Do Aztecs and Christians worship the same God?

William Vallicella The Debate That Won't Go Away: Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

... So the conceptions of God in the two religions are radically different. But how is it supposed to follow that Christians and [Aztecs] worship numerically different Gods? It doesn't follow! Let me explain.

Suppose Sam's conception of the author of Das Kapital includes the false belief that the author is a Russian while Dave's conception includes the true belief that he is a German. This is consistent with there being one and same philosopher whom they have beliefs about and are referring to. One and the same man, Karl Marx, is such that Sam has a false belief about him while Dave has a true belief about him.

Now suppose [Atl]'s conception of the divine being includes the false belief that said being [demands, or at least requires/needs, unending blood sacrifice, and on an industrial scale] while Peter's conception includes the true belief that God [offered himself once and for all as the only fitting blood sacrifice]. This is consistent with there being one and same being whom they have beliefs about and are referring to. One and the same god, God, is such that [Atl] has a false belief about him while Peter has a true belief about him.

What I have just shown is that from the radically different, and indeed inconsistent, God-conceptions one cannot validly infer that (normative) Christians and (normative) [Aztecs] refer to and worship numerically different Gods. For the difference in conceptions is consistent with sameness of referent. So you can see that Fr. O'Brien has made a mistake.

Or, alternately, we *could* allow ourselves to see that William Vallicella has made the same mistake he constantly insists upon making.

You know, it's one thing to say that Protestants and Catholics worship the same God, despite that Catholicism just can't seem to get that "once and for all" bit; it's quite another thing to say that Moslems and Christians worship the same God, when nearly every statement of Islam touching on Christ is *explicitly* formulated as a denial of a Christian statement.

But nota bene: Difference in conceptions is also consistent with a difference in referent. It could be that when a Christian uses 'God' he refers to something while a Muslim refers to nothing when he uses 'Allah.' Consider God and Zeus. Will you say that the Christian and the ancient Greek polytheist worship the same God except that the Greek has false beliefs about their common object of worship, believing as he does that Zeus is a superman who lives on a mountain top, literally hurls thunderbolts, etc.? Or will you say that there is no one God that they worship, that the Christian worships a being that exists while the Greek worships a nonexistent object? And if you say the latter, why not also say the same about God and Allah, namely, that there is no one being that they both worship, that the Christian worships the true God, the God that really exists, whereas Muslims worship a God that does not exist?

Well, you *could* say, as I do, that the being whom Moslems worship does indeed exist and is not God.

In sum, difference in conceptions is logically consistent both with sameness of referent and difference of referent.

You don't say! Might that be why -- contrary to Vallicella's prestntation of him -- Fr. O'Brien noted not simply differences between the Christian and Moslem conceptions of God, but also explicit Islamic repudiations of key Christian concepts?

Summary

Most of the writing on this topic is exasperatingly superficial and uninformed, even that by theologians. Fr. O'Brien is a case in point. He thinks the question easily resolved: you simply note the radical difference in the Christian and Muslim God-conceptions and your work is done. Others make the opposite mistake. They think that, of course, Christians and Muslims worship the same God either by making Tuggy's mistake above or by thinking that the considerable overlap in the two conceptions settles the issue.

My thesis is not that the one side is right or that the other side is right. My thesis is that the question is a very difficult one that entangles us in controversial inquiries in the philosophies or mind and language.

Well, Vallicella does love him some entanglements and "inquiries" -- he loves nothing more than to keep jawboning a question while never arriving at an answer.

Morality ... and God!

Victor Reppert: "If the Christian God exists, doesn't he get to decide what is right or wrong? Or could an existing God be mistaken about, for example, whether gay relationships are right or not.

Consider the following scenario: God created the world, and decreed that marriage was the only proper place for sex, and that marriage was a relationship between a man and a woman. But, he got it wrong, and gay was really OK.

Is that scenario even possible?"

Legion of Logic: "Can God be wrong about morality? Can the creator of chess be wrong that bishops move diagonally?

The only way God could be wrong about morality would be if either he didn't create the universe, or morality somehow transcends both God and the universe. But in any scenario in which God created the universe and morality does not transcend both, then God can't possibly be wrong ..."

me: Moreover, if one posits that morality transcends God-the-Creator-of-the-Universe, all one has actually done is assert-without-reason that there is a God-Above-God-the-Creator ... and then we are right back to Square One with nothing "solved" from the point of view of the person who wishes to set himself up as competent to put God-the-Creator on trial.

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Morality exists if and only if there are persons -- which is to say, free agents -- for moral obligations obtain only between persons/agents. That is, a person does not have a moral obligation to a rock, nor a rock to a person, for only agents may have moral expectations which impose corresponding moral obligations upon other agents.

Moreover, morality exists if and only if there are persons in communion or relationship, for moral obligations obtain only between persons in relation to other persons. That is, the precise moral expectations and obligations between persons depend upon and follow from the relationship between them -- for example: if there are persons living on a distant planet, we have no moral obligations to them, nor they to us, because there is no relationship whatsoever between them and us.

HOWEVER, the reality of moral expectatons and obligations cannot be grounded in the relationships between contingent persons. To attempt to do so is just another way of denying the transcendent reality of morality; it's just to deny that there really is any such thing as morality.

Consider: if one person is a ruler and another person is ruled by that ruler, then those two persons are in a relationship which imposes certain, though different, expectations and consequent obligations on each. Now, add a third person, one who is also ruled by that same ruler. IF the moral expectations and obligations between ruler and ruled followed from the relationships between these contingent persons, then any commonality between the moral expectations and obligations obtaining between the ruler and the first subject, on the one hand, and between the ruler and the second subject, on the other hand, would be accidental/coincidental -- to discover/understand some fact of the moral expectations and obligations obtaining between the ruler and the first subject would tell you nothing about the moral expectations and obligations obtaining between the ruler and the second subject.

THUS, morality is, and must be, grounded in the relationship(s) obtaining between non-contingent persons.

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And, by the way, I have just demonstrated that God is a plurality of persons -- while this is not a demonstration that God is precisely Three Persons, it *is* a demonstration that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is not in conflict with what "unaided reason" can tell us about the nature of God ... or of ourselves.

At the same time (without getting into it here), reason also tells us that there is One God.

So, there is One God ... who is a plurality of Persons.

Teletubbieworld

Shadow to Light: Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Argument From Evil: Toothless and Useless --

The modern day atheist movement has only one argument to support atheism – The Argument From Evil. ...

The Argument from Evil boils down to this: If there is a God, we should all be Teletubbie-like creatures living in a Teletubbie-like world. Since we are not Teletubbie-like creatures living in a Teletubbie-like world, there is no God.

... From my perspective, this world, with all its evil, is better that a Teletubbie-like world.

So we are left wondering – Is the Argument from Evil the atheist’s way of expressing his/her desire to be a Teletubbie?

1) Moral evil -- wickedness -- results from wicked choices that moral agents freely make. So, what the childish so-called atheists are childishly insisting is that either:
1a) no one be *free* to make wicked choices -- yet, when they're not railing against God for allowing other people to make wicked choices, they're railing against him for forbidding certain acts (especially odd or perverse uses of the sexual organs) as wicked choices;
1b) or, moral agents be free to make wicked choices, but that the choices must have no evil consequences -- in effect, they're demanding that God make the world be irrational, by severing the link between cause-and-effect;

2) Natural evil -- injurious events that "just happen", without a moral component -- results from the fact of change: it is logically impossible for God to make a world in which change occurs and yet no change has any consequence for any other element in the world. Sure, God could have created a static world -- a *dead* world -- but *we* couldn't live in it. So, with regard to natural evil, what the childish so-called atheists are childishly insisting is that either:
2a) God place us in a world in which nothing ever changes, that is, a *dead* world;
2b) or, God place us in a world in which change does occur, but that no change ever have unwelcome consequences -- in effect, they're demanding that God make the world be irrational, by severing the link between cause-and-effect.

So, what it comes down to is that the 'atheists' are insisting that God can create only a world in which either --
a) there are no moral agents -- i.e. a non-rational world;
b) there are no causes -- i.e. an irrational world, in which events occur but don't cause consequences;
c) there are no events at all -- i.e. a static or dead world;

Implications!

In a recent post on Victor Reppert's blog, Bob Prokop explodes the common atheistic talking point that critical thinking leads one to embrace atheism --

"I'm curious what you think would be an acceptable demonstration of the claim that critical thinking leads to atheism. (I do think this is true, but I am wondering what you think would demonstrate it to you, and others.)"

It's not gonna happen, because there is simply no conceivable way that honest, critical thinking will ever lead to atheism.

Atheism demands that one close one's mind to the illogic of something coming from nothing (or else one has to redefine "nothing" to the point where it is actually "something").

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means there is no objective morality, that good and evil are nothing more than subjective judgements of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

Atheism demands that one ignore the fact that 99.9 percent of humanity since the Dawn of Time have believed in, worshiped, and prayed to God (or to gods). Atheists are required to think their tiny minority are "right" and the overwhelming majority of people are "wrong" about the most important of all imaginable questions.

