Cats and Frogs

I was recently asked why we non-theist/atheist types maintain that it is not necessary to “prove a negative”.  The challenge emerged after someone had asserted that:

            (the atheist) argument is based on two premises

1.    There is no evidence for God

2.    Atheists are not under any burden to prove no God exists

Here’s my response:

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It's not so much about proving a negative as proving something that is not falsifiable. Say we had a very large number of boxes in front of us. Before we open any, I make the claim that at least one of the boxes contains a cat. You, on the other hand, say that you don't know what is in the boxes. We then open 100 boxes and not one of them contains a cat. Instead each and every one of them contains a small frog.

We now reassess our predictions. You say that the boxes might all contain frogs, while I stick with my cat theory. Then we open a thousand more boxes. They all contain frogs.

We both have the opportunity to reassess our theories. You say that the boxes probably all contain frogs, while I stick with the idea that one box contains a cat.

We open a million boxes and they all contain frogs. Hopefully, you get the idea now. I'm now sounding a bit silly to still be hoping for a cat.

How many more boxes do we need to open to prove that I am wrong about the cat? All of them?

Ah, I say, but perhaps there was a tiny cat inside one of the frogs, we don't know for sure that that is impossible. So we start cutting up the frogs. How many frogs do we need to dissect? All of them?

Ah, I say, but do we know that that was all the boxes? Perhaps there were boxes that we didn't see or that got moved while we were paying attention to the ones we were opening.

So long as I stick to my guns, you can't prove that none of the boxes contains a cat, and I haven't even started redefining what cat means yet.

Now think of "cat" to mean "god" and "frog" to mean "nature or rational science" and perhaps you'll understand why we don't feel obliged "to prove a negative".

I really do hope this helps.

A Response to Ruskin

Sadly, a thread I was engaged in at Philosophy Forums was recently locked while I was writing a reply to a delightful fellow called Ruskin.  Since both of us had put so much effort in, I thought I might provide my response to his post here (note that I’ve kept all the petty snarkiness that I find more easily identifiable when editing in the cold light of day, because it was what I would have posted had I been able to at the time):

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Excellent.  Thanks for that Ruskie.  You’ve confirmed your hypocrisy vis a vis your bible.  It’s an authority, but only once you’ve tweaked it a little.  Which basically means that you can believe of it what you will.  If you come across a bit you don’t like, it is obviously metaphorical.  If you come across a bit you like a lot, then of course it is meant literally.

Can you not see why certain people don’t take your bible particularly seriously?  Can you not understand that you cannot use your bible as evidence for your argument? (unless your argument is along the lines of “these words are written in the bible in the book of X”)  The bible is no more evidence for your god than Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is evidence of Hogwarts.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: From what I hear from some of you theists, your god is going to force me into some sort of unpleasant relationship for the rest of eternity.

Ruskin replying: Is a relationship of genuine love unpleasant?

No.  The problem you have is that there is no consistent body of evidence, not even your bible, which isn’t evidence as mentioned above, to support your claim of genuine love on the part of your god.  Your bible is full of evidence that your god is quite hateful.  And, if it were the case that your hateful god exists, since I have not spent my short existence on this planet denying myself based on a flawed set of texts or grovelling on a weekly basis before earthly representatives of your god, I am not likely to be the recipient of your god’s rather creepy love.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: I don't recall arguing against that particular line of yours. If I had I would have pointed out that "good" and "evil" are terms that you need to explain (are you talking about objective good and evil, or are you suggesting that things are defined by humans as good and evil, where those things might change category over time, or do you mean something closer to Sam Harris where greater well-being is good and less well-being is bad)

Ruskin replying: Well-being according to Sam Harris? What if people disagree with Sam Harris? Or say you have well-being for the majority at the expense of a minority.

I do wish you could read a whole passage of text as a whole.  I presume that you don’t mean what Sam Harris might mean by “good” and “evil”.  At least we’ve whittled down your options a little.  I could ask what do you mean by those terms, but actually I don’t care.  I didn’t ask you.  I said that if I was addressing a particular line of your text, then I would have asked you to explain.  But I didn’t actually ask you … because I don’t care what you mean by “good” and “evil” because the sentence in which you used those terms was incomprehensible.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: if you mean something objective then you'd need prove the independent existence of good and evil.

Ruskin replying: Prove you exist and you're not some kind of figment of my imagination. Unless you provide objective proof that I could hallucinate I will deny your objective existence in reality.

That’s rather sophomore-ish, isn’t it?  I’d have thought you were above that.  Oh well, my willingness to see the best in people is a constant source of disappointment to me.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: I would also point out that the sentence is so poorly structured as to make no sense, which is part of the reason that I didn't address it at all

Ruskin replying: If you're not asking for clarification on whatever it was you didn't understand I'll just take this to be a dodge

A dodge of what exactly?

