: a way of demonstrating the truth of what it is that you are saying. But by their very nature, an analogy can never be used to show an argument's soundness, only its validity. The purpose of an analogy is to be understood, but being understood is not the same thing as being convincing. Something can make sense and still be false, like fantasy stories.

Part of the root cause of all of this that most people seem to want win a debate as quickly as possible. The dream is to have that one comment that shuts the other person down. However, in real conversation, dialogue takes time. For analogical reasoning this poses a problem, for understanding an analogy requires a sympathetic ear. The listener has to try to make the analogy make sense, for it naturally will not on its own. But if a environment of mutual respect isn't garnered, then such sympathy from an opponent is impossible. Instead they are going to see all of the ways in which the analogy falls short of the discussion.

 But we shouldn't do this, even if our opponent is using the analogy as an argument, for it is still good for us to understand his point. Just because the presenter doesn't understand the purpose of analogies doesn't mean we don't have to either. We can still seek to understand what is being said, and as such we have to avoid the tendency to allegorize. Unlike an analogy, an allegory is a way of re-framing an entire topic using different images, to get us to look at the issue a new way. In an allegory, there does exist perfect correspondence, or at least some facsimile to it. But analogies are not allegories. Allegories get us to emotionally connect. Analogies explain. Allegories paint in broad strokes. Analogies surgically isolate particular components.

And this one is probably the one that I am the most passionate about, because the frequency of this mistake is what I truly lament the most when it comes to most conversations: people are in too much of a hurry. Arguments have pieces to them, and it is usually good to talk about each piece individually and carefully before moving on. If you are constantly trying to talk about the whole issue, it is very unlikely you'll accomplish anything. To convince, you usually need to go deep. And to go deep, you have to tease out the particular assumptions that the two of you have. Often our debates are merely symptoms of much deeper differences.  ______________________________________________________________
¹I originally called this the "Same Difference Fallacy", but I didn't really like this name I don't particularly like this name either. Suggestions are welcome.

The Teleological Argument for the Existance of Libertarian Free Will

Is Libertarian Free Will Cogent? Preliminaries

One of the arguments that Calvinists argue is that the very notion of Libertarian Free Will (LFW) is incoherent. "It simply doesn't make sense," they say. However, I think that the notion of LFW is important for any theist to hold, and Calvinists shoot their theology in the foot by denying its cogency. 

Now for a definition. Libertarian Free Will (LFW) is usually defined as the ability to do other than what one actually does. So if I chose to have pizza for supper, I actually could have chosen burgers. It was a real option. This is to contrasted to Compatibalist Free Will, which says the will is free if a person does what a person wants. So if I chose to have pizza for super, that is considered free as long as I truly wanted pizza. However, we can also look at LFW as agent contingency. By agent contingency I mean that certain events and ends are contingent upon whether an agent makes a certain choice. Another way of saying this is that agents  have a real effect on the outcomes of their lives and historical events. Agent contingency exists if and only if those agents have LFW. Otherwise, those events and ends will actually be contingent on those things which caused the person to choose what they do. 

One final point before we move on. Since Calvinists are determinists, it would seem evident that they would reject LFW. However, this is why I used agent contingency as opposed to human contingency. I am not going to be arguing here whether or not humans have LFW. I am merely interested, in this post anyway, whether or not LFW exists. It could be that humans have CFW and God has LFW and Calvinism could till be true. Furthermore, the argument here is just in regards to God's will, not human will. 

So before I can give the argument itself, I must explain the teological argument for the existence of God and the Calvinist argument against the cogency of LFW. 

The Teleological Argument

The teleological argument means the argument from purpose. The fundamental argument is that when we look around us at the world, it appears to have a purpose for its existence. However, this endued purpose implies a designer of some sort. Finally, the best designer one can propose is God. The most popular version of the argument right now is the argument from fine tuning. It is typically argued as follows:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe can be explained by necessity, chance, or design.
2. It cannot be explained by necessity.
3. It cannot be explained by chance.
4. Therefore it must be explained by design. 

The Calvinist Argument Against Libertarian Free Will

Before we can look at the argument, we need to say something about compatibilism (CFW). According to compatibilism, our decisions are the results of internal calculations. With Atheism, it is usually understood as the processes of the brain. For the Calvinist it, can be understood in this sense, but it is more typically understood in terms of various wants and desires that exist within the person's soul, and the strongest desire wins out.¹ Now in my mind, this doesn't really solve the problem since there is still the issue of how these desires become weighted the way that they do. Most Calvinists would probably argue that God weighs them, or a combination of this and the atheist understanding. Anyway that's besides the point. What is the point is that Calvinists define free will in this sense, and they feel that this offers more of an explanation of how the will works than LFW.

They present what I am calling here the argument against randomness. This argument seeks to set up as a dilemma either compatibilism or the idea that our choices are random. The argument seems to go like this:

1. Our decisions must either come from strongest desire or are random
2. Our decisions are not random
3. Therefore, our decisions must come from strongest desire

Now LFW clearly rejects the first premise, since we do not hold to either compatibilism or that our choices are random.

Putting the Two Together

Now my argument in this post is to simply intended to show that if you accept one of the two above arguments (the teleological and randomness), you must reject the other. One can reject the teleological argument of course, but I think that many Calvinists would be disinclined to do so.

 In essence, my argument is simply a recognition that the two arguments are referring to the same concepts in different terms. The most obvious is chance and randomness. These are clearly synonyms. What's less clear is that 'strongest desire' is the same as necessity. However, I don't think it can be seriously denied. By strongest desire, it is meant that our wills are mechanical. It is the stance that we make our decisions because it is the necessary result of the conditions leading up to that decision.

Thus the Calvinist argument becomes:

1. Our decisions are a result of necessity or chance
2. Our decisions are not from chance
3. Therefore, our decisions are a result of necessity

Therefore, what Calvinists have actually done is simply ruled out design as a distinct kind of causation from necessity or chance. Therefore, if the two arguments are incompatible. They are either both plausible or neither of them are.

And if you think about this, it makes sense. If there is no libertarian free will, then God does not have libertarian free will. If God does not have libertarian free will, then every decision He makes is a manifestation of His nature. Since His nature is what it is necessarily, than everything that God does happens out of necessity. Therefore, without LFW, design is simply a form of necessity, even if we consider them true and free choices.

Calvinist Solutions

This leaves the compatibilists with three options.² First, the boring choice is simply to drop the argument against libertarian free will. And this is perfectly fair! After all, just because an argument is bad, it doesn't mean that the position is wrong.³ This does leave us with a possible aseity problem, but I'll get to that later.

The second is to reject the teleological argument. Now again, one may do so. There is nothing that says that a Christian needs to agree to the teleological argument. However, I think there is an even more serious problem here when it comes to aseity. So what is aseity?