Atheists must insist that all questions can be reduced to matters of empirical evidence and "science" - that art, literature, history, music, architecture, personal experience, all are somehow defective or fundamentally lacking, not quite worthy of trust, ultimately to be (negatively) evaluated against the one-and-only objective standard given the atheist seal of approval.

Atheists must never, ever allow themselves to realize that atheism means that everything is meaningless, that in the end of ends it does not matter what kind of life one leads, or even whether one is or is not an atheist - because a single microsecond after one's death, it is all as though it never happened, so who cares?

Atheists must never face up to the inevitable implication of materialism that individual identity does not really exist - that we are simply complex bundles of matter and energy, which, if its configuration is somehow altered or destroyed, becomes something else.

Atheists must believe that our noblest traits, our highest aspirations, our sublimest thoughts, are nothing more than electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a soulless meat machine, of no greater significance than combustion or sublimation. The love I feel for my family is simply a Darwinian survival mechanism.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Atheism is the very negtion of critical thinking. To the contrary, a case can be made for its being perilously close to insanity

Exactly!

Both the affirmation of the reality of God and the denial of the reality of God are statements about the very nature of reality, of truth, of reason, of morality, of meaning, of love, of beauty, of personhood, of agency, and of our individual selves (and of much else, besides; that list is not exhaustive). The question of the reality of God is the First Question, because everything else follows from the answer to that question.

At the very least, every one of the demands and entailments of God-denial that Mr Prokop lists ought to give one pause regarding one's God-denial if one really is engaging in critical thinking; and some of them are sufficient to demonstrate the falsity of God-denial. Thus, if one really is engaging in critical thinking, then one simply will not continue to deny the reality of God. So, far from critical thinkng leading a person to atheism, in truth it leads one away.

Consider just a few of the above entailments of atheism --

Atheists must never, ever allow themselves to realize that atheism means that everything is meaningless, that in the end of ends it does not matter what kind of life one leads, or even whether one is or is not an atheist - because a single microsecond after one's death, it is all as though it never happened, so who cares?

This is one of the logical entailments of God-denial that ought to cause one to seriously doubt that God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality. That is, this entailment itself doesn't show that God-denial is false (though other entailments do), but it does show that very few human beings -- including one's own atheistic-professing self -- are actually capable of *really* believing that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality.

No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that *everything* -- including atheism itself -- is meaningless. No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that it doesn't matter in the least what a person believes about the nature of reality. No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that it doesn't matter in the least how a person conducts his life.

Now, of course, the fact that no one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes this particular logically inescapable entailment of God-denial does not in itself prove that God-denial is the false view of reality. But it does expose a very serious cognitive dissonance involved in attempting to assert that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality -- if one doesn't believe the logically inescapable entailments of a proposition which one asserts, then one either doesn't really understand the proposition or one doesn't really believe the proposition in the first place. If one asserts that 1+1=2 and yet denies that 2+1=3, then one either does not understand what one is talking about, or one doesn't really believe what one has asserted.

It's a curiosity: atheism is odd, and possibly unique, in this regard -- atheism is a world-view the truth of which matters not in the least were it actually the truth about the nature of reality; the question of the truth of atheism matters only if atheism is not true.

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means there is no objective morality, that good and evil are nothing more than subjective judgements of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

This is another of the logical entailments of God-denial that ought to cause one to seriously doubt that God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality -- even the people who explicitly and publically assert that there is no such thing as objective-and-transcendent morality continuously demonstrate by their own behavior that they don't really believe what they have asserted!

Consider just one common example of their behavior belying their assertions --

Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') is on very public record of affirming the logical entailment of atheism that there are no such things as 'right' and 'wrong', that is, that there is no such thing as transcendent morality, and of affirming this as a logical entailment of atheism. Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') is *also* on very public record of asserting that this or that (e.g. rearing one's child as a Christian; being a "creationist"; punishing criminals because they have chosen to be criminals; being sexually jealous of one's spouse; and on and on) is 'wrong'. Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') constantly asserts that there is no "way things ought to be" ... and also constanly asserts that this or that "ought not be" -- this is a blatant self-contradiction: either he (and they) does not really believe the former assertion, or does not really believe the latter assertion(s).


Now, consider this immediate topic in light of the prior one.

Suppose it really is the case that there are no such things as 'right' and 'wrong', that is, that there is no such thing as transcendent morality. And after all, this really is a logically inescapable entailment of atheism.

And, suppose it really is the case that that *everything* really is ultimately and utterly meaningless, and thus it doesn't matter in the least how one conducts one's life. And after all, this really is a logically inescapable entailment of atheism.

Now, suppose those two propositions simultaneously -- for, after all, if atheism really is the truth about the nature of reality, then both propositions are true.

Does one now see how it is that so many 'atheists' constantly seek to shape public opinion by means of asserting self-contradictions?

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means [that all our thoughts/judgements/conclusions are nothing more than the output] of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

Atheists must believe that our noblest traits, our highest aspirations, our sublimest thoughts, are nothing more than electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a soulless meat machine, of no greater significance than combustion or sublimation. The love I feel for my family is simply a Darwinian survival mechanism.

If atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then you cannot reason -- you cannot *know* anything ... including that you cannot know anything ... and including knowing that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality.

Everything that is coheres, and it cohers in God, and God alone: to deny the reality of God is to deny the coherence of reality. This doubtless explains why 'atheists' so readily retreat into irrationality as a means to protect their God-denial from rational critical evaluation -- contrary to their constant self-promotion, they are not committed to reason/rationality, but merely to refusing to acknowledge God.

Atheists must never face up to the inevitable implication of materialism that individual identity does not really exist - that we are simply complex bundles of matter and energy, which, if its configuration is somehow altered or destroyed, becomes something else.

This is one of the logically inescapable entailments of God-denial which shows it to be absurd, and thus shows it to be false, and thus shows its denial to be true.

When one encounters a God-denier saying such things as "Consciousness is an illusion" or "The 'self' is an illusion" or "There is no such thing as 'free-will'", that isn't just some blow-hard blowing hard (however much that 'atheists' tend to be blow-hards). These claims and other such claims are logically inescapable entailments of atheism.

And when one encounters a God-denier saying something like, "Well, I am an 'atheist', and *I* don't believe that consciousness is an illusion", then one simply is dealing with a blow-hard -- what this or that 'atheist' is willing to affirm does not alter the set of propositions which are logical entailments of atheism.

When one denies the reality of God, then logically and inescapably one has also denied the reality of one's own self: but this is absurd. Since one *knows* that it is absurd to deny the reality of one's own self, and since this absurd denial is logically entailed by the denial of the reality of God, then one *knows* that the initial or grounding absurdity is in the denial of the reality of God.

This is why I say that every 'atheist', as an 'atheist', is intellectually dishonest. This isn't just me being "mean"; this is me "following the logic where it leads" -- atheism is absurd (and thus is false); atheism entails obvious absurdities (and thus is seen obviously to be false); not a single one of the 'atheists' one will ever encounter has any rationally exculpating excuse for continuing to ignore the absurdity of God-denial; that is, every single 'atheist' one will ever encounter asserts the absurdity of God-denial knowing it to be absurd, and thus knowing it to be false.

As the Apostle Paul wrote 2000 years ago: men are without excuse in denying (and failing to love-and-worship) God. Pace Bertrand Russell, men do not deny the reality of God because they have "insufficient evidence". Rather, they deny the reality of God because they refuse to acknowledge the truth they already know.

Refusing to see what's right in from of your face

William Vallicella: Does Evil Prove the Nonexistence of God? --

I'll grant you that it does if you grant me that truth, existence, order, conscience and twenty of so other phenomena prove the existence of God. And let's not leave out the moral heroism of Maximilian Kolbe.

You can reasonably ask how there could be a God given the fact of natural and moral evil. You can also reasonably ask how there could not be a God given the transcendent moral heroism and selflessness of Kolbe and others like him.

I'll grant you that evil argues the nonexistence of God if you grant me that evil also argues the existence of God. (Click on the first hyperlink and locate the argument from evil for the existence of God.)

My point is that there are no rationally compelling arguments for or against the existence of God.

Whatever it may be, it is not his *point* that "there are no rationally compelling arguments for or against the existence of God."

Consider -- "I'll grant you that evil argues the nonexistence of God if you grant me that evil also argues the existence of God."

What Vallicella is referring to here is that 'evil' is utterly meaningless if atheism is the truth about the nature of reality.

IF there is no Creator (*) -- if the world just randomly happened -- THEN there can be no "way things ought to be"; that is, there is no such thing as 'good'. AND, if there is no "way things ought to be", then there can be no violation of the "way things ought to be"; that is, there is no such thing as 'evil'.

Contrary to all the confused (when not merely dishonest) bleating of 'atheists', far from being evidence against the reality of God, the reality is evil is evidence *for* the reality of God.

