Plantinga: The God Delusion

[Al Moritz]

I also don't see why, even if we assign primacy to living entities, they can only occur in the universe as it is.  To be sure, life as we know it requires the universe as we know it.  But who is to say that life of a completely different sort could not arise in a universe entirely composed of red dwarves, say?  If we were to (absurdly, I admit) imagine some intelligent being observing our universe before life had arisen, would that being be able imagine life occuring in anything near the form it has, if it could conceive of the idea of life at all?  My suspicion is that such a being would be absolutely shocked by something as simple as a slug.  In a universe "tuned" to different constants, life could theoretically occur in ways we would never imagine, or would not even think of as life at all.  Could stars develop intelligence?  Why not?

If you would have studied this issue sufficiently, you would know that not just life as we know it, but any chemical complexity requires highly specialized laws of nature.

Any detuning, and any chemical complexity would be impossible. Just hydrogen, and possibly deuterium and helium (or equivalents), and no chemistry.

We know that material life requires complexity of matter, and complexity of matter is impossible without chemistry. Thus, if several of the physical constants were freely variable, then the chances to arrive at any laws of nature that allow for material complexity – thus any kind of life, not just life as we know it – would be very low. Our universe with its specific laws of nature would be a small oasis within a vast desert of  a humongous number of sterile, non-complex universes where no chemistry takes place.

If, on the other hand, there would be a completely different kind of life in a completely different kind of universe with laws of nature that do not at all resemble what we have (and which also produce entirely different particles), it is still the most rational assumption that this life would be based as well on some material complexity, which in turn would be based on some sort of alien chemistry (being a semi-closed system and metabolism require complexity, there is no disputing that). And furthermore, we would rationally expect by extrapolation from our laws of nature (we have nothing else to go by) that also here any detuning of physical constants would make that alien chemistry impossible.

Thus, another small oasis within a vast desert of  a humongous number of sterile, non-complex universes where no chemistry takes place.

Overall, then, even if some entirely different form of life might be possible somewhere else under completely different conditions, the probability for any life, known or unknown, most likely still remains very low.

Could stars develop intelligence?  Why not?

Hardly, without chemical complexity, which is not found in stars. Imaginative thinking is one thing, wild baseless science-fiction another.

That you put this in the context of

"life could theoretically occur in ways we would never imagine, or would not even think of as life at all",

does not really give you a free card to allow for anything.

If you allow for life without any – even alien – chemistry, then kudos to your imagination, but it leads you into regions of thought that are not seriously debatable anymore and which have no basis in our knowledge from science.

And I have never seen it debated in those terms by a scientist.

[Al Moritz]

But if we are going to have a discussion that allows for the possibility of something as absurdly improbable as the theistic God, then I think all bets are off, and any other seeming absurdities are also fair game.

You should study philosophy more. Generally, in theistic philosophy the probability of God is maximal (there is nothing else as probable), since God is the metaphysically necessary being. All other beings acquire their being from Him, i.e. without Him nothing would exist.

Thomas Aquinas: all creatures derive their actus essendi, their act of being, from God, while God is esse, being, itself.

Sure, as an atheist you can reject this thinking, but to suggest to a theist – or without taking the theistic view into account – that God is "absurdly improbable" is, indeed, absurd.

[drogulus]

Complete utter nonsense. The intelligent God of the modern theologian happens to share the attributes of the model of Classical Theology, which has established these attributes many centuries ago, many centuries before modern science.

The attributes of God are independent of the particular way He chose to create the universe.

      That's what wrong, Al. A real god's attributes would be dependant on what could be demonstrated about them. How else could you attribute them?

      The whole point of the original response to Darwin was that design was necessary, and a blind process couldn't build up the features of the world from a simple beginning. As science has shown how this can happen in ever greater detail, the argument has shifted from a designer working from a blueprint to an initiator of the process. What Aquinas and Plantinga say means nothing if they can't provide a reason for saying it.

      The real argument was over whether natural selection violated a principle that a great being or cause must be the author of the complexity in nature. Merely saying that the creator is simple while permitting him to do complex things as a matter of intention is to violate sense, as well as to leave the question of how this is determined unanswered.

