In Reply to: Re: On faith and lack of faith posted by Farmer on January 20, 2006 at 08:51:03:
Hey, Farmer and Skep:
Hi! I'm enjoying this string--thanks again! AS ai read it agaiun, it occurs to me that it would be useful to re-examine the foundations of our discussion, and that might best begin with a definition of empirical scienc, or knowledge; the analysis of observqable phenomena producing the experience of knowing, understanding and correlating available data, versus merely hupothetical and/or untestable ideas.
To that end, I'd like to state that following observatios about empiricalscience:
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Definitionally, in regards to empirical science:
I must begin with the presuppositions that good science entails the following working definitions:
Hypothesis: a proposition assumed as a basis for reasoning and often subjected to testing for its validity: a speculation in regard to the probable cause of a phenomenon, which gains in reliability each time a prediction is based on it and found to be correct.
•It is never proved nor verified in a final sense,
•it is only supported or disproved depending on how the experiment comes out, because
•a false hypothesis may predict a result that has a different cause than that hypothesized, i.e. a merely tentative explanation of the data, advanced or adopted provisionally, often as the basis of a theory or as a guide to further observation or experiment.
Theory: more than a single hypothesis, a collection of them; i.e. an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena, a generalization reached by inference from observed particulars and proposed as an explanation of their cause, relations and the like.
Law: a statement of what always occurs under certain conditions, a declaration of something that has always been observed to be true under the given conditions but does not provide the kind of explanation that is found in a hypothesis or theory
•i.e.: For the always observable law of gravity, a theory of gravity would seek to explain observations—theories explain laws, they don’t become laws.
•Reasoning outside the scope of these definitions would also not fall within the necessary confines of linear logic, but would easily show evidences of the following self-explanatory logical fallacies (among others):
1.False Premise
2.Incomplete Middle
3.Begging the Question, and
4.Circular Argumentation
A respected educator writes of “fifteen of the most common myths of science common in science textbooks, in classroom discourses, and in the mind of adult Americans”:
1.hypotheses become theories which in turn become laws;
2.scientific laws are absolute;
3.a hypothesis is an educated guess;
4.a general and universal scientific method exists;
5.evidence accumulated carefully will result in pure knowledge;
6.science and its methods provide absolute proof;
7science is procedural more than creative;
8.science and its methods can answer all questions;
9.scientists are particularly objective;
10.experiments are the principal root of scientific knowledge;
11.conclusions in science are reviewed for accuracy;
12.acceptance of new knowledge is straightforward;
13.models represent reality;
14.science and technology are the same; and
15science is a solitary pursuit.
Farmer and Skep: Hee's my foundational philosophical dilemma about math and logic systems, in short--Question: How can it be shown—& it CAN’T--that ANY math system could be used to LOGICALLY, much less EMPIRICALLY build a credible system outside of which God could NOT exist—much less inside of which it would be possible to JUSTIFY, in the formal philosophical sense, an apart-from-God moral system in which anyone could do anything he wanted—either God wills, and causes, originally as well as occasionally, or this is performed somehow by time & chance—which CAN NEVER BE CAUSAL????? IF time & chance as causal powers were TRUE, then NOTHING ELSE COULD BE!!!!! And, if time & chance as causal powers EXIST, nothing else DOES.
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Food for thought.
Secondly, here's my my own personal belief paradigm--may I know yours as well; Farmer and Skep?
The belief paradigm I now occupy is partly the result of a string of my life experiences, which took me from:
1. Rationalist/Materialist Atheism, to
2.Philosophical nihilism, to
3. Hindu/Gnostic/psychic-occult philosophies-and-mystical–experiences, to a
4. Born-again Christian experience lasting nearly 30 years.
Consistent with this, my view of reality is as follows. I begin much as Descartes did; I presuppose the existence of God, and begin from there, not concurring at that point with any necessity of a principle of infinite regression (e.g absurd questions like “What caused God?”). In a sense, I agree with the theistic Immanuel Kant, in that I do not suppose that current attempts to prove the existence of God necessarily inevitably do so. For any given individual, a full disclosure of the sequentially logical arguments and /or revelation pointing to God will not force agreement against the will. What I do presuppose is the following (which has been done formally by such philosophers as Alvin Plantinga, William Craig, and others.
Rough idea (forgive my lack of sophistication)—
1. The triune God, in the Father, Son & Holy Spirit, has/have existed from eternity, always having had individual personhood (still nouminously different from us, as persons created in the image of God), including free will among other attributes, but in perfection (this “perfection” avoids van Inwagen’s conundrum, because infinite wisdom/omniscience is also included). Hence there has always been an expression of that free will, as well as love, communication, submission, etc.; but all between three distinct and perfect persons, and from eternity.
2. God truly and actually created the universe out of nothing; that universe, having been created by a literally infinitely powerful God may very well be literally infinite in four dimensions (I. Kant’s assumption), at least it was, and could have remained so, before the Fall, but a dual alternate dimension (heaven—eternal FROM eternity, and hell—created but now eternal INTO eternity) also exists. Light sources may exist whose light has not and literally will never reach us, and the light reaching us now shows a slow-motion picture of the past, due to light’s deceleration toward a hypothetical “entropic doom”, which only God can interrupt, at the time He has already chosen to do so.