Now, Vallicella does actually know this, but he will not see it and he will not acknowledge it, because he has a prior commitment to the falsehood that "there are no rationally compelling arguments for or against the existence of God."

In other words, the man is a fool.


(*) Not only must it be the case that there is some entity which may be called 'God', but this entity must be the cause of the world -- this 'God' cannot be an item in the world, but is rather "outside the world" -- this 'God' must be transcendent and immaterial and eternal. At the same time, it is not enough that 'God' be the cause of the world, 'God' must be the deliberate cause of the world -- this 'God' must be personal.

In other words, even before he can appeal to 'evil' as his rationale for denying the reality of God, the so-called atheist must make the logically prior appeal to a transcendent, eternal, immaterial and personal Creator-God.

A Theology of Slut Walks

Douglas Wilson: A Theology of Slut Walks

... Every absurd conclusion is, at some level, a valid derivation from absurd premises, but enough about any given screen shot of the Drudge Report.

Slut walks provide a great example of this. Once we trace the absurdity back upstream, we might learn something about the premises ...

The point of slut walks is ostensibly a simple one. It is that dressing in any particular way in no way justifies rape. Put in a less sympathetic way, it is that dressing provocatively must never be considered a provocation. ...

Slutwalks are also -- like *everything* to do with feminism (*) -- about power. Specifically, they are about demonstrating the power of certain females (to wit: feminists) (*) to compel men, all men, to acquiesce to blatant falsehoods.


(*) for feminism is a sub-set of leftism; and leftism has only the one nail, so to leftists, everything looks like a hammer.

(**) ironically, or not, whatever power feminists seem to have is *only* because certain powerful men find it convenient to give it to them.

A fool for all seasons

William Vallicella, 'the Maverick Philosopher', is a fool. And his foolishness in rooted in his refusal to acknowledge -- indeed, even to critically examine the question (*) -- that we human beings can know that the Creator is; and that, in fact, we cannot *not* know that the Creator is.

Consider these recent pronouncements --

William Vallicella: The Decline of the Culture of Free Discussion and Debate

... And now we notice a very interesting and important point. To be a liberal in the old old sense (a paleo-liberal) is, first and foremost, to value toleration. Toleration is the touchstone of classical liberalism. (Morris Raphael Cohen) But why should we be tolerant of (some of) the beliefs and (some of) the behaviors of others? Because we cannot responsibly claim to know, with respect to certain topics, what is true and what ought to be done/left undone. Liberalism (in the good old sense!) requires toleration, and toleration requires fallibilism. But if we can go wrong, we can go right, and so fallibilism presupposes and thus entails the existence of objective truth. A good old liberal must be an absolutist about truth and hence cannot be a PC-whipped lefty.

Examples. Why tolerate atheists? Because we don't know that God exists. Why tolerate theists? Because we don't know that God does not exist. And so on through the entire range of Big Questions. But toleration has limits. ...

Now, aside from the fact that we *can* know that God is -- that in fact, we all do know it already -- the reason to tolerate God-deniers has nothing to do with knowledge or ignorance of the reality of God.

By Vallicella's rationale for tolerating them, should the majority of humanity come to accept the truth that we human beings can, and do, know that God is, it would then be “right” to cease to tolerate the God-deniers amongst us. You know, like they do to us whenever they get their filthy paws on the levers of governmental force. And the reason they *always* persecute us is precisely because their metaphysical commitments provide no reason to refrain from doing it.

William Vallicella: Does the Atheist Deny What the Theist Affirms?

So I am quite puzzled by Ryan's claim that the existence of God is contradicted by much of what we know to be true. I would like him to produce just one proposition that we know to be true that entails the nonexistence of God. The plain truth of the matter, as it seems to me, is that nothing we know to be true rules out the existence of God. I cheerfully concede that nothing we know to be true rules it in either. Pace the doctor angelicus, one cannot rigorously prove the existence of God. One can argue for the existence of God, but not prove the existence of God. By 'argue for the existence of God,' I mean give good arguments, plausibly-premised arguments free of formal and informal fallacy, arguments that render theistic belief reasonable. What I claim cannot be done, however, is provide rationally compelling arguments, arguments that will force every competent philosophical practioner to accept their conclusions on pain of being irrational if he does not.

2. Ryan also claims that there is no evidence for the God hypothesis. This strikes me as just plain false. There are all kinds of evidence. That it is not the sort of evidence Ryan and fellow atheists would accept does not show that it is not evidence. People have religious and mystical experiences of many different kinds. There is the 'bite of conscience' that intimates a Reality transcendent of the space-time world. Some experiences of beauty intimate the same. There are the dozens and dozens of arguments for the existence of God. Add it up and you have a cumulative case for theism.

The atheist will of course discount all of this. But so what? I will patiently discount all his discountings and show in great detail how none of them are rationally compelling. I will show how he fails to account for obvious facts (consciousness, self-consciouness, conscience, intentionality, purposiveness, etc.) if he assumes that all that exists is in the space-time world. I will expose and question all his assumptions. I will vigorously and rigorously drive him to dogmatism. Having had all his arguments neutralized, if not refuted, he will be left with nothing better than the dogmatic assertion of his position.

Look at this, the last paragraph especially: right there, the fool *has* proven that atheism is false -- which is to say, contrary to his continuous insistence that no one can either prove or disprove the reality of God, *he* has proven, right there, that God is.

But he refuses to see it, for he is a fool: he values something more than he values truth. And one of the things he values more that truth is "discussion and debate" (as in the title of the first linked post)


(*) his characterization of me as a "punk" is a manifestation of his refusal to reason about the matter, pure and simple.

The reason it's logically impossible to reason with 'these people'

As as follow-up to the previous post, the reason it's logically impossible to reason with 'these people' is that were they to honestly engage the issue, that honest engagement would compel them to acknowledge that atheism is false. Notice, I I didn't say that honest engagement with the issue would compel them to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is God -- that's a further issue, that cannot be addressed until first acknowledging that there is a Creator-God.

In the prior post, I presented the exchange, such as it is, of (the ever polite) Victor Reppert attempting to reason with JDHuey.

In this post, I'm give you mean ol' me, who has no need to be polite to liars, and worse than liars. In this post, copied verbatim from what I posted on Reppert's blog, I give you, once again, the proof that atheism is false ... as demonstrarted by those very logical entailments that JDHuey denies that anyone has ever shown.

some liar:"Nobody on this blog has ever shown that there are any logical entailments resulting from God not existing. People here state that they have, but they are mistaken."

Now, understand this: his assertion of false (it is, in fact, a lie). Many people, including Reppert (and me) have shown that there are propositions logically entailed by denying the reality of God, and have shown that these logical entailments are false.

VR:"The entailments would have to be ..."

You're trying to reason with someone who will lie to your face? This fellow has been posting here for months: it is not ignorace that explains how he comes to say that no one on this blog has ever shown that there are any logical entailments of God's non-existence. And it clearly isn't stupidity that explains his saying it. The only option left is that he is speaking from a stance of dishonesty. And, due to the particular nature of the subject matter, his lying isn't *merely* lying, he's engaging in intellectual dishonesty (aka: intellectual hypocrisy).

VR:"The entailments would have to be from the fact that mental states are not fundamental to the universe. This doesn't entail theism directly, though it does rule out the philosophies of mind that most atheists hold. Nagel would be an exception."

Your first sentence is not false, but it it incomplete; and your second sentence, the conclusion based on it, is false.

There are no such things as "mental states" if there are no such things as minds. So, if atheism were the truth about the nature of reality, then it is not *simply* that it is a "fact that mental states are not fundamental to the universe", but rather that it is a fact that there is no *mind* who is "fundamental to the universe" (and, after all, that's just a restatement of Western-style materialistic atheism).

And, if it is a fact that there is no mind who is "fundamental to the universe", then it is also a fact, as it is a logical entailment of the previous (alleged) fact, that agent freedom is not "fundamental to the universe". That is, Western-style materialistic atheism directly entails absolute mechanical physicalist/materialistic determinism. (Any non-materialistic atheism also entails determinism; for the determinism isn't "in" the matter, it's in the denial that there is a mind who is fundamental to reality),

So, if atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then *every* event and state-change that may occur in reality is mechanically determined by prior events and states.

Now, if *every* event and state-change is mechanically determined by prior events and states, then there are no such things as agents; for the single most salient fact about an 'agent' is that he is not wholly determined: neither by the mechanical results of prior events and states, nor by "random" (i.e. "uncaused") events and states.

Or, to limit the scope of our investigation to "the universe", as you have done: if atheism is the truth about what is "fundamental to the universe", then *every* event and state-change of "the universe" is mechanically determined by prior physical events and states.

Again, if *every* event and state-change is mechanically determined by prior physical events and states, then there are no such things as agents, as in the above more general demonstration.

