This was excellent. I really appreciate this project of bringing other scholars to offer critiques of Craig's popular-level arguments. I hope it will get both Atheists and Theists to explore the further resources within the analytic philosophy of religion. Perhaps you should also get some scholars to critiques Craig's argument from the resurrection, his appeal to reformed epistemology, or even his skeptical theist response to the PoE.

Wonderful discussion 🔥

23:30 Smart guest, but he is making a mistake here: He assumes that just because Craig assumes contingent things are only causally explained, he would thereby be committed to saying that necessary things are also causally explained... which of course doesn't follow. The standard formulation of the PSR is "Everything that exists has an explanation for its existence, either in its own necessity or in an external cause". So God would explain himself (where the explanation is non-causal, given that he is not a contingent being), whereas the explanation for the universe would be an external cause. No one thinks the laws of logic *cause* themselves. Obviously the ReasonableFaith video doesn't go into detail on this specific point, but it's very unreasonable to demand this from a 5 minute video

What about Chad McIntosh’s view, that the members of the trinity are symmetrically dependent? In McIntosh’s dissertation he argues that this doesn’t fall prey to the problems of asymmetry.

There's going to be a variety of theoretical and methodological problems with contingency arguments in general. First off, the primary theoretical complaint in the context of naturalism vs theism is going to be that God is an explanatory dangler. If we grant that 1) There can exist necessary beings and 2) Those necessary beings do not require an explanation for their existence, then some of the primary candidates are going to be: the universe itself, the quantum mechanical wavefunction of the universe, space-time, etc. God is not listed among these because we can be absolutely sure of e.g. the universe, whereas if God exists he is at best an unobservable entity, and furthermore it doesn't seem like God enters into any everyday explanatory notions of physical causation, whereas spacetime, the evolution of the universal wave function, and of course the universe itself, do. Given 1) and 2), it is more parsimonious to posit that e.g. the universe itself is a necessary existence rather than God, because once we grant those theoretical principles metaphysical status, then we have ALL we need to explain contingency - e.g. the universe itself is necessary and explains the contingent objects within itself, and so the existence of God wouldn't be explanatorily relevant anymore. Unless you think the universe itself is contingent, but, this leads me to my methodological point: There is effectively no way of figuring out which entities are contingent and which are necessary. The normal way we attribute properties to objects is by observing their behavior - this object is heavy if I have to exert more force to push it, vs the same object would be light if I could throw it like a tennis ball. With modal properties like contingency and necessity, there is no test we can perform in principle to ascertain an object's contingency/necessity, in the way we could test an object's weight. Consider God - which property of his could you observe and determine whether he was contingent or necessary? Even if we accept 1) and 2) above, we could simply posit that God is contingent because he was actually made by SuperGod, who is himself necessary. Whether God is necessary or contingent is not going to have any effect on any of his tri-omni properties; you can be perfectly knowledgeable and moral and all-powerful yet fail to be necessary. Everyday objects are the same - how can you prove that we don't live in a necessitarian universe where everything is predetermined to be exactly as it is, even your misleading belief that the universe or various objects within it are contingent? Because of these two objections, I don't think contingency arguments are remotely compelling. A lot of their appeal comes from begging the question - either by claiming that God must be necessary or that the universe can't be necessary, which are both completely unsupported claims. Even worse, these claims seem to be unsupportable by evidence in principle - since necessity and contingency aren't observable or demonstrable properties of objects, we can't conduct any productive investigation into getting clearer about objects' contingent/necessary statuses.