Aseity is an attribute of God which means that He exists as Himself (or "a se" in the Latin). This means that God needs nothing else to explain His existence and (and this is the important part here) He can exist by Himself. However, when you consider cause and effect, if there is a sufficient cause for something, then the effect will also exist. This would mean that if everything that God does is an expression of His nature, and everything that God does then happens by necessity, then creation exists necessarily. It means that God could not have not created. It means that God didn't simply want to create us, but He needed to. In my mind, that's a problem.

Now if you go with the first option, the problem doesn't magically go away either. You still have the basic issue of how is it possible that God's decisions come from His nature and yet aren't necessary. How do you explain compatibilism in such a way that distinguishes it from necessity? This is why I say that it is a possible problem, since, at this point, the ball would be in the Calvinists' court.

But I think the best solution for the Calvinist to deal with this problem is to simply let go of the compatibilist claim. Rather they can simply claim that God has LFW and we don't. After all, I don't think that dogs or cats or birds have LFW. There is nothing that says that if God has free will we must.

"Now hold on", one might say, "A Calvinist may claim that just because the argument fails, that doesn't mean their position that LFW is impossible fails. So you are missing the option that they can drop this particular argument but still say that LFW fails for other reasons." Well, yes, technically that claim is correct³. However, the argument doesn't merely fail. It doesn't merely suffer from this aseity problem. What it does is expose the aseity problem that is already there. Indeed, I think you can conclude that God must have LFW from the cosmological argument. To be frank, I can make this aseity point without any reference to either the cosmological argument or the teleological argument.

So no, I go with my original assessment. The best solution for the Calvinist is to say that God possesses LFW and we don't. This wouldn't actually affect their theology in any way. And if they say refuse the option only because it would give Arminianism an in, then they need to ask themselves, "are you more interested in winning a debate or are you more interested in truth?


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¹ It is worth pointing out that libertarians don't really reject the notion that we choose our greatest desire. This seems obvious. The question is, as I somewhat imply above, what makes that desire the greatest desire. However, due to brevity, I don't really try to reword the Calvinist claim here too much and use their language. But I do find the language unhelpful if not downright objectionable.
² Well three reasonable options. One can always choose to be irrational.
³See Fallacy Fallacy.

Kevin Scharp's Divine Psychology Critique

So recently William Lane Craig participated in a "debate"¹ with one Keven Scharp on the question of the existence of God. Scharp was one of the more solid opponents that I've seen Craig have. One, while his argument for Atheism wasn't an argument for God's non-existence, it wasn't just the standard Atheist special pleading either. Rather He made an argument for the rationality of the belief in the non-existence of God that reminds me somewhat of Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology, though I don't think as robust. Truly very engaging.

However, he also makes a rather interesting new counter-argument² against the arguments for God's existence. This had to do with what he called "divine psychology". In this, he says that any argument that relies on our understanding or predicting God's reasons for doing something is inherently flawed because there is no way for us to know that. This is why, according to him, POE fails to critique theism. While I agree with him on POE anyway, he attempts to expand this same problem to the cosmological, teological, resurrection, and transcendental³ arguments.

However, I think this obviously fails. Well, I'm not sure if it is generally obvious, but it is obvious to me anyway. This is because the arguments do not assume that we know God's motives. Rather they argue back to certain attributes that a creator must have, and those attributes sound an awful lot like God. But we don't need to argue that God must have wanted to create the universe for such and such a reason in order for the argument to be successful. I remember Scharp once asked Craig, "Well, what evidence do we have that this God would even want to create the universe." I wanted to respond, "The fact that the universe exists!" I mean, seriously!

Here's an analogy for anyone who thinks that Scharp's argument is any good⁴: We all are aware that Stonehenge was made by people. We know this because of the clear signs of shaping of the rocks, their unnatural arrangement, and the design of the surrounding region. However, we have no clue as to their psychology. We don't know why they created Stonehenge, or even how it was used. But this doesn't prevent us from inferring that it had to have been made by some cause, or that it was designed. Indeed, how could it be anything else.

The same goes for these similar arguments for God. There is no appeal to God's plans or God's psychology in the arguments⁵. They don't conclude to Him due to His reasons, but due to His attributes. He may have created the world to have a relationship with humans. He may have created it to play skeetball. Who cares. That doesn't change the fact that the universe needed to have a creator who is an incorporeal, eternal, intelligent, transcendent, morally foundational, and personal being. The cause of the universe must have those attributes regardless of what His reasons were for creating the universe.
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¹ I say debate loosely here. There were no rebuttals or anything else like that. Simply two speeches, some clarifying questions for each other, and then a Q&A. There wasn't really any engagement with each others' arguments.

² Not the weakness argument. That wasn't particularly interesting since it doesn't show an inherent weakness in the arguments themselves. It was more a criticism of Craig's description of how deductive arguments work. But that doesn't change the fact that if the premises are true, the conclusion necessarily follows.

³ The family of arguments to which the Moral Argument belongs. Though, ironically, he doesn't apply it to the Moral Argument.

⁴This technically only applies to the teological and transcendental argument, but the flaw it exposes protects the other arguments too if you think it through.


⁵ This also includes the resurrection argument, since we don't need to know why God would raise Christ from the dead to conclude that the historical evidence suggests that He was raised from the dead. However, with this argument we DO have sufficient reason to know God's psychology on the matter because Jesus TOLD us why, and self-disclosure is the basis of all psychology.

Thoughts on God's NOT Dead

OK, it took me awhile to watch it, but I finally did. And now a few weeks after watching it, I am commenting on it. However, for both of you who read my blog, you may note that my posting has been rather sporadic anyway due to my current schedule at work. So I apologize for my timing.

Now on to the movie. I loved this film. However, due to the ending, I only give it an A-. More on that later. My fear though is that many people are going to misunderstand exactly what the film is doing and who the film is for.
It is important to notice that the film is for Christians, and not for Atheists. If you show this film to an Atheist, they are likely to be unimpressed, and perhaps even a bit angered. However, this is more due to a misunderstanding of what the movie is doing. It is not offering arguments for God's existance, but offering counter arguments to the two main arguments we tend to get from Atheists. So in this sense, if the Atheist is angered, this is more likely due to them being unreflective of their own bad arguments, or to them misunderstanding what the film is doing (or perhaps at the bad ending, which I will get to. Promise).

So what are the two arguments being dealt with?

Counter Argument 1: Argument from Authority

This is what is really being countered by the main storyline. It is important to note that the Professor only offers this as an argument. Now from an Atheist perspective, this may seem to be a straw-man. However, there are many professors who do precisely this, and there is a lot of this form of bullying going on on-line.

So how does the movie counter? By exposing it as the fallacious argument that it is. Ultimately, an argument from authority is a fallacy because no human being, no matter their credentials knows everything and because ultimately it isn't the credentials that would make an expert right, but the evidence that had convinced that expert of their opinion. At some point, we need to examine the actual evidence.

The story does this with 2 plot moves. First, it portrays the professor as a bully. This is because that is what this argument is doing. It is bullying.