But, *we* are agents. We *all* know that we are agents: so, when that intellectual hypocrite with whom VR was attempting to reason, or any of the others, demands that someone "prove" that we are agents, claiming that this isn't a self-evident fact, then you know that you're dealing with someone who will assert that 0=1 if that suits his purpose: that is, not a mere liar, but a an intellectually dishonest person, an intellectual hypocrite.

Notwithstanding that, we can, as it turns out, prove that we are agents, using the method of proof by contradiction (which is the method I am presently using to prove that God is).

For, if we are not agents, then we are wholly deternimed by prior events and states. That's just a restatement of the definition of non-agency.

Now, if we are we are wholly deternimed by prior events and states, then we do not, and cannot, engage in acts reasoning. For, when engaging in an act of reasoning, the proper movement from 'A' to 'B' is not determined by any prior event or state (whether physical/material or not), but rather is demanded by the logical relationship obtaining between 'A' and 'B'. Gentle Reader will notice that I didn't say that the movement from 'A' to 'B' is determined by the logical relationship: this is because, as we are agents, as we are indeed free, we are free to refuse to make the movement demanded by logic-and-reason: that is, we are free to engage in intellectual dishonesty.

But, if we are not agents, that is, if we are wholly deternimed by prior events and states, then while the words, "If 'A' then 'B'; 'A', therefore, 'B'" might come out our mouths, there was on our part no decision to say it, and there was no prior act of reasoning behind our saying it. If one says it, he says it because prior events and states determined that the words come out his mouth. It could as well have been the words "If 'A' then 'B'; 'A', therefore, 'tomato'" that came out one's mouth.

But, the foregoing demonstrates an act of reasoning (and valid reasoning, at that, however much the intellectual hypocrites deny it). So, since we *can* reason, it is necessarily true that we are agents, that we are free, that we are not wholly determined by prior events and states.

So, as we have seen, one of the logical entailments of God-denial is affirmation of the assertion that we are not agents. And, as we have seen, another of the logical entailments of God-denial is affirmation of the assertion that we cannot engage in acts reasoning.

Another logical entailment of God-denial is that we cannot know any truths. The proof of this is as above, and I'm not going to walk the reader through it again. This is to say that we cannot know anything. And thus, we cannot speak the truth; nor can we lie, that is we cannot choose to speak what we know, or reasonably ought to know, to be untrue. Certainly, words may come out of our mouths that an agent, if one existed, may recognize are being true or false. But, if God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality, then there are no agents, and *we* cannot recognize the words coming out our mouths as being true or false, nor as having any meaning whatsoever.

The ultimate logical entailment of God-denial is that we ourselves don't even exist. I've walked through the reasoning behind that statement before; and I'm not going to do it again here (moveover, Gentle Reader is intelligent enough to see that it follows from the above).

When a so-called atheist says something like, and tries to convince you to believe that, "The self is an illusion", while his statement is internally incoherent (and is, indeed, self-refuting), he *is* generally trying his best to express this ultimate logical entailment of God-denial. That is, if there is no God, then there is no you!.

But, the proposition that you are not is false, and you *know* that it is false. Therefore, as the proposition that you are not is logically entailed by the proposition that God is not, it logically follows that the falsehood of the entailment proves the falsehood of initial premise: that is, the proposition that God is not is false, and you *know* that it is false. And, if the proposition that God is not is false, then the contrary proposition, that God is, is true; and you *know* that it is true.

Therefor: no man has any excuse for continuing to deny the reality of God. All men who continue to refuse to affirm the reality of God -- both 'atheists' and 'agnostics' -- are doing so because they *choose* to be intellectually dishonest on this matter. And, since this is the most fundamental question about the nature of reality, and of ourselves, it follows that no one should ever trust that any of them are telling the truth about anything. Certainly, they *may* tell the truth about some matter that doesn't immediately seem related to the ultimate question, but it is irrational of you to trust that they are doing so, for you *know* that they willingly lie about this question behind all other questions.


that liar, again:"If God does not exist then the world is exactly like it is. We simply have no need for that hypothesis."

If God is not, then there are no such things as hypotheses.

If God is not, then it is no lie (*) if I assert that JDHuey kidnaps and then rapes and murders babies, and then eats the corpses to hide the evidence. If God is not, then were I to assert this thing, that is simply "the world [being] exactly like it is".

(*) In this context, even actually making such a statement is not a lie at all, even had I not made it clear that I'm not making any such statement, for it would have been made to demonstrate the point of what is entailed by the lying fool's assertion that God is not.

And, there is one last thing I wish to add -- JDHuey's (ahem) refutation of the above arguement: "llion, Or it could be the case that I and the others are simply correct and you are wrong (and perhaps delusional)."

Recall: his assertion with which we started was that no one on that blog had ever shown that there are any logical entailments of denying the reality of God. Even had his claim been true that no one ever had, in the series of posts copied above, I had shown some of the logical entailments of denying the reality of God.

And his response was to demonstrate that his initial assertion of there having been no logical entailments of atheism ever presented on the blog really means, "I will never so much as consider any of the logical entailments of asserting atheism is the truth about the nature of reality".

It's logically impossible to reason with such people -- they already *know* the truth of the matter; the problem is that they will not acknowledge the truth.

The truth about 'the problem of evil'

There is a wildly popular "argument" (*) against the reality of the Biblical Creator-God, generally called "the problem of evil", but also called "the problem of pain" and "the problem of suffering". So popular is this "argument", that it is frequently called "the single strongest argument for atheism".

I wish to share with Gentle Reader this incisive comment concerning the so-called argument -- Blog & Mablog Tired of Paradise

"Adam did not rebel against God because he was tired of living in a slum. No, his children live in slums because he grew tired of living in Paradise . . . The cause of the evil is our revolt against the good, which we routinely justify by pointing at the evil" (Rules, p. 135).

Here is a video of some fool named Steven Fry illustrating a typical deployment of "the problem of evil/pain/suffering". What, do you think, are the odds that he puts on that much a show about abortion? What, do you think, are the odds that he donates *any* of his own money to charities that effectively battle the causes of childhood blindness? Oh, come on! You've been around the block: you know, without even Googling him, that he works himself into a white-hot rage only if anyone suggests reducing the number of abortions, or not forcing the tax-payer to fund them (which amounts to reducing the occurrence); and that he'll heatedly blather-on about "greedy" conservatives who wish to reduce the size of The State, which, among other thing, involves reducing everyone's tax burden, even as he shelters his own income, which is more substantial than yours and mine, from taxation.

In other words, to the likes of Steven Fry, it's the pose that matters, not the substance or facts.


(*) It's not really an argument, as can be seen by the fact that having been given a rational-and-logical answer to the proposed problem, the person who poses it is *never* satisfied that he has received an answer. This is because he's not posing a rational-and-logical question, however much it may initially appear to be one.

What *is* it with God-deniers?

What *is* it with God-deniers that leads (or compels?) them to be so incredibly dense about the matter of morality?

Consider this post by David Friedman: Duck Dynasty, Medieval Islam, and Moral Philosophy. Specifically, consider carefully his opening paragraph --

There was a recent public flap, brought to my attention by a post on my favorite blog, over a speech by Phil Robertson, the patriarch of Duck Dynasty. Its claim was that an atheist had no basis for moral judgement, no ground on which to describe horrific acts (described in some detail in the talk) as bad.

I have no idea what Mr Robertson did or did not say, but what Mr Friedman wrote as representing what he said is a fairly common argument and/or claim; so, I have no reason to even suspect that Friedman is misrepresenting Robertson. So, let's go with that statement as being the gist of Robertson's position.

Now, consider Friedman's third paragraph, wherein he imagines he has spotted a logical flaw in Robertson's position --

I see a logical problem with both Robertson's position and the position of his Ash'arite predecessors. You encounter a powerful supernatural being. If you have no ability to distinguish good from evil on your own, how can you tell whether he is God, the Devil, or, like the Greek and Norse gods, a morally ambiguous being, no more consistently good than the rest of us?

Friedman isn't even talking about the same thing Robertson is talking about.

When you get down to it, Friedman is merely making the same old, tired "rebuttal" to Robertson that the village atheists with ethernet cables always make, to wit: "Robertson is asserting that I can't be moral" ... which accusation has no relationship to what Robertson actually said.

And let's not even start with Mr Friedman's supercilious final paragraph.

Why mental states are not physical states

Victor Reppert has a recent small post, Why mental states are not physical states. As is his habit, or modesty, he doesn't take the idea he's (tentatively) exploring to its logical conclusion, which is that we -- embodied rational beings -- are the proof that God -- the unembodied Rational Being of all beings -- is.

In a comment to his OP, I do take the idea to that conclusion (of course), and I might as well share it with you (or course). But the *main* point of this post is to demolish the *denial* of what Reppert wrote --
Victor Reppert:

If mental states are physical states, then the truth about what someone believes should follow necessarily from the state of the brain/physical world. But it doesn't. If we line up all the physical facts, we have every atom traced, the argument from The brain is in state X therefore he must believe, say, that God exists, cannot follow necessarily. The state of the physical always leaves the state of the mental indeterminate. But what my thought is about is determinate, not indeterminate. Therefore my belief is not a physical state.