You should study philosophy more. Generally, in theistic philosophy the probability of God is maximal (there is nothing else as probable), since God is the metaphysically necessary being. All other beings acquire their being from Him, i.e. without Him nothing would exist.

Thomas Aquinas: all creatures derive their actus essendi, their act of being, from God, while God is esse, being, itself.

Sure, as an atheist you can reject this thinking, but to suggest to a theist – or without taking the theistic view into account – that God is "absurdly improbable" is, indeed, absurd.

     But theistic philosophy is about what a theist can maintain, not what is actually there. For that you have to go to philosophy proper, which means natural philosophy or science. If there's another way to get the truth about what is there, the proponents of the other way must deliver the goods. They can't do that.

[drogulus]

Overall, then, even if some entirely different form of life might be possible somewhere else under completely different conditions, the probability for any life, known or unknown, most likely still remains very low.

Hardly, without chemical complexity, which is not found in stars. Imaginative thinking is one thing, wild baseless science-fiction another.

That you put this in the context of

"life could theoretically occur in ways we would never imagine, or would not even think of as life at all",

does not really give you a free card to allow for anything.

If you allow for life without any – even alien – chemistry, then kudos to your imagination, but it leads you into regions of thought that are not seriously debatable anymore and which have no basis in our knowledge from science.

And I have never seen it debated in those terms by a scientist.

    Freed from the necessity to conform to the theistic a priori, you make an excellent argument, of the same kind anyone would in the face of improbable assertions without foundation.

     You and Aquinas and Plantinga do not have the free cards you think you do just because your premise takes a theistic form. It's still governed by reason and evidence. The loophole is not there just because you want it to be.

[Shrunk]

Thanks for the detailed responses, Al.  Admittedly, neither cosmology nor philosophy are my strong points.  Still, your arguments leave me unconvinced that God is anymore than one of a number of possibilities to explain the nature of the universe.

I'll return to my analogy of a circle.  A circle has a number of attributes:  Radius, diameter, circumference, area.  However, these attributes are not independent of one another.  If any one of these attributes is determined, then so are all the others, and all other dimensions can be known once any single one of them is.  The question is, is this necessarily so?  Does this fact reflect some immutable law of the physical universe, or is it simply a whim of God?  Could God, if he so willed it, had made it so that the attributes of a circle had a different relationship than the one we know of, or even be completely independent of each other? 

Now, as I understand the "fine tuning" argument, it in effect posits God (metaphorically) sitting at a control panel with a number of knobs.  One might be labelled "gravitational constant" another "weak force" or "electromagnetic force", etc.  God then tweaks each these knobs to a precise number to allow a universe to come into existence which allows for chemistry and life to exist.

Now, lets take an alternative view.  Let's say the control panel still exists, but there is no one sitting at it twiddling knobs.  The knobs just move randomly.  The other difference is that the controls no longer operate independently of each other. Any knob can be turned, but once one knob is moved, all other knobs also move by a determined amount.  Their relationship is like that of the attributes of a circle.  Any individual parameter can be set anywhere, but once that parameter is fixed, so is every other one.  There is still a large number of possible "settings", possibly even an infinite number, but any one of those settings will allow for a stable universe that can lead to the existence of complex chemistry and life, though the precise forms those take may be very different from setting to setting.

Now, perhaps this stems from some fundamental misunderstanding on my part, but I fail to see why one of the above scenarios is more likely than the other.  Scenario two seems more plausible to me, but I can't really justify that except to say that it seems the kind of thing that physics could conceivably illuminate at some point.  The God scenario just seems like something that will always remain an unverifiable possiblity, and one which raises more questions than it would solve. 

[drogulus]

     Does a god have the attributes of a basketball, or the attributes of a circle? It would have to be a circle, I think. The attributes of a basketball, a real object, are determined empirically, by examining it. The attributes of a circle, OTOH, are something one reasons about. It follows that the god Plantinga reasons about most nearly conforms to an abstraction. This will be so until an event in the world shows otherwise.

     The eruption of a real god into the world would be a disaster for such speculation, rendering it meaningless even to those who accepted it formerly. If that doesn't happen, and I don't think it will, it will be like string theory, another exercise about itself and not about anything real. I don't think gods or circles or hypotenuses will invade our lovely planet and seek revenge upon us for our foolish presumption. So theists are probably safe, as are scientists and mathematicians.  