The second is by the Christian presenting good arguments. Now, he doesn't present them fully, but only an a kind of introductory way. This is because they are not really what the plot is about. Instead it about how this professor tries to defeat them merely by appeal to authority. I feel the apex of this counter-argument is with the Stephen Hawking quote. He is stumped by the appeal to authority, does his research, and counters with a second authority. After this, the appeal to authority is, within the movie, dead. We instead focus all of our attention on that second argument.

Counter Argument 2: The Argument from Evil

After the professor's defeat in regard to the Stephen Hawking quote, and his embarrassment, we get to the real reason why the professor is such a bully: he lost his mother. From his perspective, God would never let his mother die.

Now, there is a problem here that needs to be acknowledged. It is a common Evangelical Argument that Atheists are all simply hurt, and that is the only reason why the reject God. This is a bad argument and shouldn't be made. You shouldn't ask the question that the main character asks of his professor "What happened to you" to every Atheist that you encounter. It is belittling to their beliefs and, on the whole, ineffective for precisely that reason. Many Atheists are going to see that argument in the movie at this point, and that is unfortunate.

However, it isn't the professor's Atheism that causes the student to ask this question. It is his bullying. The professor is clearly angry. He hates Christianity and God and he demonstrates it by how he acts, not by what he espouses. Now the movie could still be advocating the above argument, but I do think that the character is justified asking the question when he does.

But in either case, this explicitly introduces the second argument: if there is suffering in the world, then God doesn't exist. While the student does present an intellectual answer to this, in the form of the free will argument, he barely gives any time to it. Instead, he merely asserts it, and then gets the professor to expose his own hypocracy. But we aren't left with too much of an answer.

Unless we broaden our scope to the rest of the movie. Most of the movie is a series of stories of individual people dealing with various problems. But if you notice, the theme of dealing with the evil in our lives is the common thread holding all of these stories together. Ulimately the counter-argument to the problem of evil isn't some intellectual argument, but the very fact that Christianity brings healing to the suffering. It is the multi-faceted nature of Christianity in reaching into those dark places of hurt and confusion and to hold and help us that is truly the answer to the question. Christianity doesn't ignore the question of evil. It solves it.

Two Criticisms

There are some criticisms that can be made of the film though that I feel are worth looking at. And warning: spoilers ahead.

First of all, due to it's conservative source, I am sure that it is going to be critiqued from minority voices. And, quite frankly, I don't think it does too well. When we look at it from a race perspective. every non-white character is a foreigner (with the exception of Michael Tate, but he's a celebrity). Now the Chinese student, the Arab teenager, and the African missionary are all portrayed in a positive light, but one could easily get a sense that Americans are all white from this film. Even the Arab father is portrayed positively in the sense that he is heart-broken by what he feels he must do. Indeed, the portrayal of Arab culture in that scene is quite accurate (though Arab culture is of course quite varied. I am assuming the family is Sunni). But from the perspective of an American minority, they could easily feel unrepresented.

The other critique would the professor's death. I could see many atheists being offended by how this was done. Indeed, I think it is a failure of the film. It isn't so much that they killed him, but that the atmosphere around his death was so happy. I get that it is showing that the professor is saved in the end, but it should have given the moment of his death more respect than it does.

Here is how I would of done it, and maybe you can see my point. I would have had the professor see the advert for the Newsboys and leave. Then I would show the scene with Duck Dynasty (though I wouldn't have used him, but whatever) talking about sending the text message. I then would have had the montage of the various texts going out, including the Arab girl texting her younger brother, but not having one go to the professor. The last one I would show would be the girlfriend sending her text to her brother. After she does, she sees the voicemail message, and exits the auditorium. We then cut to the professor walking down the street, with no music. We see the pastor and the missionary are there. Then the professor gets hit by the car, and the scene of his bed-side confession precedes the same, except continuously, and just the sound of rain. Then he dies, and we pause... with the pastor over his body, in the rain and his head down. Then the missionary puts his hand on his shoulder and starts giving his speach. As he does, we cut back and forth between him talking to the pastor, and the girlfriend listening the voicemail left by the professor (with the sound of the Newsboys coming in quietly). Then she sends the text message to him. The pastor hears it, picks up the phone, and reads the message. He smiles, and then we cut to the concert, which now can serve as a symbol of the celebration in heaven.

Do you see how that is more respective to the death? In the movie it feels, well, vengeful. There is no beauty in the moment. And it is at such a pivotal part of the movie (you know, the ending). Indeed, it feels like the promo of the film, that is the sending of the texts and of the Duck Dynasty guy, was more important than the story, and that is just a shame.

Wrap-up

Overall, if we understand this movie as inspiring Christians to be bold and not to be afraid, then I have to say the film succeeds, in spades. It definately could have been better, but considering the low budget, I would say that it does an excellent job. I highly recommend the film, and pray that you forgive it for its imperfections.

It does a very good job at pointing us to good arguments for God's existance, as well as telling thought provoking and probing morality stories to inspire us to think more deeply about pain and suffering. I especially like the point about the pastor not being on the side lines, but being on the front-lines, just like any missionary. Life is complicated, and one cannot be expected to answer its questions with pat answers to pat questions. We need to look deeper into the fundamental human experience and see God there, and I am thankful that the film reminds us of that.

Essential Attributes Verses Relational Attributes

What I want to say here is going to be a bit technical, so please hold your horses, but I think that this is important in terms of a particular argument that I hear from Calvinists as well as a classic argument that one hears from Atheists. This has to do with the kinds of attributes a thing can have.

Lifting Rocks

Let’s start with the Atheist argument because I think it is more familiar. It runs as follows:

• Can God create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it?
• If He can’t, then He is not omnipotent since this is something that he cannot do.
• If He can, then lifting it is something He cannot do, and so again He is not omnipotent.
• Therefore omnipotence, as an attribute, is incoherent and God cannot be omnipotent (or God cannot exist though that would require some additional premises)

Now, theologians have consistently said that the phrase “create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it” is itself an incoherent phrase, and God is not beholden to be able to do something nonsensical. However, I think many have trouble seeing how this phrase is incoherent. We can see the incoherence by understanding the difference between essential attributes and relational attributes.

Simply defined, an essential attribute is a attribute something must have in order for it to be what it is. It is an aspect of its nature. A relational attribute is a attribute that something has in relation to something else.

Let’s take a rock. Let’s say the rock is five pounds. Is this rock heavy or light? Well, quite quickly you would say that it is light. You are able to lift it readily. However, imagine you are an ant. Now is it heavy or light? Well, clearly now it is heavy. But how can this be? We are talking about the same rock. The rock didn’t change; only the situation around the rock changed. So how could a attribute of the rock be different? The simple answer, according to the definitions given above, is that heaviness is a relational attribute, meaning that it is in relation to the power of the one attempting to lift or move it. But then, what is it that makes the rock heavy or light relative to me? It’s mass. Mass is not a relational attribute but an essential one.