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: All I recall doing was presenting the tract as evidence that you "like to think" things that you think and that you think it is better to just assume stuff.

Ruskin replying: That was an argument regarding freewill and how atheism would deny it even exists not an assumption.

Let me requote what I quoted for comic effect:

neopolitan quoting Ruskin: There's no point saying what accounts for morality and freewill if you don't even have it. I would say we most certainly do have freedom of will and a genuine choice of good and evil though I can't 100% absolutely sure. It's better to just assume that this is true and that there must be a reason why this is true i.e God. Most people would readily agree I like to think even if they don't accept the Bible or whatever.

I’ve highlighted the bits that were pertinent to my point – that you “base[] what [you] think[] on what [you] like[] to think and on assumptions of what is true” .

You ignored these pertinent items and quoted back to me an extract of the above, namely: “freedom of will and a genuine choice of good and evil though I can't 100% absolutely sure.”  Out of context, this makes no sense whatsoever.  To your credit, however, you did amplify:

neopolitan quoting Ruskin: If you claim to not have your own freewill or ability to decide anything for yourself then your opinion, which isn't really your opinion, can be easily ignored. It's a simple case of just trying to point out that you're nuts to believe this and bring you round to some relative human sanity and dignity, a bit of basic appreciation for human existence and what have you.

Since I am a nice guy, I will address your comments.  Again.

neopolitan quoting neopolitan: You're talking about what I call "strong" free will. I'm pretty sure that when you get down to brass tacks, the sort of free will you are talking about is the sort that allows for decisions to be made that are not completely dependent on pre-existing conditions - so a magic sort of acausal free will. That sort of free will doesn't exist. There is a "weak" sort of free will which I think is totally compatible with materialism and that allows me to have my own opinions, an abundance of human sanity and more dignity than I can handle. I also have an appreciation for human existence, especially my own, of course, but I have no opinion on the Kirkland nut selection - is this somehow related to your free will argument? (Perhaps, because there is a choice between various types of nut, there must of course be free will, otherwise Costco would only produce one of the varieties for their signature range - we could call this the Kirkland proof of free will. It's not a good argument, but that doesn't often seem to be an issue.)

Note that you have already responded to these points, so there is no need to respond to them again.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: Is "freewill" different to "free will". If so, please explain.

Ruskin replying: No?

I’m going to assume (given later comments) that “freewill”, in your head, is what I refer to as “strong free will”.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: Yes, you are describing what I call "strong" free will. A sort of diluted godliness, an ability to bypass nature.

Ruskin replying: Yes exactly, so we would have independence from the natural physical process of nature to some degree being partially supernatural in nature yourself and that's where you get freedom of will which ultimately comes from God who is a supernatural kind of guy.

So, this is what I call “strong” free will – and as I have said, this is not a grade of free will, it’s just what I call your definition of free will so as to differentiate it from my own definition of free will, which we could call “weak” free will.  Can we at least accept this?

Alternatively we could have “theistic free will” and “naturalistic free will”, if you prefer.  What’s not going to fly is a claim on your part that there is no free will other than your free will.

Ruskin: That's not to say we're 100% independent from nature because you're living as this naturally evolved physical body and much of what we essentially do is on autopilot *reads Dianetics* the "reactive mind" you can call it I suppose.

No comment.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: If you mean that "strong" free will is freewill, then yes, that is a charade and a pretence that ultimately amounts to nothing.

Ruskin replying: *voice of a child* Why do you do believe that for?

I always think of you talking with the voice of a child, so that was pretty unnecessary.  I was just agreeing with you.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: I should be absolutely terrified by some of the physics and biology things that I am intellectually aware of.

Ruskin replying: Well no you shouldn't be

Way to go with the selective quoting, old boy.  Here’s the context for people who can’t be bothered going back to my post:

neopolitan quoting neopolitan: You seem to think since I am intellectually aware that "strong" free will is a charade, that I cannot put that aside and live like most other humans as if "strong" free will were real. In a similar way, I should be absolutely terrified by some of the physics and biology things that I am intellectually aware of.

Of course I shouldn’t be.  That was my point.  Thanks for getting it.

Ruskin: but...ugh *reads Dianetics* the body is something you own and use not something you are. It's like if you drive a car, you may not be able to control or alter the mechanics of the physical processes of the engine and everything operates a certain way, but are at the same time a separate entity to the car you drive. You can even stop the car and get out though you will be in a different "mode of transport" if you do this no longer on the road. I haven't actually Dianetics btw this just the kind of thing L Ron would write. This is fairly typical of the general idea behind most religions anyway. There are some materialist Christians who believe in a purely physical resurrection but I think they would have the same issue with freewill you would have and what would be brought back to life may be some kind of a copy or clone without a non-material element.

No comment.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: Sadly for you, that is not the case.

Ruskin replying: On the outside you're some kind of tough punk but on the inside.