@intelligentdesign2295

Жыл бұрын

The Universe Itself is Necessary "As for the first idea, that the universe itself is necessary, an initial objection to this view of natural law is that it seems strongly counter intuitive. Holding that the universe is necessary, means that it could not possibly be other than it is. At this moment in time there could not be any more or less crooked politicians in Washington than there are right now, and there could not be any fewer atoms in my desk than there actually are. If the universe is necessary, then there is no chance of other possibilities. In response to this, it seems counter-intuitive to think that this world is the only one that could exist. However, it has been pointed out that there are limits to our ability to conceive of things. This is especially true regarding more abstract or complex matters. For example, both the existence and nonexistence of God seem to be conceivable-we can imagine either case. I agree that intuition by itself is of only limited value in these matters, but it does not derail this project. My view is that we do not so much rely on our intuitions of what is possible or impossible, but rather on the law of non-contradiction. In other words, if we can show that there is a contradiction in some conceivable state of affairs, then it must be impossible. If on the other hand, we cannot show a contradiction, then this gives us proof, or at least a reason for thinking, that there is no contradiction, and that the state of affairs is possible. Getting back to the universe and the laws that describe its behavior, how likely is it that they are all necessary-in the sense of absolutely or logically necessary? Not very. That is, one may easily conceive of something in the universe as being different than it is without a logical contradiction being generated. For example, there does not seem to be a logical contradiction entailed if I were to think of the pen on my desk as being two centimeters to the right of where it is, or if my cat Bobbin has one less hair on her body than she does. This being the case, the burden of proof is on the Necessary Universe theorist to show that real contradictions are generated by any change, no matter how trivial, in the universe. I do not see how this can possibly be done. Take any fact in the universe, describe even a small change, and see if you can derive a contradiction. Say that the pen on my computer desk was two centimeters to the right of where it is. Is there a logical contradiction involved in thinking this? It is very difficult to see where. It is not just the fact that we cannot derive a contradiction by making this assumption; it is that it seems impossible to see, even in theory, how one could derive a logical contradiction. A weaker version of this view is that the laws of nature are logically necessary, even though the existence and position of the objects in the universe are contingent. For example, the laws of nature such as the speed of light or the strong nuclear force must have the strengths that they do have, but the entities to which they apply are different from the ones that actually exist. Let’s say, for example, that there might be a world where there is one less electron than the number that exist in the actual world. Again, the problem with this watered-down view is that there does not seem to be any reason to think that the laws of nature could not be other than they are. For example, as was argued above, one cannot derive a contradiction from saying that the speed of light be 186,283 miles per second instead of 186,282 miles per second, which it is. Indeed, it again seems difficult to imagine how there could even be a contradiction in this. Consider the following argument. Take any kind of finite measurement- size, shape, weight, mass, speed, etc.-of some object. Give the measurement some particular value. Say, 2 inches, 3 pounds, 40 miles per hour, etc. Now change the value to twice what it was: e.g., 4 inches, 6 pounds, 80 miles per hour. Does changing the value generate a logical contradiction in the object itself? There may be a contradiction in the way that the object behaves; obviously, if the object is twice as heavy, then it will exert twice as much force on anything that it is set upon. But no contradiction can be derived. If the laws of nature are merely descriptive of how things do in fact behave, then they explain nothing. They just describe how things act,without answering the question of why they do. On the other hand, if they are coercive, then they somehow cause natural objects to act in a certain manner. Laws are perhaps most plausibly thought of as abstract entities. However, abstract objects are held by almost everyone to not cause things. If so, then how could they possibly cause the relevant objects to act in the prescribed manner? The most plausible way of saying that the laws of nature cause objects to act in a certain manner is to hold that what the real situation is, is that the objects themselves have certain natures, and these natures are what make them act in that certain manner. The problem with this is the same as that which was described in the section above. There is no reason that the nature of objects would remain the same, or even that the objects would remain in existence over time. If one asserted that the universe and the laws that govern the actions of objects in it were necessary, there is still a major problem. This is that none of the laws of nature are necessary and universal. The fact is, there is an infinite number of laws that exist abstractly, and which could apply to the objects. Why, then, do only some of them affect the objects in the universe? Take the nature of objects themselves, for example, Bob the proton. That Bob has a certain nature at some time does nothing by itself show why it has the same nature at other times, or even why it continues to exist. In short, there is still no plausible account for the necessity of natural law, and hence no account of why the universe is not chaotic. " (Stephen Parrish "Atheism:A Critical Analysis")

@MasterMooper

Жыл бұрын

Didn't read everything but I think your comment assumes empiricism. Rationalism is on the table and is a viable option.

@MasterMooper

Жыл бұрын

actually it might go further and assume that rational knowledge is worthless.