Now this shows us the incoherence of the argument. Creation is the forming of something’s essence. As a process, creation is merely concerned with essential attributes, and does not form relational attributes. Likewise, the act of lifting is concerned with heaviness; it is not concerned with mass (Since I also could lift a rock of any mass given properly low gravity). Thus the two verbs in the sentence are acting on different attributes (creation --> mass | lifting --> heaviness). Therefore, the two verbs are themselves completely disconnected, and one cannot make demands on the other, making the sentence incoherent. God can create a rock of any mass and lift a rock of any heaviness. Therefore He is omnipotent.

Getting Justice

Now the problem with the Calvinist argument is much more subtle, but is answered by the exact same distinction. According to certain Calvinists (admittedly not all), God is justified in creating persons with the knowledge (and I would say intention) that He must condemn them because God needs to express His justice. Justice is a defining attribute of God, and if God did not express it, then He wouldn’t be God.

Well OK, but what kind of attribute is it? How do we determine whether justice is an essential attribute or a relational attribute? Is justice part of God's essence, or is it something God is in relation to something else? Well for that, let us return to the rock.

As you may recall, since it was two paragraphs ago, the mass is an essential attribute of a rock, since it is part of the rock's nature, and heaviness is a relational attribute of the rock, since it is defined in relation to something else (namely the power of the lifter and gravity). How did the atheist confuse these two things? Well because any relationship involves two entities, it is therefore connected to the attributes of those two things. So with heaviness, it is connected to the power that the lifter is able to generate and the mass of the rock (and of course the gravity). However, in everyday conversation, when we talk about relational attributes, we usually assume the context. For instance, we always simply assume Earth's gravity when talking about heaviness. Also we usually assume that the lifter is the one being spoken to, making the available power just as assumed Therefore, in everyday speech, heaviness is typically determined by the mass of the rock. Because the other referents are assumed, we think of it as a sole property of the rock even though in reality it is actually the rock's mass expressed within a particular context. Therefore, all relational attributes are basically the expression of an essential attribute within a particular context. We can therefore identify a relational attribute if it requires something else for expression and is reducible to some essential attribute. We can also identify an essential attribute if it requires nothing external for expression.

So let us turn this analysis onto justice. Is justice relational or essential? Well, immediately we see that this almost answers itself. The Calvinists’ own argument clearly shows that justice is relational, since it claims that the unrighteous are necessary in order for justice to be expressed. Well, since all relational attributes are reducible to some essential attribute, what do we reduce justice to? Again the answer is quite clear. Justice reduces to righteousness or goodness. In other words, justice is merely the expression of God’s goodness in the context of evil, just as heaviness was the expression of the rock’s mass in the context of the ant.

So where does this leave us in terms of assessing the Calvinist argument that God created us for the expression of His justice? Well for this, we will need to turn to another attribute of God: aseity.

Now the doctrine of aseity states that God is self-existent: He can exist by Himself and has existed by Himself and He needs nothing. Thus the Latins said that God exists “a se” or ‘himself’, hence aseity. So what does this mean? Well if God exists by Himself, then the only kind of attributes He must express are essential attributes. Indeed, we can say this stronger. We can in fact say that God must be able to not express any relational attributes. To deny this is to deny divine aseity. If God ever needs to express a relational attribute, then God needs something beyond Himself. In fact theologians of typically argued that God must exist as a Trinity in order for love to be an essential attribute of His, for He needs persons to love. Therefore God must express His goodness in all circumstances, but God also must be able to not express His justice. He must be able to exist without the existence of things to enact justice towards.

Does this mean that God is not necessarily just? Of course not. God is necessarily just within the context of evil. To ask if God can be just without evil is akin to asking if God can lift a rock so heavy He can’t lift it. It is meaningless. However, to ask if God could ever not be just when evil is present is like asking if the five pound rock could be anything but heavy to an ant. Therefore it only makes sense to ask is just within the context of evil, and within that context He must be because He is always just.

Therefore, considering the argument “God created wicked people for the expression of His justice”, we can draw two conclusions: one logical and one theological. First, the argument is incoherent. It is clear that justice as a concept is only valuable and meaningful in the context of evil, and cannot be used to justify the existence of evil itself. It is merely derivative of His goodness and does not require expression in of itself.

Second, the argument can make God dependent on His creation. If God must express any relational attribute, then He needs the existence of the thing it relates to, which in this case is us. What’s worse is God wouldn't require us per se, but would require our sin. This makes God not just dependent on humanity, but dependent on sin itself. Now a Calvinist might argue that God doesn't need to express justice, but that it is merely good for God to express justice. If that is true, then that good would have to be compared to the existence of evil itself. I fail to see how a world without justice because it is without evil is worse than a world with any amount of evil at all. Justification for the existence of evil must come from an attribute of creation itself which is not inherently evil but created for the good, such as free will. In the absence of just such a justification, Calvinism must either reexamine whether God is truly good, or better yet reexamine their Calvinism.

A Problem With Time

I've been dealing with a bit of an intellectual dilemma, and I want to get it out there. But this has to do with the technical ideas, so I have define some terms first.

First of all, there are considered to be two basic theories in regards to the nature of time: A-theory and B-theory. A-theory understands the past and the future to not truly exist. All that exists is the present moment which is a transition from the past moment to the future moment. B-theory views time as a dimension of space. Thus reality exists as a 4 dimensional block of space-time. 

Which theory of time one holds is important when understanding the nature of God's foreknowledge. First instance, if you have an A-theory of time, then how does God know the future, since the future does not exist? That would be like God knowing the anatomy of a unicorn. This is the fundamental reason why I have always held to a B-theory of time, visualizing God is basically existing apart from time, and being able to be in both the past and the future simultaneously.

Indeed, I have always seen God as omnitemporal. Seeing time as a dimension of space, His relationship to time would be the same as His relationship to space. Thus omnitemporality is nothing more than an extension of omnipresence. 

Now, I have been reading The Cosmological Argument by Dr. William Lane Craig. One of the consistent points that is made in the various forms cosmological argument is that a quantitative infinity cannot exist for it causes logical inconsistencies. This is the fundamental reason that philosophers have often given when arguing that the universe requires a beginning, since an infinite past is impossible since the past should be measurable. 

However, what I have recently realized is that the same goes for the future given a B-theory of time. If the full stretch of time already exists, and it cannot exist infinitely in the past, than it would have to relate to the future as well for from God's perspective the past would be equally measurable. If one end of a block can't be infinite, the other end can't be either. While some might not have a problem with this, it would be the end of eternal life on earth. I cannot be resurrected from the dead and exist forever on this earth if the B-theory of time is accurate.

I don't know how to escape the conundrum. If this is correct, then the B-theory of time is simply wrong. But if it is wrong, that leaves us with the A-theory of time. But I really don't like that option, for the concept of omnitemporality would no longer make sense. God couldn't exist both in the past and the future simultaneous since they do not exist. Thus He only exists in the present. This leaves us with determinism, Molinism, or Open-theism, none of which are options that I am particularly fond of (though if forced, I would go with Molinism). 