Me, taking the idea to its logical conclusion:

... and thereby do we know that naturalism and materialism and indeed atheism (*) is false.

(*) For, it isn't the physicalism that shows naturalism and materialism to be false, it is the determinism.

An even better word to have used than 'determinism', even if I have to coin it myself, is 'machinality'.

Contrary to the assertions of some of the God-deniers who admit the inescapable problem with 'materialism', yet vainly imagine that there is some 'atheism' out there free of the flaw (*), the flaw -- the logical entailment of the denial that we ourselves even *can* exist -- the flaw goes deeper than mere 'materialism'; the flaw is in God-denial itself.

What is at the heart of 'atheism'? What does it *mean* to say that "God is not"? The heart of 'atheism', the meaning of God-denial, is the assertion that there is no Person -- no Agent -- who is "the ground of all being". That is, whatever it is that may properly be said to be "the gound of all being", that thing is not a person, is not an agent, and, consequently, does not, and cannot, posses the properties that distinguish persons from non-persons and agents from non-agents.

One of the properties that distinguish persons from non-persons and agents from non-agents is freedom; in fact, freedom is the main characteristic of agency. As agent is active, rather than passive; and agent is not merely acted upon, but rather, acts. An agent is free to initiate novel causal-webs, rather than merely being acted upon by pre-existing causal-webs.

When God-deniers deny the reality of God -- deny that God, a Person, an Agent, is *the* fundamental reality -- then they are denying that it is even possible for there to be *any* agents and *any* persons. When God-deniers deny the reality of God, they are asserting that *everything* that is is a machine, a passively deterministic entity, whether or not it has any material component.

To deny the reality of the Divine Person(s) is also -- necessarily -- to deny the reality of human persons; this is why I keep saying that "You are the proof that God is!"

Some God-deniers try to get around that cardinal difficulty of atheism (and disproof of it) by ad hoc positing that perhaps 'Mind' or 'Consciousness' or some similar concept is "fundamental to reality", and as 'atheism', per se doesn't (appear to) deny the possibility, that therefore 'atheism' isn't seen to be necessarily false, and is off the hook for internal incoherence.

But, there is no such thing as 'Mind', nor any of the related concepts to which they ad hoc appeal, unless there is an actually existing mind. When the God-deniers try this particular stunt, what they are really doing is trying to after-the-fact smuggle God into the foundation of their world-view, via the cellar door, while continuing to shout out the front door and all the windows that there is no God.


(*) Not that they *ever* do more than vaguely wave their hands and declare the problem solved to their satisfaction.

John Moore, denying Repper's reasoning (as, being a God-denier, he *must*):

Yes it does. If we line up all the physical facts, with every atom traced, then we can see precisely what the brain believes. We can see how particular sensory inputs will activate particular neural pathways and eventually produce motor output such as a speech act saying "I believe X."

I wish I could understand why Victor says it doesn't. Please provide more explanation.

Looking at a computer circuit, we can see that particular inputs inevitably lead to particular outputs. That's how the electrical circuit works. The brain is also a kind of electrical circuit. It is hugely complex and made of different stuff, but the brain still looks entirely physical. If we knew what every atom was doing, we could predict exactly what the brain would do.

Let us try to pretend that Mr Moore really believes what he is asserting (he doesn't). Moveover, let us try to pretend that what he is asserting really is the truth about reality, and about human beings (it isn't). What would it *mean* were these things true? What would be the logical entailment of these assertions were they true?

Victor Reppert: "If mental states are physical states, then the truth about what someone believes should follow necessarily from the state of the brain/physical world. But it doesn't." (I suspect that Mr Reppet means something very different from what he actually wrote; but I also believe that most readers will *get* what he means.)

John Moore: "If we line up all the physical facts, with every atom traced, then we can see precisely what the brain believes. We can see how particular sensory inputs will activate particular neural pathways and eventually produce motor output such as a speech act saying "I believe X.""

By his *own* assertion, Mr Moore doesn't actually believe what he is asserting -- for, in the world-view he pretends to believe, there is no such thing, nor can be, as 'belief'. God-deniers *use* words such as 'believe' and 'choose', while emptying them of any meaning at all.

Rather, both he and Mr Reppert are simply making noises (or typing letters) because their particular brain-states, at this particular moment in the unfolding history of the material world, compel their mouths (or fingers) to produce those noises (or typed letters). In a moment, Mr Moore's brain-state may well change -- perhaps he will hear the sound represented by the letters "tomato", and that sound will set in motion a series of brain-state changes -- such that his brain-state will then compel him to "contradict" what he has just said.

Who can say? Certainly not Mr Moore, for he -- by his own admission -- knows nothing, nor believes anything, nor can do either.

If Mr Moore's assertion -- for he offers no *argument* -- (and the world-view behind it) were indeed true, then his act of asserting it is utterly meaningless, as is Mr Reppert's argument to the contrary.

Mr Moore is *explicitly* asserting that minds are produced by, are effects of, brains. He is *explicitly* asserting the he, and Reppert, and you and me, are machines. In this case, physical/material machines. He is *explicitly* asserting that we are passively determined at every instant by the prior history of the material/physical world. He is *explicitly* asserting that we do not, and cannot, choose to do this or that (recall: even if he uses that word, he first empties it of any meaning), but rather that whatever "speech act", say, we may perform is merely the mechanical-and-inevitable result of prior material states.

Usually, God-deniers try to not be this explicit about what God-denial actually entails.


Some semi-prominent 'atheists' like to make the devistating "argument" that Christians "belong at the kids' table"; for, after all, we persist in believing "irrational" things.

But, the truth is that until a man acknowledges that God is (which is a different matter from whether Jesus the Christ is God), he not only has no place a "the adults' table, but also not at "the kids' table". Rather, the God-denier belongs on the floor, with the other non-rational animals.


By the way, this is a little game of which God-deniers (and leftists and DarwinDefenders) are inordinately fond-- "I wish I could understand why Victor says it doesn't. Please provide more explanation." -- I call it "Deny and Demand": deny the explanation you have been given without ever engaging it, and demand another.


============ Edit 2015/02/08 ===============

Shackleman: "Granted, I think "emergence" lacks much merit, but I still think you've left room for them to retreat to it."

It only looks that way because people (you, in this case) are used to -- have been conditioned to -- allow them to do that. Somehow, materialists took over the intellectual life of the West two or three *centuries* ago. By this point in time, we're all so used to the implicit materialism into which we're born, that we rarely *examine* the underlying assumptions and entailments ... nor question the moves made by the intentional materialists.

Shackleman: "Have you not left room for the atheist to claim that agency can "emerge" from a universe which exists initially without agency? I think that's what they'd do, and point to "evolution" as the driving force to get them there."

'Emergence' is a Great Word of Magick amongst materialists and atheists. But, in reality, it's even more empty than the word 'instinct' used by butterfly col ... I mean, evolutionist biologists.

Allow me to first illustrate the issue by means of an aphorism (that I just made up) which is also an analogy and a metaphor -- "A tiger may emerge from a jungle ... proveded there is already a tiger in the jungle." (Do note my use of 'may': the tiger has some choice in the matter).

The atheist, whether or not he cops to being a materialist, who tries to escape this logical entailment of the denial of the reality and personhood of God (to wit: denial of the reality of the human person) by appealing to 'emergence' is akin to the man who states that there is no tiger in the jungle, but that, nonetheless, purely by chance occurrance, one might emerge from it at any time.


Now, consider this --

Let us posit the existence of some initial state of affairs, some world -- which may or may not be material (this point is important) (*) -- in which all events/occurrances are the mechanical effects of logically prior (**) events/occurrances. This is simple cause-and-effect: the logically prior event(s)/occurrance(s) is(are) the cause(s) of the logically subsequent event(s)/occurrance(s), the effect(s), necessarily.

Thus -- for this is just another way of stating the above paragraph -- given the condition of this 'world' at state 'S0', then it is mechanically inevitable that its condition at state 'S1' will be as it will be. That is, state 'S1' is fully determined by state 'S0'. This necessarily applies no matter which state one chooses to account as being state 'S0'.

Look again at what Mr Moore said -- what I have said above is *exactly* what he said, just more general-in-application, less linked to materialism, and more precisely stated.

But, notice: this world I have described is merely an abstract description or model of what the 'atheist' claims is true of *this* world, and of us. This world I have described is the theoretical instance of what the 'atheist' says is the truth about the particular instance in which we find ourselves -- thus, if the theoretical instance cannot fully account for the particular instance, then the theory is at best incomplete. The theory may also be flat-out wrong.

So, which is it? Is the 'atheist' theory flat-out wrong, or is it just incomplete? (Hint: it's flat-out wrong)

Look again at the theory -- state 'S1' is fully determined by state 'S0'. Thus, state 'S2' is fully determined by state 'S1', and state 'S3' is fully determined by state 'S2', and so on, world without end.

