Skeptic Blog

sungyak:

I’ve received various responses to my posts on ‘Science and Faith’ (unlike certain atheists who are concerned with nothing more than exercising their photoshop skills on Tumblr, some have actually engaged in something like a rational dialogue). I think most of these responses understand what I’ve presented in terms of the presuppositional nature of atheism and science, i.e. neither are exempt from holding to certain unverifiable/unfalsifiable presuppositions purely by faith. But the responses boiled down to something like this: ‘The belief in the most fundamental axioms, such as the realness of reality, the laws of logic, and the goodness of the Golden Rule, require no evidential support because it’s not something we choose to believe but is rather a given reality from which there is no rational escape. Reality just is. Logic just is. Being treated as one treats others just is a good.’ The problem with such a response is that if that is justification enough for their belief in such fundamental axioms that inform all of life, then atheists should have no qualms with theists who also claim the same thing about God, that he is a reality from which there is no rational escape - God just is. 

Most Christians I know who came to accept the existence of God simply felt (and still feel) the presence of God deep within them, long before they were exposed to philosophical arguments proving God’s existence. Most Christians simply find God’s reality to be an unescapable reality. In fact, God is to them the ultimate reality that makes real things really real. Thus they affirm the truth of Romans 1:19-20:

[19] For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. [20] For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Christians claim to know God personally through his revelation in creation and in Christ. They also claim to hear from his Spirit and speak to him through prayer just as realistically as an atheist would perceive the reality of the laws of logic in their minds and feel the conviction of the Golden Rule in their hearts. ‘I AM WHO I AM’ - God simply is that which he is. 

I realize that this may not be very helpful to a lot of atheists. That is fine; then they should be fair-minded and offer more than a ‘It just is!’ kind of argument to defend the realness of reality, the permanence of the laws of logic, and the objective goodness of the Golden Rule. Or what’s left of atheism is circular reasoning, question begging, and blind faith - the very things it accuses theism of. 

Thank you for an interesting post, but I’d like to point out some problems that I have up-front. Perhaps you could clear these things up a bit so that I have a bit more idea of the argument you’re trying to make. 

My first minor criticism is your equivocating morality and logic in your post. I realize that these are the issues you’ve presented, but I’d argue that they have very different explanations. I can’t think of a way you could argue in a case of both at once, at least in a non-theistic sense. This sort of phrasing sets up a sort of strawman. 

 I’ve mentioned in my last post that positing in the supernatural for something doesn’t make your view any more viable. This is true regardless of if I or anyone else can give you a satisfactory explanation or not. If you want to establish that the laws of logic require a god, then you actually have to show why they require a god. Nothing you’ve said here demonstrates that a god is required for the existence of the laws of logic.It may be helpful to remember that, even if you did prove that logic was incompatible with, say, materialism (which you haven’t done), that not all atheists are materialists. Many have a pluralistic ontology in which material entities comprise only one kind of entity in their ontology.  Bertrand Russell  was an atheist but believed in abstract mathematical entities. How do you account for non-materialist, non-theistic explanations in your argument? 

Then there’s the problem of falsifiability and explanatory power. Your argument, if falsifiable, would have to suppose that we can imagine what it would be like if the world did not correspond to logic. But this is impossible to do. What would a world be like if deductive arguments were incorrect, if the conclusion of its argument did not follow its proper premises? This supposition makes no sense. Your argument would also suppose that the Christian God could have created the opposite; that is, he could make logic not apply. The usual apologist claim is that, no, this is part of God’s nature. But this negatively affects the argument. It must mean, then, that logic a necessity (as well as several other attributes, but we’ll focus on logic.) In this case, then theism does no better a job of what you claim atheistic materialism of doing. 

In conclusion, your arguments fail. There are no good reasons  why logic presupposes the Christian God. There is nothing inconsistent in asserting that ‘logical absolutes’ are true and that Christianity is false.  Logic may not need a metaphysical foundation as you and, even if it does, it need not be a Christian one.