I can only see one option in terms of saving B-theory. I would call this the temporary temporal dimension. It would have to be that when Adam and Eve fell, the universe shifted into a different mode of time that is a B-theory organization. However, when God created the new Heavens and Earth, it would shift into a more A-theory of time. The fundamental problem with this is that it feels so ad-hoc.

Let me know if any one of you have a different way of salvaging B-theory considering the need to affirm an infinite future. I really do not want to shift to an A-theory of time, but I have to go with where reason and Scripture lead me. 

Human Consciousness and the Transcendental Argument

I was watching a video earlier in the week featuring Alvin Plantinga (which is always a pleasure). In it, he constructs an argument as to why he believes that the human consciousness exists. Unsurprisingly it is a modal based argument, but I'll attempt to summarize as best I can (Please refer to the above link if you think what I said doesn't make any sense).

His basic point is that one's consciousness is distinct from one's body. The fundamental premise of the argument is that if A is the same as B, and what is true for A is true for B. Likewise, if something can be shown to be true for A and shown to be not true for B, then this proves that A and B are not the same thing. He does this by way of the property of existence. Naturally, if A can exist while B doesn't, than A is different than B. This doesn't include a corpse, since one could argue that a corpse isn't really a body anymore. However, it does seem possible to have one's mind within a different body. He uses the example of a story where a man wakes up one morning to find himself in a beetle's body. This seems to be a perfectly feasible world to him.

All of that said, I think the example of the beetle actually undermines his point. He isn't really saying that there exists a possible world where someone can go to bed as a human and just wake up as a beetle, but because this is so fantastic, it is difficult to accept his point of it being a possible world.

I think a better allegory would be the transference of one's mind into either a computer or another's brain. If the naturalist is correct in terms of the nature of our consciousness, that is that it is essentially a really sophisticated computer program, then it should be perfectly feasible to download that program into a computer, assuming sufficient memory, computational abilities, and that the program was translated into a language the computer can read. However, if this is true, then my consciousness can exist apart from my body and is not simply reducible to my brain.

This got me thinking again about the transcendental argument. This argument is as follows:

• Naturalism believes that there exists nothing that transcends physical reality (N -> ~t)
• There exists some object t which transcends physical reality (t)
• Therefore Naturalism is false (~N)

We can refer to many possible object "t"s as transcendentals. Many such instances have been suggested, including math, logic and morality. I also suggested information and thoughts as a transcendental some months back.

Now I believe that Plantinga's argument enhances my point about thoughts being a transcendental, especially since it would move it beyond mere thoughts to specifically consciousness itself. After all, Plantinga's intention is to demonstrate the logical possibility of the soul, and the soul is the ultimately what the transcendental is trying to demonstrate to begin with: the existence of the ultimate soul, God. Once one establishes the possible existence of the mind apart from the body, then the possible existence of a mind with no body at all becomes obvious.

A comparison of the mind/consciousness to a transferable program has another important philosophical ramification as well: the need of the body. All information requires a medium to influence the physical word. I may have a mediumless thought in my own mind, but in order for me to but that thought out into the world, it requires some kind of physical medium. An algorithm after all is not tied to a computer, but needs a computer for it to be executed. Likewise, our minds may require a physical medium to be present in the physical world, and rather than our minds being reducible to our brains, it is better to think of our brains as such a medium.

Indeed, I have often found it strange, upon historical reflection, when an atheist claims that our minds relationship to our brains disproves the biblical account of the soul. However, in ancient Mesopotamia which the the context of the ancient Hebrews, it was believed that the soul was part of the heart. While the Hebrews connected our consciousness to the wrong organ, they still connected it to an organ. Thus such a relationship is perfectly consistent with the Hebraic understanding of the soul (anatomy? No. Soul? Yes).

In conclusion, I think that the Transcendental Argument is a powerful argument for the Christian, and recognizing that one can demonstrate the reasonableness of a belief in the soul strengthens the argument even more. 

WHY ONE SHOULD BELIEVE IN GODPart V: Design

Induction

I am a theorist. That means that I mostly deal with the theory of something, and that I am more concerned with argument than I am with evidence. Indeed, I have a disinterest in evidence if it is not properly explained, because I know how easy it is the manipulate facts to give the appearance of truth. So, for this reason I may not be the best person to discuss the Teleological Argument, or the Argument for Design, because it is a very evidence laden argument.

However, I am also perhaps the best person to read a short essay on the subject, for the very simple reason that I can tell you that if you have come to a conclusion in regards to this argument after reading a couple of books, or essays, or after hearing two men debate on the issue, then you have never really considered it. I am not a theorist because I think evidence is unimportant. Indeed evidence is the very thing that grounds one's beliefs in reality. I am a theorist instead because I recognize that it takes a considerable amount of time to sort through evidence, and I am just as nervous about someone accepting my argument because I have presented a lot of contextless facts as I am someone rejecting it.

Therefore I would encourage anyone reading this to go and examine the evidence for yourself. I highly recommend Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel as a primer, but only as a primer. I recommend it not because it argues the point well, but because it points to sources that one can go and examine for one's self.

A second point that I believe is important is understanding the difference between deduction and induction. Deduction is the logical process where a conclusion is demonstrated to necessarily come from the premises. Induction is the logical process where a conclusion is demonstrated to probably come from the premises. I bring this up because all arguments for and against the existence of God are examples of induction. God is neither falsifiable or provable, unless He chooses to be of course. I have often noticed that atheists seem to insist on deductive arguments for God's existence  yet offer inductive arguments against His existence, which is simply special pleading. Yet this is precisely why I have been talking about arguments for God's existence rather than proofs.

Additionally, it is also true that all of science is a process of induction. This is why the highest classification of scientific thought is theory (most scientists today have rejected the idea of scientific law). The value of a scietific theory is not how definate the claim is, but how explanatory it is. This means that it explains the evidence better than other claims, not that it has been proven. Indeed the scientific method, as powerful a process as it is, is a formalization of guess and check. That is not a knock on it, but it is important in understanding that as we consider this argument, and are not assessing if it is the only possible conclusion, but if it is the best conclusion.

THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Prima Facie

A Prima Facie case is the first step to any actual argument. It means that there appears on the surface to be legitmacy to the argument. The prima facie case is not the conclusion, but the first step in presenting an argument. In other words, it demonstrates that the argument is worth hearing out.

The prima facie case for the teleological argument is usually presented as an analogy. Consider a man, he living without exposure to modern times, is walking through a jungle, and he comes across a watch. He picks it up and examines it. He then concludes that this object was fashioned by someone with a purpose; it could not have formed naturally.

The teleological argument makes the same hypothesis about the nature itself. The above analogy is basicly arguing that there are signs which points to a designer: order, focused functionality, language and uniqueness. These attributes denotes purpose behind something, and purpose implies a designer.

The Privileged Planet

One thing that all atheists insist on is that there is life on other planets. After all, if life is simply the result of chemical reactions, then with the right mix, it is an inevitability  Originally it was assumed that there must be life in our solar system, but as time went on, we began to realize how unlikely that was. We then assumed in was in the next nearest star, but again, that not seems unlikely. It seems that the more we learn about life, and the more we learn about space, the rarer life seems to be.