When the 'atheist' tries to appeal to 'emergence' to "explain" the existence in this theoretical world of entities which are *not* fully determined by the world's prior states, then he is rendering his theory-of-the-world incoherent --which is to say, Self-contradictory, which is to say, necessarily false (and not merely incomplete). For, while a set of self-consistent statements may be nonetheless false, no set of self-contradictory statements can ever possibly be true.

When the 'atheist' tries to appeal to 'emergence' to "explain" the existence in this theoretical world of entities which are *not* fully determined by the world's prior states, then he is saying that somewhere between state 'Sn' and state 'Sn+1' a *POOF* occurs, and out of absolutely nowhere, with absolutley no cause, that which was never in the world, not even as a potential, just appears.

And, of course, if the inattentive listener lets the 'atheist' get away with that bit of Magick, it turns out that the "agency" he has poofed into the world isn't *actually* agency: it's just the word 'agency' applied to mechanical necessity. As I said before, 'atheists' do (and must) empty such words of content and meaning, for the meaning contradicts their world-view.


(*) This 'world' may, or may not, be wholly material, or at least have a material component along with an immaterial component, ot may be wholly immaterial -- it doesn't matter. All that matters is that this world is logically consistent, that no part of it contradict the whole; for, if it is not logically consistet, if it is not coherent, then it cannot be a world.

(**) And perhaps temporally prior, but that's not important; just as this 'world' may be wholly immaterial, so, too, may it be a-temporal. All that is absolutely required of it is that it be logically consistent.

In which I learn that I am a 'mereological nihilist'

Doug Benscoter: Atomism and Its Irrelevance to Classical Theism -- "Peter van Inwagen, for instance, holds to mereological nihilism: that no composite material thing really exists. He does, nevertheless, make an exception for living things."

While I hadn't yet thought of it in terms of "composite material thing[s]", and of course (being just a normal non-academic person ... like you), I had never encountered the term 'mereological nihilism', I had years ago reached the conclusion that almost none of the (supposed) entities we speak of do actually exist, but that living entities do exist. That is, the sun and moon and stars, and the earth, do not really exist. But you really do exist, and the individual cells comprising your body really do exist.

I had come to these conclusions in considering the 'Perseus' Ship Paradox', which is the paradox of identity. I had concluded that only things inherently possessing identity really exist. And the only material entities possessing inherent identity of which I am aware are living things. Perhaps sub-atomic particles also possess some sort of inherent identity, though I can't see it including "selfness", which seems to me the key thing in identity.

Not fit for the Kids' Table

Victor Reppert: "It must be noted that there is no way, on the model I have presented, to show that everyone who denies the Resurrection is irrational, or engaged in bad faith."

How about showing that *almost* everyone -- and certainly the most vocal -- who denies the Resurrection is engaged in bad-faith hypocrisy?

[The point here is that most "skeptics" have no problem at all with Carl Sagan's scientistic assertions about things just happening for no reason nor cause nor meaning -- events that have never been observed to have happened and that would be considered by nearly everyone except "skeptics" to be miracles, or probable miracles, were they ever to be observed to actually have happened.]


There is another point it seems to me that you constantly overlook -- which is that even were Christianity false, that is, even if Christ did not rise from the dead [and his rising did not mean what Christianity says it means], that doesn't touch on the even more basic question: "Is God?"

The question of Christ's Resurrection is pointless unless there is a Creator-God who intentionally restored life and soul to that dead body as a promise to do likewise with those who love him. After all, one could acknowledge that Jesus really was dead and really did come back to life ... and then "explain" it as one of those (asserted by scientism) pointless [meaningless], astronomically improbable events that just happen from time to time all by themselves for no reason and with no cause [and no attendant meaning], as discussed in the above link.

[To reiterate a point I've made many times -- it's not the (alleged) fact that Jesus really was dead and really did come back to life that gets the so-called skeptics' panties in a bunch, it's the (alleged) meaning of his coming back to life that they hate; for that meaning points to the reality of the Creator, and of moral duties ... and of moral judgment. If Jesus' coming back to life were just a strange historical footnote, to which no one ascribed any particular significance, then the "skeptics" wouldn't be at all skeptical that it really did occur.]

Now, as it happens, we human beings have many lines of argument and evidence that show:
1) belief in the Creator is rational;
2) disbelief in the Creator is irrational.

ERGO, anyone who denies the reality of the Creator is [willfully] irrational.

WHY do you continue to waste your time -- and encourage others to waste their time (to say nothing of sanity) -- in the logically impossible quest of rationally convincing irrational people to acknowledge that you are rational? Arguing Christ with Jews, or even with Hindus, may be a rational undertaking; arguing anything "religious" with God-deniers is the epitome of irrational behavior.

UNTIL a person acknowledges that there is a Creator, he has nothing to say: he "has no place at the table", as the saying goes. It's not that he "belongs at the Kids' Table" [as some God-haters like to say of Christians ... and even of persons who are not necessarily Christians], for even children are rational beings ... it's that, in willfully choosing irrationality, the God-denier belongs on the floor, fighting with the dogs for whatever scraps fall from the Kids' Table.

A note about 'an eye for an eye'

In Matthew 5:38ff, it is recorded that Christ says, "You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also ..."

Many today incorrectly believe -- even as Marcion incorrectly taught 1900 years ago -- that this indicates some some sort of tension, in fact a conflict and contradiction, between "the God of the OT" and "the God of the NT". And from that error, unless they correct it, they eventually falsely conclude, as Marcion did, that "the God of the OT" and "the God of the NT" are not the same person and from there that "the God of the OT" is actually demonic -- despite that the NT many times explicity makes clear that Christ Jesus *is* Jehovah/Elohim.

Now, notice what Jesus said about this; notice *how* he said it: "You have heard that it was said ..."

But, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" is not just *said*, it is *written* in the Law of Moses. So, what's going on, what does this mean?

Douglas Wilson explains: Scissors and Library Paste

First, look at how Boyd sets two portions of Scripture at odds with one another, and consider how unnecessary that capitulation is. In ancient times, private vengeance was mediated through the system of the blood avenger. The Mosaic code placed restrictions on this system by establishing cities of refuge. The old system was further restricted by the “eye for eye” code, by the lex talionis. When vengeance was in private hands, it frequently became a life for an eye, a life for a tooth. So the magistrate was required to execute strict justice in judgment himself, and this would remove a great deal of the emotional motivations for private vengeance. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecc. 8:11).

Got that? Eye for eye was required of the magistrate. In the Lord’s day, that phrase was being used to justify private vengenace - in much the same way that someone today might use it. “He hit me so I hit him, Eye for eye.” The Lord was plainly correcting an abusive interpretation of Moses. He was not correcting Moses himself.

As Wilson quippingly quotes (I suspect he's quoting CS Lewis), "He who says A may not have said B, but give him time." The point being, as Wilson titled that little post, "The logic will out". That is, human beings, even when they are willfully choosing to be irrational and illogical, are still rational beings, and ultimately will always arrive at and embrace the logical working-out of the premises they have chosen.

My point here is that those who refuse to be corrected on the matter of this (false) contradiction between "the God of the OT" and "the God of the NT", and likewise those who refuse to understand that Matthew 5:38ff is not about telling the magistrate to "forgive" the offender, must *always* end up perverting both Justice and Mercy.

The "Mercitarians", as we may call them, falsely imagine that there can be be Mercy without Justice -- much as the worshippers of self-esteem falsely image that "everyone is a winner" -- and so they have set themselves up as the dispensers of mercy-without-justice, preventing justice ever being done ... so long as the initial injustice was not against their own interests, of course. These days, they have so committed to the logic of their false premises, they are so far into this inversion of justice and mercy, that they freak out when someone has the temerity to mention that the wrong-doer is, in fact, a wrong-doer.

But here's the thing: only he against whom the injustice was done has the power to forgive the wrong-doer: only the *wronged* can give mercy to the *wrong-doer*, and mercy can but follow justice. That is, mercy cannot be extended unless there is first judgment and condemnation.

To put it another way: *I* do not have the moral standing to forgive John for mugging you. But, this is what "liberals" arrogate to themselves the power and right to do; and in doing so, prevent and pervert justice, to the ultimate undoing of civil society.

The Old Testament's commandment of lex talionis was given in a social environment in which there was no magistrate passing judgment and imposing condemnation, in which the only justice a wronged person could hope to get was that which he and his clan managed to impose upon the wrong-doer ... and his clan. Such an arrangement quickly leads to endless vendetta and blood-fued, in which the "penalty" for knocking out someone's tooth is to take his life ... or the life of his brother.

The Old Testament's commandment of lex talionis was given to *stop* this run-away perversion of Justice.

The "Mercitarians" are simply perverting Justice in the other direction -- and the end-result is, and must be, a social environment in which there is no magistrate passing judgment and imposing condemnation.

In setting their perverted "mercy" above real justice, preventing the victims of injustice getting justice -- and using the magistrate's sword to impose this perversion upon society -- the "Mercitarians" are merely working to undo the moral progress that the lex talionis is.