[Brian]

     Does a god have the attributes of a basketball, or the attributes of a circle? It would have to be a circle, I think. The attributes of a basketball, a real object, are determined empirically, by examining it.

Also, if God had the attributes of a basketball, then we could score points by putting him through hoops.

Come to think of it, that's pretty much what Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jim Kennedy and the Trinity Broadcast Network do.

[Al Moritz]

Thanks for the detailed responses, Al. 

You're welcome.

Admittedly, neither cosmology nor philosophy are my strong points.  Still, your arguments leave me unconvinced that God is anymore than one of a number of possibilities to explain the nature of the universe.

Which is understandable. As we had said, this is not about proof but about credibility, and an assessment of credibility is partially influenced by one's personal background.

Now, lets take an alternative view.  Let's say the control panel still exists, but there is no one sitting at it twiddling knobs.  The knobs just move randomly.  The other difference is that the controls no longer operate independently of each other. Any knob can be turned, but once one knob is moved, all other knobs also move by a determined amount.  Their relationship is like that of the attributes of a circle.  Any individual parameter can be set anywhere, but once that parameter is fixed, so is every other one.  There is still a large number of possible "settings", possibly even an infinite number, but any one of those settings will allow for a stable universe that can lead to the existence of complex chemistry and life, though the precise forms those take may be very different from setting to setting.

Now, perhaps this stems from some fundamental misunderstanding on my part, ...

Hmm, the above scenario does not quite work scientifically as you envision. It was an elegant thought experiment though.

[Florestan]

      But theistic philosophy is about what a theist can maintain, not what is actually there. For that you have to go to philosophy proper, which means natural philosophy or science.

Wrong as wrong can be. Philosophy proper means "love of wisdom". This is by no means limited to science*. "Natural philosophy" is just one out of many "philosophies" and as such just as valid (or invalid) as "theistic philosophy". To confound science with philosophy and proclaim "natural philosophy" as the only true philosophy amounts to dogmatism.

*Of course, science and wisdom are neither mutually exclusive nor automatically related.

[Shrunk]

Hmm, the above scenario does not quite work scientifically as you envision. It was an elegant thought experiment though.

Where did I go wrong?

[Al Moritz]

To confound science with philosophy and proclaim "natural philosophy" as the only true philosophy amounts to dogmatism.

Dogmatism indeed.

The reasoning of many atheists, including Drogulus, seems to go as follows:

"I only accept observational evidence, which is only obtained from the material world. Science, which studies the material world, has had spectacular success in providing observationally verifiable evidence and in explaining how the natural world works. Hence, science has shown to be the only reliable source of human knowledge. Therefore, I don't accept the possibility that there is any other reality than what science studies, i.e. the material world."

This, however, is circular reasoning: the conclusion is basically the same as the premise from which it started.

[Hector]

It's not a widely known fact that since before the Schism the title of Pope was (and still is) only reserved for and bestowed upon two bishops; the Roman pontifex and the (now called orthodox) patriarch of Alexandria.

So, the answer really depends on which one you mean... 

Oh, bollicks, ya got me!

I have no idea and this may surprise you or not, couldn't care a monkey's!

Also, being rich is a no-no!

So, if you made your pile by selling drugs you are in for an eternity of Damnation (some might think it worth it - the fools!).

[karlhenning]

It's not a widely known fact that since before the Schism the title of Pope was (and still is) only reserved for and bestowed upon two bishops; the Roman pontifex and the (now called orthodox) patriarch of Alexandria.

Curiously, I knew that.  But you are certainly correct, Tasos, that it is not widely known.

[drogulus]

Wrong as wrong can be. Philosophy proper means "love of wisdom". This is by no means limited to science*. "Natural philosophy" is just one out of many "philosophies" and as such just as valid (or invalid) as "theistic philosophy". To confound science with philosophy and proclaim "natural philosophy" as the only true philosophy amounts to dogmatism.

*Of course, science and wisdom are neither mutually exclusive nor automatically related.