@DaKoopaKing

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@@intelligentdesign2295 "That the universe itself is necessary, an initial objection to this view of natural law is that it seems strongly counter intuitive." Conjoining "seemings" with possible worlds talk leads to the following reductio: Imagine there is a possible world where humans have seemings that attributions of contingency and necessity are incoherent. Then at that world, it would be false that contingency and necessity are existent properties, because the only way by which the people in that world have knowledge about contingency and necessity - through private "seemings" - leads them to the conclusion that the concepts in question don't apply to anything. Therefore, we have just indexed the truth value of concepts like contingency and necessity to people's attitudes about them at different possible worlds - what various people believe at different possible worlds constructs the truth values of possible worlds talk. If constructivism about modality is unacceptable to you, then you have to give up using "seemings" and possible worlds talk at the same time, since they undercut each other. Furthermore, "it seems" is a claim about human psychology. We don't need to imagine possible worlds to gain inquiry into people's attitudes about "seemings" - we can conduct empirical studies that measure whether there are any universal "seemings" among humanity. And the prima facie case for this should be extremely doubtful - if you've ever asked people to evaluate conditionals like "Imagine that Joe Biden is the strongest man in the world," you've likely been met with boneheaded responses like "But Joe Biden isn't the strongest man in the world." In other words, a large portion of people have difficulty identifying modal claims, let alone interpreting their truth values. Also worth pointing out that this talk about "seemings" is largely a product of late 20th century analytic philosophy - continentals don't talk about "seemings," and Asian, African, South American, etc schools of thought by no means are all converging on this concept. It is very unlikely that philosophers can just legislate empirical claims about how things "seem" from the armchair about most human's psychology and be right, especially by conducting 0 empirical enquiry. "Holding that the universe is necessary, means that it could not possibly be other than it is." This wasn't the only example I gave; take space-time. Could you imagine a world with no space? Furthermore, possible worlds talk itself uses "worlds" i.e universes in order to evaluate modal claims - can you evaluate possible worlds talk without indexing it to a world/universe? I'm not taking a stand one way or another - just pointing out that there is a lot of conceptual unclarity here and underspecification about what modal talk is even supposed to accomplish. >At this moment in time there could not be any more or less crooked politicians in Washington than there are right now, and there could not be any fewer atoms in my desk than there actually are. If the universe is necessary, then there is no chance of other possibilities." This isn't an argument, this is just foot-stamping. What is the contradiction involved in the universe being necessitarian? Everything would be just as it is now, except our modal claims about contingency would be systematically false. But there is no causal connection between the truth value of modal claims and how we use modal concepts to plan for the future. If I am wrong that it could rain tomorrow because it was predetermined that it would be sunny and my modal concepts don't track this fact - I will still be prepared for when the (predetermined) day comes in the future where it will rain. If there were a fact about contingency, it would have no relation to how I actually use modal concepts to plan for the future. >Getting back to the universe and the laws that describe its behavior, how likely is it that they are all necessary-in the sense of absolutely or logically necessary? Not very. That is, one may easily conceive of something in the universe as being different than it is without a logical contradiction being generated. The same is true of God. >Say that the pen on my computer desk was two centimeters to the right of where it is. Is there a logical contradiction involved in thinking this? I can contest that there is a metaphysical contradiction because the location of the pen is a necessary fact. This is the same move that I expect one would make about altering God's triomni properties or his necessity. Which is to say - it's a dialectical move made with 0 intellectual support by both sides, so it shouldn't be taken seriously because the methodology we're using is incorrigible.

@DaKoopaKing

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@@MasterMooper I'm not presupposing anything, just that true facts should make a demonstrable difference in the world, otherwise I'm not sure what's being stated by calling something a "fact" if we can't investigate its truth conditions. I'm happy to allow rationalists to demonstrate their rational facts to me, but my feeling towards rationalism is that it's a retreat to solipsism and to the use of unfalsifiable/incorrigible methods that aren't truth-tracking in any way where people would reach intersubjective agreement. For example, claims about what can be rationally known are going to be claims about human psychology. We can perform empirical investigations around the world in different countries and across different cultures and figure out if there are any universal concepts or ascriptions of knowledge among humans that they believe they didn't acquire from experience. Unfortunately, I don't think philosophers are interested in actually investigating these claims, because once this is pointed out to them they instead fall back on private justification like how things "seem" to them in order to not defend their beliefs against existing public evidence. This move is like a theist claiming that everybody in the world has the exact same conception of the Christian God and of course everybody in the world worships him - after all, it "seems" to them like this is the case! Clearly, there's not much to do here except ignore people who reason in this way, because we'll never be able to convince them given the available public evidence that shows most people don't worship the same gods in the same ways - they've intentionally closed themselves off from it to continue believing what they want to be true. My worry is that modal talk about contingency and necessity is exactly like this, although I interpret the people involved to be conceptually confused moreso than acting in bad faith.

If the set can be explained by all its members, and the set contains contingent members, then wouldn't it contain at least one necessary member? If so, wouldn't God be part of the set? Or at least whatever is the most plausible necessary thing to explain the rest of the set would be part of the set.

Couldn't we say that what makes God's existence necessary is His Goodness. Further if all of His attributes are symmetrically dependent - they converge to a full circle without any kind of vicious circularity.

I don't know how Craig can say that God is self-explanatory, because Craig doesn't subscribe to divine simplicity. Because of that, God's necessity would just be a brute fact---for Craig.

@marlonfrometabarreto888

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What's your argument?

@geraldbritton8118

Жыл бұрын

Craig says, "So the claim that God is absolutely simple [snip] implies that God is literally incomprehensible." This leads to "a profound agnosticism about who or what God is. We can say only what He is not: not physical, not temporal, not spatial, etc. We can have no positive knowledge of God." This is why Craig rejects divine simplicity. See his extended discussion on his site under "#729 Divine Simplicity"