Unless our society rejects the false gospel of the "Mercitarians", and returns to passing just judgment and imposing just condemnation, we will, and *must*, become a dysfunctional society in which the horrible injustice of vendetta and blood-feud is the only means available for a wronged person to attempt to get justice.

Any port in a storm!

This post will be far too large to post as a comment in the commbox at Victor Reppert's blog (which is its context). Plus, it makes a good post in its own right. It grows out of the insistence of one 'Dan Gillson' that my "*you* are the proof that God is" argument begs the question, starting here

"GIVEN the reality of the natural/physical/material world, IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN everything which exists and/or transpires must be wholely reducible, without remainder, to purely physical/material states and causes."

... That is where you beg the question. You haven't sufficiently established that atheism entails materialism. You've assumed something that you have no right (logically speaking) to assume. As I've pointed out to you, atheism is compatible with other monisms, e.g., Strawsonian Panpsychism, or Jamesian Neutral Monism. One can deny God, but hold that what we call matter is both mental and physical (Panpsychism), or that what we call matter is neither mental or physical (Neutral Monism).

[Note: he has "pointed out that atheism is compatible with other monisms" ... and I have pointed out, multiple times, that this dodge just doesn't work; that these "other monisms" are either incoherent or are just smoke-and-mirrors attempt at disguising eliminative reductionist materialism.]

My response was:

Ilíon: "GIVEN the reality of the natural/physical/material world, IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN everything which exists and/or transpires must be wholely reducible, without remainder, to purely physical/material states and causes."

Dan Gillson: " ... That is where you beg the question. You haven't sufficiently established that atheism entails materialism. You've assumed something that you have no right (logically speaking) to assume."

As I said previously, "... you will never identify this alleged question-begging. ... you're asserting that I'm begging the question ... and the evidence that I'm begging the question is your assertion that I am begging the question."

Also, as I said previously, "Based on past experience, it seems that when an 'atheist' claims that a theistic arguement begs the question, all he means is that it successfully moves from premise to conclusion ... and that he hates the conclusion."

For anyone can see the that the argument summarized above does not beg the question of God-denial entailing materialism; rather, materialism is just a logical consequence of denying the reality (and personhood) of God while affirming the reality of the physical world.

"Eastern-style" atheism -- which *denies* the reality of the physical world -- does not entail "materialism". But it still denies that *we* are real, and it's still absurd.

It's the denial of the reality and personhood of God that makes (all) atheisms absurd, not the materialism that some of them entail.

Further, the discerning reader will notice that materialism is really irrelevent to the thrust of the argument. Rather, it is the mechanistic determinism inherent in denying that the necessary being/entity is aWho, rather than a what, that shows atheism -- all atheims -- to be absurd.

Dan Gillson: "As I've pointed out to you, atheism is compatible with other monisms, e.g., Strawsonian Panpsychism, or Jamesian Neutral Monism. One can deny God, but hold that what we call matter is both mental and physical (Panpsychism), or that what we call matter is neither mental or physical (Neutral Monism)."

How many times do you expect I am required to point out to you the utter failure of this attempt to escape the logical entailments of God-denial?

How can one coherently "hold that what we call matter is both mental and physical (Panpsychism)" when there is no such thing as "the mental" (or "Mind") if there are no actual minds? But if your hypothetical Panpsychism God-denier wishes to posit that there is an actual mind (or minds) who is/are fundamental to reality, then is he not affirming the reality of God while denying the reality of God?

How can one coherently "hold ... that what we call matter is neither mental or physical (Neutral Monism)" and yet escape the mechanistic determinism inherent in denying that the necessary being/entity is aWho, rather than a what? How can one coherently call oneself a "monist" unless one holds that 'matter' and 'mind' are the same thing? But, there is no such thing as 'mind' unless there is an actual mind, an actually existing who (or Who). But, definitionally, atheism denies there is a non-contingent Who; and we know that whos (ourselves) are contingent.

The fatal problem of atheism is not matter, it is not materialism. The fatal problem of atheism is the determinism -- the denial of agency and of agent freedom -- which inheres in denying the Creator-God. There can be no "mental" unless there is a mind; there can be no agent freedom unless there is an agent.

Mr Gillson made two posts as response --

Post #1 --
Ilion,

"For anyone can see the that the argument summarized above does not beg the question of God-denial entailing materialism; rather, materialism is just a logical consequence of denying the reality (and personhood) of God while affirming the reality of the physical world." ... It does beg the question because there is no further logical development of the point. Your argument takes materialism for granted. If you think otherwise, then copy/paste the portion of your argument in which you prove that materialism is a logical consequence of atheism.

"Further, the discerning reader will notice that materialism is really irrelevent to the thrust of the argument. Rather, it is the mechanistic determinism inherent in denying that the necessary being/entity is aWho, rather than a what, that shows atheism -- all atheims -- to be absurd." ... It's not irrelevant to your argument. In your argument materialism is the mediating step between atheism and determinism. You can't arrive at determinism without supposing a materialistic account of causation, but you haven't satisfactorily answered why atheism entails materialism. Indeed, you've begged the question.

"How many times do you expect I am required to point out to you the utter failure of this attempt to escape the logical entailments of God-denial? " ... As many times as it takes. I'm pretty thick.


Post #2 --
"How can one coherently "hold that what we call matter is both mental and physical (Panpsychism)" when there is no such thing as "the mental" (or "Mind") if there are no actual minds? But if your hypothetical Panpsychism God-denier wishes to posit that there is an actual mind (or minds) who is/are fundamental to reality, then is he not affirming the reality of God while denying the reality of God?" ... On a panpsychist conception, minds aren't fundamental to reality. Mentality and physicality are fundamental properties of matter, that is the base unit of matter (whatever that is) expresses both mental and physical properties.

"How can one coherently "hold ... that what we call matter is neither mental or physical (Neutral Monism)" and yet escape the mechanistic determinism inherent in denying that the necessary being/entity is aWho, rather than a what?" ... By saying that we don't, right now, know what 'matter' really is. We just see mental effects and physical effects, and we suppose that each of these effects originate from the same metaphysical cause.

"How can one coherently call oneself a "monist" unless one holds that 'matter' and 'mind' are the same thing?" ... Because 'matter' and 'mind' can be different properties subsisting in a singular reality.

"But, there is no such thing as 'mind' unless there is an actual mind, an actually existing who (or Who). But, definitionally, atheism denies there is a non-contingent Who; and we know that whos (ourselves) are contingent." A couple things: Firstly, your first sentence begs the question. Secondly, it depends on the atheism. An atheist can subscribe to theistic arguments, but reject divine personalities. One doesn't need to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

"The fatal problem of atheism is not matter, it is not materialism. The fatal problem of atheism is the determinism -- the denial of agency and of agent freedom -- which inheres in denying the Creator-God. There can be no "mental" unless there is a mind; there can be no agent freedom unless there is an agent." ... I don't think you've satisfactorily made your case yet. I'm happy to continue on, if you don't think it's a lost cause.

So, with the background laid out, here is my response to all that --

Ilíon: "For anyone can see the that the argument summarized above does not beg the question of God-denial entailing materialism; rather, materialism is just a logical consequence of denying the reality (and personhood) of God while affirming the reality of the physical world."

Dan Gillson: "It does beg the question because there is no further logical development of the point. Your argument takes materialism for granted. If you think otherwise, then copy/paste the portion of your argument in which you prove that materialism is a logical consequence of atheism."

I had already said, multiple times, that he would never identify nor demonstrate where or how the argument begs the question. I had already said, multiple times, that he would assert this, but never make an actual case. So, look at his most recent "case":
1) "It does beg the question because there is no further logical development of the point" -- What the Hell? When did that become part of the definition of question-begging?
2) "Your argument takes materialism for granted" -- The mere accusation again, raw;
3) "If you think otherwise, then copy/paste the portion of your argument in which you prove that materialism is a logical consequence of atheism" -- Oh, I see! Since he can't identify or demonstrate the question-begging that he just knows is there, he now demands that I demonstrate the lack of question-begging ... and for something that isn't even part of my argument.

Really, when you think about it, with his failure to identify the alleged question-begging in the original argument, his accusation of my begging the question has now devolved into the demand that I (and you) beg the question of whether the original argument begs its question.

As I said above, when an 'atheist' charges that a theistic argument begs the question, all he really means is that it successfully moves from premise to conclusion ... and that he hates the conclusion.

Consider the classic example of a sound and valid logical argument --
P1) All men are mortal;
P2) Socrates is a man;
C) Socrates is mortal.

Now, the conclusion is certainly implied by the premises -- it could not be otherwise and the argument still be a valid deductive argument; one might even say that the premises "contain" the conclusion. But the argument does not beg the question of whether Socrates is mortal.


So, to the argument that Mr Gillson (constantly and falsely) accues, though never demonstrates, of begging the question --

"GIVEN the reality of the natural/physical/material world, IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN everything which exists and/or transpires must be wholely reducible, without remainder, to purely physical/material states and causes."