3. A literally infinitely powerful God could have created the universe according to the Genesis record, light itself could have originally traveled many thousands of time as fast as it does now. But “entropy rules” even in the case of quantum physics, and light has been slowing down for a long time (within Stephen Hawking’s “t=0” construct), since the creation and the Fall, but no original “Big Bang” “singularity” is required. Current mathematical constructs/assumptions may have no actual correspondents in space/time. But since 1960, instead of making Pythagorean theorem-based calculations based on observable positions of planets, stars, etc., all light-speed measurements are as over against the oscillating properties of Cesium, whose electrons travel at the identical speed as light photons; which would make comparative measurement moot, as slow-speed measurements cannot enter into these calculations based on photon quanta. Martin Luther’s “Nothing is not a little something” dictum therefore still negates all other cosmological origin constructs, which assume a priori a certain interpretation of light we can now actually see (the “pulsing” model merely repeats the problem, endlessly). For instance, Einstein’s assumption of curved space may be merely the observation of the bending of light photon paths by the effect of the gravity of massive stars in the light’s path, plus mathematical presumptions which can never be tested—i.e. you could never “see the back of your own head if you could see far enough”. And, though the t=0 type of time is included in the construct E= M x [C squared], defining velocity as occurring within/over “t=0” time, merely mathematically defines time, but does not necessitate probable inviolable universal manipulation of time. Neither does it necessitate the probability/possibility of accelerating, to ~light-speed, masses any larger that those observed, solely by their effect, within nuclear accelerators (Einstein once asked a quantum physicist, “Do you see that large “particle”, the moon, there? Do you assume it only exists when you look at it, you idiot?”). Additionally, the question is begged as to why the night sky is dark rather than light, since, given enough time, as in the amount posited by current atheistic cosmologists, shouldn’t a lot more light have reached earth by now?
4. Miracles are only thought to be violations of physical laws from our finite point of view. God created time (the kind posited by Hawking; t=0), as over against eternal time; “Big T” (which He inhabits, but which does not fully contain Him, which both coexist in time/space, as posited by Isaac Newton). God created all energy/matter, and can interrupt what we consider to be laws “according to his predetermined counsel and foreknowledge”, any time this coincides/cooperates with His wisdom, including His inviolable promises, though we can never force God’s hand, by merely praying for our will to be done. Positing an “inevitable” characteristic of absolute determinism, or any other absurdity (i.e. qualities other than what God has chosen to reveal about Himself) about God does nothing to change God (see Romans Chapter 1).
5. Being omnipotent, God did, and does, “pre-know” every thing (from our point of view), but is able to, and has/does allow an exercise of our free will, within the parameters of His other provisions for us, which may contain what we would consider to be intermittently “determined”, by God’s choice (within the Trinity), and his creation is not controlled by absolute determinism because He has chosen to make it that way, and to sustain it that way (one God-ordained determinism is that He cannot lie)--so I disagree almost entirely with the theology of Calvin (who posits an absolutely deterministic and therefore a “smaller, meaner god”, according to my position). God, one of Whose attributes is omnipotence, has made revelation about ourselves, Himself, and all that derives from that, possible, as something which we may choose to obey. An omnipotent God created beings whose capacity to love is a choice, expressed over time (both Newton’s and Hawking’s constructs).
6. The pattern of prayer of “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done” literally invokes/invites God’s involvement in our lives, but we may not manipulate His will within creation; His wisdom prevents this.
7. Since we are created in God’s image, including the faculty of free moral agency, in Adam and Eve, mankind failed the singular proof of that free will, which God did provide by His choice, and “the lights went out”, and the “zoe” spiritual life they possessed immediately ceased; the cessation of their “bios” physical life followed. The Fall was literal, and every part of the infinite universe was cursed, at the very least, down to subatomic quantum levels, and entropy began. The entire universe began to die, as unhindered communion with God, for humankind, was instantly destroyed, by choice, as God had pre-warned it would be. Inheriting it from our original parents became impossible. A foreign righteousness would then be universally required to restore communion, or fellowship, with God, based on unmerited, but free will-based redemption, by “the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world”. The “sufficiency” provided here does not necessitate/force the “efficiency” made available to the individual, obtaining that efficiency is a free-will choice, whether or not any given individual freely chooses to rationalize away its availability.
8. A similar singular proof had already been failed by a cherub (see Revelation, etc.; not a Hallmark Valentine’s Day card). This created being was one who, within its own free will, made false claims about the consequences of the angelic free-will choice, and was followed in a freely-chosen rebellion by a third of the angelic beings created by God, and then consequently by Adam and Eve. Lucifer became the “ape” (or cheap imitator) of God, and consequently, the lake of fire, with an inescapable “holding tank” (Hell) was created, initially, for now unredeemable fallen angels, whose initial state of being had not required faith, where they will “deterministically” reside for eternity. Their sentence has been passed and will inevitably be carried out. One appeal made by Satan is a hierarchy of false promises of not-quite-apparent “Lesser Good(s)”, with the goal of causing us to freely choose the lie, freely reject God’s redemption, and, consequently, face a judgement originally intended solely for Lucifer, et al.
9. Our daily reality consists of free-will choices within these parameters. We have a God-given sort of “idiot light” (our conscience coupled with a built-in knowledge of “God, as God”). We can freely choose to act against that conscious reality, which immediately begins to diminish both our character and our spiritual perception of right and wrong, as over against a full (but still pre-redemption) knowledge of God. We may choose that redemption right up to the time of our physical death and/or total incapacitation, which are both “always ready”, and an incapacity for true choice does make exceptions possible. Examples of this would include children under an individually determined “age of accountability”, the insane or otherwise impaired, etc., for whose redemption God has already provided.
10. An infinite God allows, within limits, the expression of evil, both by a Devil and demons (who are NOT co-equal and opposite to God, and/or even the un-fallen angels), and by all mankind, who may freely choose redemption. God will ultimately cause the possibility of all evil actions within the free universe (i.e. excluding Hell and the lake of “fire”, or endless regret/torment) to cease, and will remove redeemed humanity’s capacity for evil, and will remove entropy itself from the infinite universe.
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Comments?
Sincerely,
OT2 (OldtimerToo)