The main reason for this is that even if life is merely chemical reactions, proper conditions for those reactions is actually quite rare, not to mention a variety of other factors necessary for life to be sustained. First of all, all of the necessary chemicals (especially water and carbon of course). Also, a magnetic field, atmosphere, plate tetonics, the carbon cycle, a large moon for maintaining ocean currents and a tilted axis, proper tilted rotation, stable circular orbits (for liquid water), and near by gas giants to pull in asteroids and other hazards. As for the sun, it needs to be the appropriate distance from other stars (for stable orbits and less radiation), large enough (most stars are smaller than Sol), emit the right kind of light for photosynthesis to be possible and other phenomena, stable, having a circular orbit in the galaxy, and being in a same zone between the arms of a spiral galaxy. The above list is not comprehensive, but it is important to note that everything listed above is rare. These are all unusual features.

Quite frankly I don't understand how many who think life is common in the universe are actually environmentalists. Either life is fragile, or it isn't. But in either case, it seems like we are uniquely positioned to have life, which implies that the Earth was designed with life in mind.

Irreducible Complexity

Irreducible complexity (IC) is often misunderstood. First of all, it is not a Creationist argument, though it is used by Creationists such as myself. Dr. Michael Behe who first proposed it merely proposed that evolution needs to be managed by an intelligence. Its point is merely that evolution cannot account for all biological phenomenon.

However, before I go on, I need to define it. IC refers directly to proteinic systems which exist in our bodies. This is important because or DNA is primarily a recipe book for proteins*.  Indeed, when we say that we are carbon-based life-forms, we are in fact referring to proteins, which are long chains of amino acids and are composed mostly of carbon. Proteins are kind of the biological molecule because they not only can be so large, but they are so variable. Most of the functions in are bodies are done by a collection of proteins working together. This also means that an variation in DNA influences the production of proteins.

[* When I say "primarily" here, I am referring also to developmental regulatory genes which reference a system of proteins instead of a single protein. And by system of proteins, I mean activation of other genes]

IC is most easily defined as a system which every component is necessary for the operation of that system. Here is where we have the second most common misunderstanding, which is what I like to call the bicycle bell fallacy. If you have an IC system, you can't subtract from it, but you can add. Most systems in the body which have IC, are actually IC systems with a couple of things added to them, like a bike with tassels and a bell. However, you can't disprove the IC of a bike by taking the bell off, and many do that. In order to prove that a system isn't IC, you have to show that the intermediate stages of development are viable systems, that is systems that actually accomplish something. Otherwise, you don't have evolution.

However, this post isn't about proving IC, or disproving Darwinism. My point is that this kind of complexity implies a designer of these systems.

Mathematical Precision

In science there are several mathematical constants. All of these has to be precisely what they are in order for the universe to exist as it is, and for life to be possible in it. This includes the strong nuclear force, the gravitational constant, the cosmological constant, the electromagnetic force, and many more.

There have been two defenses for this. One is the multiverse, which I dealt with on an earlier post. The second is called the Anthropic Principle. It simply states that if the universe were not capable of life, then we wouldn't be able to comment on it. Therefore no explanation is necessary. In other words, the question is merely a consequence of the existence of our minds, rather than something that actually is based on reality. However, this is nonsense for the basic reason that in any other instance, when something unlikely occurs, we look for a reason. Without light from the sun, we wouldn't have existed either, but that doesn't mean that asking how the sun gives off this light is somehow illegitimate.

Final Remarks

As I said at the beginning, many people have presented this arguement better than I could. Additionally, due to how long it took to get to writing this, I have to admit that I merely pounded out the last few sections to get this done. Please look into other sources to better understand the details to this argument.

WHY ONE SHOULD BELIEVE IN GODPart IV: Cosmos

The cosmological argument for the existence of God is one of the more classic arguments for the existence of God, second only to the teleological argument for its logical power. There have been some attempts to counter the argument, but none have been truly lethal to it. That isn't to say that there aren't some flaws, but I will get into that, and why I think these flaws are moot.

First of all, definitions. Cosmology is the study of the origins of the cosmos, that is the whole universe. The cosmological argument for the existence of God then is simply that the origin of the cosmos requires explanation, and that God is the best explanation for it. However that is merely what the argument attempts to show, not the argument itself. We shall see that the argument can actually be presented in several different forms, and we will deal with each in turn.

UNDERSTANDING THE ARGUMENT
Argument from Contingency: Thomas Aquinas

While there were some precursors to Aquinas' presentation of this argument, Aquinas was really the first to pen it as such. Aquinas presented the cosmological argument in 3 different forms. The first two, the argument from movement and the argument from causation, are really the same thing, the latter merely being an abstract form of the former. We will look at this in the next section.

The third form he presented was the argument from contingency. The flow is as follows:

P1: All contingent beings require a source for their existence
P2: If everything were contingent, than nothing would exist
C1: Thus there exists at least something which is necessary, from which ultimately comes things which are not.
C2: God is that necessary being.

The ultimate problem with the argument as Aquinas puts it is that it is incomplete. The move from C1 to C2 is forced. Additionally, it doesn't deal with the possibility that the universe itself is contingent. For the first, he primarily refers to the argument from causation. However, as to the second, I believe that to some degree Aquinas here was primarily interested in the existence of humans and life, as opposed to rocks, planets and stars.

We can extract this out and think about this in a more modern way. There exists material in the world, in the sense of atoms and energy. There are certain things which are simply the formation of these particles due to the natural interaction of forces. However, the fact that some of this material gathers in such a manner as to become something greater than its constituent parts, such as a human, requires explanation. Planets and stars to necessary manifestations of physics, but the development of human is physically odd. It is demonstrable that the development of life is something which is incredible difficult, even if we can develop from natural causation. Therefore, unlike rocks, planets, and stars, we require special explanation.

This is why he distinguishes from necessary beings which come from other necessary beings, like rocks and planets, versus necessary beings which have no cause, like God. Ultimately God is the ultimate cause for all contingent beings because he is a being without cause, however, that goes to the argument from causation which we will discuss below.

But before we move on to that, it is important to note how much more potent this argument becomes when understood in light of the big bang and eventually universal death. These two events act as a kind of merism for the whole of the universe, showing that the universe itself (i.e. the rocks, planets and stars) is contingent and thus requires explanation.

God is thus offered as a parsimonious answer to such a question. I shall discuss the parsimony of God as an answer in the final section of this post.

Argument from Causation: A Simple Matter of Time

The argument from causation is what most people refer to when they refer to the cosmological argument. This is mostly because it is considered the superior form of the argument. However, the argument has changed over the course of the years.

Aquinas presented the argument as a series of events: every thing moves, but each movement is in fact caused by something else. This is further extended to the nature of causation, where every cause has an effect. He then makes a very important move: he insists that the concept of infinite regress is illogical. Therefore, for every chain of causation, there must be a beginning place which was not caused or moved, but simply is. Due to the interconnectivity of causation, recognizing events seems to have a multiple interrelated causes, it is considered parsimonious to say that all lines of causation have a single ultimate cause. Aquinas simply names this ultimate cause God (again a conclusion which is a bit forced).