     No, I'm not wrong. Going to philosophy proper from theistic philosophy is an escape from dogmatism. And resorting to science to determine the existence of entities is just a good move, since the existence of entities can't be demonstrated by pure reason. Whether something exists or not is determined by reason and evidence working together. If you use the methods of pure reason you get something like "god is perfect, perfection requires existence, therefore god exists". You can't determine the existence of anything that way.

[Al Moritz]

      If you use the methods of pure reason you get something like "god is perfect, perfection requires existence, therefore god exists". You can't determine the existence of anything that way.

Silly how atheists always hammer on the ontological argument for God, which is hardly taken seriously by any theist.

[Al Moritz]

Where did I go wrong?

Well, you simply can't vary over a large range.

Also, how do you "tie the knobs together" if you have very different numerical values, such as 40, 0.007 and 10^-120, to name just three of the values (eta, epsilon and omega)? Are you linearly varying them all by 0.001 increments? That obviously does not vary them all by the same "percentage". But if you don't linearly tie them together, then all bets are off in terms of arbitrariness.

[drogulus]

Generally, in theistic philosophy the probability of God is maximal (there is nothing else as probable), since God is the metaphysically necessary being. All other beings acquire their being from Him, i.e. without Him nothing would exist.

Thomas Aquinas: all creatures derive their actus essendi, their act of being, from God, while God is esse, being, itself.

    This is dogmatism of the precise kind that provoked the modern reaction in philosophy (by modern I mean recent centuries, not recent decades). It depends on the acceptance of a premise which can't be justified by a higher standard. Logical possibility should be seen as the lowest standard for the existence of anything. We say, for example: "Yes, it's logically possible for strings, gods, or a multiverse to exist", meaning we have no higher standard to deploy in their defense. There is a motive (save the underlying premise) but not a warrant beyond that. Maybe there's hope for strings, but we'll only know if we can figure out how to test the idea. We also might do more investigation of intercessory prayer and other paranormal possibilities.
   
     Like Hume, I accept science on pragmatic and not dogmatic grounds. In other words, it works. And I resort to metaphysics in a defensive mode, to counter the more extravagant metaphysics of my opponents. To be puritanical about it, I shouldn't do it at all. But I'm not a dogmatist, so I allow for metaphysics, largely because it's fun, and to demonstrate how little can be accomplished by it.

    Denying the ontological argument is not the point, since I see no reason to accept any such arguments.

    Why is Terry Jones argument for witches (Holy Grail) and their supposed composition (to say nothing of their guilt!) funny? It's not just because we no longer think there are witches. To really get the point of this sketch, you have to understand that we no longer reason that way about what exists.  We only argue in such a medieval manner about premises that can't be justified in any other way. Today we understand that a search for real witches, gods, or other improbables requires something beyond a mere deductive argument. Real investigations requires estimates of probability, which in turn requires some kind of evidence. Whether such evidence suggests materialism or not is beside the point. Many scientists would gladly investigate nonmaterial causes, and such investigations do in fact occur. The charge that scientists are dogmatically commited to materialism is false, though some scientists may exhibit signs of such a bias, it's not intrinsic to the methodology.

     Also, we now understand that such concepts as "pure being" or 'being itself" are not useful.  Existence is not an attribute. It is properly understood as a statement of a conclusion, that something exists, and must therefore depend on a prior argument in which evidence is evaluated.

    Logical arguments about the necessary existence of something are inappropriate for doubtful things, which can't be made less doubtful by such a move. They can only be assumed dogmatically. Since you can't do anything useful with these ideas, you should just give up on them, and not waste time in a futile attempt to disprove them.

[Don]

Silly how atheists always hammer on the ontological argument for God, which is hardly taken seriously by any theist.

You seem to have some problems with atheists.  Why?  Most of them just mind their own business.

[Brian]

You seem to have some problems with atheists.  Why?  Most of them just mind their own business.

Because they posit that the centerpiece of his existence is nonexistent. But Al is considerably more intelligent and tolerant than many of his less clever colleagues in faith, who have some problems with other flavors of theism too.

[drogulus]

You seem to have some problems with atheists.  Why?  Most of them just mind their own business.

    Bullshit. This is my business. It's also Al's business, and anyone else's who can contribute to the discussion. I have no use whatsoever for drones who "mind their own business".