Let's put this argument into the form of the "Socrated is mortal" syllogism --
P1) There is a real physical world comprised of time and space and matter/energy, including the spacial-and-temporal relationships between "bits of matter" -- this all men call 'nature';
P2) There is no Creator-God who creates-and-sustains in existence this real physical world; OR, to put it another way: there is no non-contingent personal entity/agent, who is ontologically-and-logically prior to 'nature', who freely causes the continuous existence of 'nature';
C) "everything which exists and/or transpires must be wholely reducible, without remainder, to purely physical/material states and causes."

As anyone can see, this argument no more begs the question than does the "Socrates is mortal" argument. Certainly, the conclusion is implied by the premises -- it could not be otherwise and the argument still be a valid deductive argument. But the argument does not beg the question of whether denial of the reality of the non-contingent "Necessary Being" -- who is a 'who' rather than a 'what' -- who is ontologically-and-logically prior to 'nature', who is the *cause* of 'nature', who freely *chooses* to cause 'nature' to exist, must resolve into rank mechanistic determinism -- which, in this context, is expressed as eliminative-and-reductionist materialism. There is no 'who' in P1), but only "purely physical/material states and causes"; P2) denies there is a 'Who' "behind" 'nature'; therefore, there can be no 'who' in C). That is, given the premises, the conclusion *must* deny that there is any agency -- that there are any agents -- anywhere.

But, we know that there *are* agent, for *we* are agents. Thus, we know that the conclusion of the argument is false. Thus, we know that the argument in not both sound and valid. Thus, one (and only one) of the following is, and must be, true:
1) the argument is sound, but invalid;
2) the argument is valid, but unsound;
3) the argument is both unsound and invalid.

Mr Gillson (as with every other God-denier I've ever encountered who attempts to take a shot at it) is asserting that the argument is sound, but invalid. That is, he is asserting that the premises are true, but that the conclusion is invalidly obtained. But -- again, as with every other God-denier I've ever encountered who attempts to take a shot at it -- he does not (and cannot) identify any flaw in the argument. He merely asserts that it is flawed ... and now demands that I prove the conclusion by some other argument.

Now, the truth of the matter is that the argument is valid, but unsound; that is, the conclusion does logically follow from the premises, but at least one of the premises is false.


Ilíon: "Further, the discerning reader will notice that materialism is really irrelevent [sic] to the thrust of the argument. Rather, it is the mechanistic determinism inherent in denying that the necessary being/entity is a Who, rather than a what, that shows atheism -- all atheims -- to be absurd."

Dan Gillson: "It's not irrelevant to your argument. In your argument materialism is the mediating step between atheism and determinism. You can't arrive at determinism without supposing a materialistic account of causation, but you haven't satisfactorily answered why atheism entails materialism. Indeed, you've begged the question."

(As with most 'atheists') I don't think he even *attempts* to understand anything that upsets his atheistic apple-cart. But, even if he has made an honest attempt to understand, he doesn't appear to have managed it. So, given that he doesn't even fathom the argument (whether by honest failure or by disinclination), simple though the argument is, does anyone really think I'll be quaking in my boots because he is squawking that it begs the question? especially considering that he never shoulders the burden of proof of identifying the begged question? and further considering that he's now trying to shift his burden of proof to me as a burden of disproof?

It is *not* the case that "In [my] argument materialism is the mediating step between atheism and determinism". Nor is it the case that "You can't arrive at determinism without supposing a materialistic account of causation"

Rather, materialism is the logical entailment of mechanistic determinism applied to a material/physical world; materialism is the expression of determinism in a material/physical world-- deny the reality of the physical world while denying the reality of God (or his personhood) and you're still stuck with determinism, though of a sort that may hard for embodied beings such as ourselves to comprehend. If it helps, consider arithmetic: it is entirely non-physical and utterly deterministic.

And, ultimately, determinism is just an aspect of denying the personhood and/or agency of the Creator-God. What I mean by this is that even if a person acknowledges some sort of necessary "First Cause" that it pleases him to call 'God', but denies that this "First Cause" is a person/agent, then he is asserting that all of reality is deterministic. He is asserting that determinism, rather than agent freedom, is fundamental to reality. Into this category fall all who insist that 'God' is a "force" or a "principle" (this last being especially incoherent, for a principle is a concept, and there are no concepts if there are no minds who think them).

Look again at the argument -- "GIVEN the reality of the natural/physical/material world, IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN everything which exists and/or transpires must be wholely reducible, without remainder, to purely physical/material states and causes." -- the materialism arises from applying the denial that there is a Person who is fundamental to the nature of reality to the acknowledgement that the physical/material world in which one finds oneself is a real world. This problem can't be escaped by positing that 'personhood' is fundamental to the nature of reality, any more than by positing that 'mind' is fundamental to the nature of reality; for there is no 'personhood' if there is no actually existing person, just as there is no 'mind' if there is no actually existing mind. 'Personhood' and 'mind' are concepts, they are ideas; they do not exist independently of some actually existing mind who thinks them.

There are some modern physicists who advance the idea that reality is at root mathematical. For that sort of metaphysic, one could restate my argument as: "GIVEN the reality of the [mathematical] world, IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN everything which exists and/or transpires must be wholely reducible, without remainder, to purely [arithmetic/logical] states and causes." -- the determinism resides in the denial of God's personhood, not in the affirmation of matter.

Consider again this claim -- "You can't arrive at determinism without supposing a materialistic account of causation" -- in light of the argument (in syllogistic form) --

P1) There is a real physical world comprised of time and space and matter/energy, including the spacial-and-temporal relationships between "bits of matter" -- this all men call 'nature';
P2) There is no Creator-God who creates-and-sustains in existence this real physical world; OR, to put it another way: there is no non-contingent personal entity/agent, who is ontologically-and-logically prior to 'nature', who freely causes the continuous existence of 'nature';
C) "everything which exists and/or transpires must be wholely reducible, without remainder, to purely physical/material states and causes."

Notice: given the premises, there is no possibility of causation that is not determonistic, for the second premise denies this possibility. The determinism doesn't come from the first premise, but from the second; for the second premise denies that there is anything in reality, or in the nature of reality, not covered by the first premise.

It is the second premise that entails the conclusion we know to be false.



Ilíon: "How can one coherently "hold that what we call matter is both mental and physical (Panpsychism)" when there is no such thing as "the mental" (or "Mind") if there are no actual minds? But if your hypothetical Panpsychism God-denier wishes to posit that there is an actual mind (or minds) who is/are fundamental to reality, then is he not affirming the reality of God while denying the reality of God?"

Dan Gillson: "On a panpsychist conception, minds aren't fundamental to reality. Mentality and physicality are fundamental properties of matter, that is the base unit of matter (whatever that is) expresses both mental and physical properties."

Oh, indeed: "On a panpsychist conception, minds aren't fundamental to reality", for a 'panpsychist' is just an everyday run-of-the-mill eliminative materialist (and there is no other kind) who, for some reason or another, doesn't want to acknowledge his eliminative materialism.

What does it even mean to say that "On a panpsychist conception ... [of reality, m]entality and physicality are fundamental properties of matter, that is the base unit of matter (whatever that is) expresses both mental and physical properties"? Why, it means nothing at all, the sentence (if we can even call the string of words a 'sentence') is literally meaningless; its purpose is to blow smoke to disguise or hide the truth that the 'panpsychist' is asserting materialism while denying that he is doing so.

If the sentence is to have any meaning at all, then whatever these "mental" properties of "the base unit of matter" are, they are not "physical" properties; for the mere structure of the sentence demands this. So, let's look at the last clause again: "... that is the base unit of matter (whatever that is) expresses both [non-physical] and physical properties" But, 'physical' encompasses 'matter', so what out hypothetical panpsychist is saying is: "... that is the base unit of [some physical entitiy] (whatever that is) expresses both [non-physical] and physical properties"

If I substute some other word for the words 'mentality' and 'mental' thusly: "On a panpsychist conception ... [of reality, gubd]ality and physicality are fundamental properties of matter, that is the base unit of matter (whatever that is) expresses both [gubd]al and physical properties" does the sentence really become any less meaningful than the original? Not at all.

While the individual words can be analyzed for meaning, string them together as here and it all falls apart into meaninless mush.

If the sentence is to have any meaning at all, then whatever these "mental" properties (or "gubdal" properties, it's all the same) of "the base unit of matter" are, they are not "physical" properties. But, if the sentence is to have any coherent meaning, then these "gubdal" properties can have no relationship to any actually existing "gubds" (or "minds", it's all the same), since, after all, "On a panpsychist conception, [gudb]s aren't fundamental to reality". These alleged "mental" (or "gubdal") properties are abstracted away -- which action is, itself, an activity of minds -- from any actually existing minds (or "gubds"), existing independently of, and logically prior to -- and, in fact, causally prior to -- any minds (or "gubds")



[to be continued]