In parallel, this argument was also presented in Islamic circles, specifically of the Kalam tradition, but formulated slightly differently. Instead of focusing on a line of causation, they instead consider the ontology of a thing, in that anything which has a beginning must have a cause. While Aquinias's arguments do not assume the beginning of the universe but instead focus on the natural operations of it, the Kalam argument does assume the beginning of the universe, and states that because the universe began, it must have a beginning. The syllogism is pretty airtight:

P1: Everything which has a beginning has a cause
P2: The universe has a beginning.
C1: The universe has a cause

Again in a forced move, God is offered as this cause.

I personally would expand on this, focusing on Aquinas's presentation. If we consider a moment to be an event, and that moment to have been brought into existence by the last moment (considering the recent theory of the discrete nature of time, this a rather accurate way to think of it), we can then see the full timeline to be a chain of causation. Therefore, we agree with the premise that infinite regression is categorically false, we can then conclude that time itself must have a beginning, and that it is an aspect of the universe. Therefore we can expand the Kalam definition and say that anything which is bound by, or exists within time must have a cause, but it existence is an aspect of this causation chain.

Therefore, when we consider what this ultimate cause is, we conclude that is must be something which is not bound by time. The Christian view of an eternal God anticipates such a quality, instead of being formed by it, further establishing God as a solution.

CRITICIZING THE ARGUMENT
False Criticisms

There is a very legitimate criticism to his argument,and it has already been mentioned several times, but I want to treat it last. First I want to deal with three criticisms which I feel do not really work: rejection that contingents need causes, acceptance of infinite regress, and the proposition of a cause for God.

First let us deal with the principle premise of the argument: that things with a beginning require a cause. Many Atheists have argued that within quantum mechanics, things often pop into existence without cause. Therefore the tautology that all things with a beginning require a cause is defeated because it assumes Newtonian physics.

There are two responses to this. First of all, quantum mechanics has more unknowns than it has knowns. It is an incredibly controversial area of science. What may seem like a particle coming into existence without cause may simply be a particle coming into existence by an unknown cause. It is premature to declare victory from such an example. But it is equally premature to say that therefore the point is completely illegitimate. This brings me to my second point: the rules of quantum mechanics do not operate within the macrocosm. Big Bangs are not occurring within the universe all the time. No one is concerned about the sudden appearance of a singularity within the solar system. This kind of event isn't happening. However, that is precisely what such an argument is presupposing. The commencement of the macrocosm is an event within the macrocosm, and as such a quantum level event would seem to have no baring on it.

Now for the second criticism: the acceptance of infinite regress. One of the major moves that the cosmological argument makes is that an infinite chain of causations is an absurdity. However, one could say, "Why? Let's just believe in infinite regress." Well, first of all, one could say anything. I could say, "Why can't we have a square circle?" At some point, we need to assume some things. This is a basic fact of logic: we need to start somewhere. Therefore, we need to consider the fact that the notion of infinite regress certainly seems absurd. Even those that advocate otherwise recognize that the notion is at least ineffable. Therefore, I would argue that those who propose infinite regress need to first show that it is a possibility, and they have yet to do so.

The final criticism is that the proposition that God himself also requires a cause. However, simply from my presentation one can see why such a criticism is ridiculous. Whether we accept the Kalam premise (that all things with a beginning have a cause) or my own (all things bound by time have a cause), one can see that neither premise would apply to the articulation of God proposed by Christians. We hold that God is eternal (which is different than infinite BTW) and does not exist within time. As such, this criticism is nothing more than a straw man.

It is admitted that Aquinas does not offer explanation as to why God is exempt from his arguments. I would assume though that he would reference both God's eternalness, and His immutability.

Alternative Theories

There is a real flaw to the cosmological argument: there is no deductive reason why God has to be the answer to causation. While God is in fact an answer, and a good answer at that, it may be possible for there to be other answers.

There has been three proposed possibilities for the ultimate cause: A single eternal omnipotent God, several gods, and the multiverse. Here we are including the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Deistic views of God as a singular possibility, for they differ in character, rather than ontology. As to a single God, verses several gods, we can say that a single God is more likely due to parsimony (the inductive principle that the simplest answer is the more likely answer). This leaves us with God vs. the multiverse.

Here it is important to point out that both are equally unfalsifiable, so neither can assessed scientifically, only philosophically. Any favor granted to the multiverse for being more "scientific" is based solely off of it being an atheist position, which is either begging the question or special pleading (or both).

The hypothesis of the multiverse (I refuse to consider this to be theory) is based to some degree on a thought experiment on the nature of dimensions, but being able to fathom greater dimentions does not demonstrate those dimensions to not be flat. The concievability of the multiverse does not demonstrate the existence of the multiverse. To another degree it is also part of string theory which itself is quite controversial.

It is also important to note that nature of the multiverse is barely proposed. It appears to be a place where realities pop into existance, and either manage to sustain themselves or fail. However, how are these realities able to exist side by side? What mechanism within the multiverse causes their creation?
To what extent can we say the law of entropy to be at work here, since that is the problem with most singular reality cosmological models.

Additionally, the multiverse is a realm of caused contingent realities. Nothing within the multiverse seems to be necessary, or seems to be able to give account for the commencement of a new reality. A collection of contingents requires explanation as much as a single contingent, and the multiverse as it is currently articulated, is defined by its contingent members, rather than by the environs within which this members exist. Therefore it doesn't seem to directly address any of the points of the cosmological argument.

This is compared to the articulation of the Christian God: incorporeal, ontologically simple, eternal, and necessary. Additionally, God is a cognitive reality, and as such can account for the commencement of something new. The nature of thought can account for the transition of the non-existence of reality to the existence of it better than some vague mechanism of a multiverse. As such, God seems to be a superior answer to the cosmological argument than the multiverse, if we can consider the multiverse even satisfactory.


For more on the cosmological argument, I highly recommend the site of William Lane Craig, who re-popularized the argument back in the 70s: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/popular-articles/existence-and-nature-of-god

WHY ONE SHOULD BELIEVE IN GODPart III: Transcendance

The Transcendental Argument is a fairly easy argument to misunderstand. In a nut shell, it states that because there are things which observably exist which transcend matter/energy, that therefore atheism must be false.

It is important to note that like the morality argument mentioned in an earlier post, the transcendental argument is polemical rather than apologetic. By this, I mean that it is criticizing atheism, rather than defending Christianity or theism. However, unlike the morality argument, it is a logical proof, rather than an appeal to what is best for society. It does not seek to say that Christianity is merely socially superior to atheism, but to show that atheism is philosophically untenable.

Therefore, it is inaccurate to say that this argument proves that God exists. It does not demonstrate monotheism, nor does it demonstrate a sentient transcendent being, though I will argue later that it does imply it. It is more accurate to say that this argument disproves materialism, which is a necessary tenant of atheism itself.

Materialism: True Or False

Materialism is the philosophic belief that only matter-energy exists. Everything else is imaginary, illusionary, or conventional. Atheism believes in Materialism as a central tenant.

The logic to disprove this flows as follows:
P1: Materialism is true if and only if everything which exists is matter-energy
P2: 'A' is not matter-energy
P3: 'A' exists
C1: Therefore, there exists something which is not matter-energy
C2: Therefore Materialism is false.

The trick of course is to find something which satisfies 'A'. We call this a transcendental: something which transcends physical reality. The debate usually is over premise 3, and what constitutes existence. If 'A' can be shown to be possibly conventional or illusionary, then it cannot be said that 'A' satisfies the argument. Theists have proposed several transcendentals which we feel satisfy the argument.

Examples of Transcendentals
Morality

Unfortunately, the existance of a transcendent universal moral code is probably the most common transcendental proposed. Now, I say unfortunately for a few reasons.

First of all, it causes people to confuse the Transcendental Argument with the Morality Argument. This is often done by those that the argument is aimed towards, and by those attempting to use the argument. I think both arguments suffer for this, since it makes the Transcendantal Argument appear less formal, and the Morality Argument to simply be muddled.

Second of all, it is incredibly difficult to demonstrate that such a moral code objectively exists. Atheists often can easily rhetorically avoid this by claiming that morality is conventional in nature.

Third, I'm not even sure if I would say that such a moral code exists. While I believe there to be one law by which we will all be judged, I consider this to be administered by a divine government, not something which can be said to exist in and of itself. I have yet to find an argument which truly demonstrates that a certain moral code is woven into the fabric of reality, or how such a code can be demonstrated.

Math/Logic

The original transcendental proposed was math and logic, and I think there is something to this. There is some debate about whether logic is derivative of math, or whether they simply can overlap, but I don't really think it matters for the purpose of this argument.

So how can we say that math/logic exists, and are not merely conventions? Simply put, because they are universal. The rules of math/logic are not invented, but rather discovered, and are the same in all societies, though they may be represented differently.

Since it is not a convention, atheists must try to say that that it is illusionary. However, nothing illusionary can have an effect on something real, and it appears that math/logic affects reality. Proving it is a bit more difficult, but I believe it to be doable.

Ideas/Thoughts

A better transcendental, IMO, is one that I proposed a couple of years ago: thoughts. This is more than an appeal to Descartes. I'm not talking about self-evident subjective experience of thinking. Thoughts clearly exist in some sense, but what must be demonstrated is that they exist distinctly, and are not simply illusions of the brain.

No one really proposes that thoughts are conventions. They are not sociological constructs, but individual manifestations of the subjective mind. However, thoughts produce sociological constructs, i.e. ideas. And ideas change reality.

Something which is illusionary cannot affect that which is real. Yet, ideas cause racial separations, the impractical weaving of material (i.e. decorations), and the radical alterations of physical objects (launching satellites into space, and detonating atomic bombs). It seems to me that explaining such occurrences in purely physical terms is unparsimonious, if not down right impossible.

Information

The last transcendental we'll deal with here is information. It can be easily demonstrated that information is greater than the medium within which it is represented. Clearly language is conventional in nature, and cannot be said to properly exist, but the fact that symbols can be carved into a rock, which allows me to unearth an object in an entirely different location demonstrates that information exists distinctly from the material.

Greater Implications

What all these transcendentals imply is that reality can at least be divided into two distinct categories: matter/energy and cognitive realities. Classicly, such cognitive realities are called spirits or souls.
This demonstrates that materialism, and therefore atheism, cannot be true, but it also leaves some serious questions: how can souls exist? In what way do they exist? How do souls interact with matter/energy (since clearly they do)? Can a soul exist seperately from matter/energy? Is there only one soul, or many?

Simply saying "God" does not answer these questions, of course, anymore than saying "parents" answers the questions of my anatomy. Origin does not equate with description. However, I would say that the existance of God, an ultimate cognitive reality, is a good parsimonious starting place for approaching these questions.

WHY SHOULD ONE BELIEVE IN GOD? Part 1: Revelation

Recently I started a discussion with an anonymous commenter on the post "Is 4-Point Calvinism Logical?" He is a skeptic about God's existance, but does not identify with an particular label which is fine. However, I felt I wasn't doing justice to my arguements due to the confined space of the comment page, so I am writing a series of post to engage with his (or her) arguements. I will refer to him in the masciline until corrected, and I'll be calling him Higgs, after the Higgs Boson particle (both because he brought it up and because I found it fitting for the discussion).

Higgs's main question is whether or not Christianity can be said to be logical, and is most curious about logical/mathematical proofs for the existance of God. I believe they do exist, and I will discuss four arguements for God's existance in this series. However, I want to make a different point first, and I will start with a thought experiment.

Let's say I endur some kind of accident which makes me forget my past. I have no idea who I am, and who my family is. However, due to the principals of logic and mathematics, and can prove that I do have parents. After all, I exist. This is sufficient evidence for me to conclude that there exists, or did exist, a man and a woman from who I came into being. This is true of all human beings, and since I am human it must also be true of me. This is mathematical; logical.

However, no amount of logic will tell me who my parents are: their names, occupations, passions, beliefs, class, or the extent of the rest of my family. I can sit in a room for hours, and think and think, and I will never figure that information out. It is impossible. In order to learn that, I must either research my/their history, or meet them. There is not other way.

The same is true for God. I believe that their does exist sufficient evidence and clear logic which demonstrate that God exists. But Christianity... that's another matter. Whether that God is Allah, Yahweh, Zeus, a lamp, or a flying speghetti monster, no arguement will ever prove God's identity. Nor will it be able to determine God's plan for existance, God's values, or God's relationship with humanity (though certain conclusions may be ruled out). In order to do that, you need revelation.

What is revelation? It is simply God being seen or heard; whether it be personal revelation (you meeting and interacting with Him) or recorded revelation (researching the history of God interacting with humanity). To demand Christianity to offer strictly logical proof for its particular view of God isn't really reasonable. The ultimate mistake that many atheists and the like make (and I am not including you with this statement Higgs) is the misunderstanding that Christians believe in God in order to explain natural phenonoma, like the beginning of the cosmos, etc... While we offer God as the agent for such things, we do not believe in Him in order to explain them. Neither do we accept God is a sufficient explanation, for the questions of who and how are incredibly different from each other. In fact it is our belief in the who that spurs us on to investigate the how. This was why the advent of modern science happened within the frame work of Christianity, not appart from it.

It is important that before we ask questions about God, we put such questions into the appropiate epistemological categories. Knowing the answer to who doesn't answer how, nor does answering how somehow demonstrate there isn't a who. Additionally, proving there is a God does not show who that God is, and that is not a question which reason and science can determine alone (though certain answers can be elimitated by reason). These are important things to understand as we approach the topic of proofs and arguments for God's existance.