<image redacted>

Well, since I don’t exist, that’s not a problem - right?

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: Nor am I consumed by existential despair.

I can't speak for all atheists, of course, but I do suspect that most of them are not consumed by existential despair either.

Ruskin replying: If they're not then there is something wrong with them.

Oh lovely.  Is this a variation of the “no true Scotsman” argument?  An atheist is either consumed by existential despair, or is defective.  I don’t think you’ve provided any argument here other than your opinion.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: Perhaps theists simply don't have the strength of character that we atheists have

I’m going to stop you there, because again, you are quoting me out of context.  Here’s what I wrote:

neopolitan quoting neopolitan: Perhaps theists simply don't have the strength of character that we atheists have, and they would be filled with despair if they released their grasp on their god. But I don't think that this is true, because there are plenty of ex-theists around. Perhaps they could advise as to whether they are consumed by existential despair.

Now back to your fragmented quotes and responses:

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: Perhaps theists simply don't have the strength of character that we atheists have

Ruskin replying: Perhaps theists have a great deal more strength of character? *thrusts Bible in your face* do you think this doesn't present a formidable challenge? Not the easiest thing in the world to have to grapple with but the ultimate purpose of human life is depicted in some form or other right in here. It essentially spells out what on some level at least you already knew, and in this way you are without excuse for not believing in it as the Bible rightly says. To deal with this and accept this truth and point others towards it takes some strength of character it's not for the weak hearted. You do have to put some work into this faith business rather than sacrificing God on the altar of "science" and progress. Atheism has been around in some form or other for thousands of years isn't necessarily some kind of forward advancement in reason or that people living in the past were necessarily more stupid than they are today.

I didn’t think it was true that theists lack strength of character. So you’re attacking a straw man.  Largely ignored.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: and they would be filled with despair if they released their grasp on their god.

Ruskin replying: The denial of the supreme reality of all life and consciousness to which we are all a part is it's own despair. This is what hell will be if you continue to do this beyond your physical life.

Hm, magic chocolate …

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: But I don't think that this is true, because there are plenty of ex-theists around.

Ruskin replying: If by their own admission they were completely deluded as a theist how are we to know that they aren't still deluded as an atheist? There's a credibility issue once they admit to being delusion prone.

I suggest that ex-theists address this.  I am not an ex-theist so I have no idea.  What I can say is that part of the reason that am not an ex-theist is because I was not indoctrinated as a child.  I think it’s a little unfair to call people who are indoctrinated as a child “deluded”.  But an ex-theist who has gone through it could address the issue much better than I can.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: Perhaps they could advise as to whether they are consumed by existential despair.

Ruskin replying: Well it's something God will ultimately know and attempt to reconcile with them, be that in this or the other side of eternity.

If your god exists, sure.  But not all of us are assuming that to be true.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: You assert that we have free will and a basis for morality. I see no evidence from you, yet again.

Ruskin replying: It says right here in the Bible look.

"The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." Proverbs 16:9

This is the authority we're using here not some man made philosophy some guy made up who doesn't really know Jack.

"Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem?" Isaiah 2:22

I’m going to assume that that is a joke.

Ruskin: But this aside how the fricken heck would you be able to prove something like this scientifically? If it's just one opinion against another then even the Bible is going to give my opinion an edge as I'm referring my opinion to something else.

If you can’t prove it, then don’t make assertions that it is true.  It’s pretty simple.  And no, your bible doesn’t give you an edge, because you’ve demonstrated that you are quite liberal with the interpretation in it.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: my versions don't include magic sky fairies

Ruskin replying: <video of “brilliant kid” talking about Santa syndrome redacted>

Quoting out of context again.  I see that you’ve come up with another great authority.  And the kid doesn’t seem coached at all!  (<- that was sarcasm, by the way)

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: I am suggesting that what you think free will is doesn't exist.

Ruskin replying: Nope it says we do right there in the Bible *nods in smug self satisfaction*

Another joke?  I do note that “free will” is not mentioned in the bible at all.  The word “freewill” is mentioned in the KJV 17 times, 16 of which is associated with “offerings”, mostly in Leviticus, so it’s talking about an absence of coercion.  The 17th instance is in Ezra 7:13 “I make a decree, that all they of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm, which are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem, go with thee”.  Again this is about an absence of coercion.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: If it wasn't for you and your sort thinking that free will was something magic, I wouldn't have to delineate.

Ruskin replying: I suppose it would be magic if we're talking about the supernatural powers.

You say “supernatural”, I say “magic”, they are of a kind.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: True, so there really isn't any free will after all. The choice is illusory.

Ruskin replying: Or so you say. What would make you change your mind?

A true selection to choose from, perhaps including something that is not a nut-based snack.  (The example was yours – you know, that Kirkland nut range.)

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: Now all life in the universe is part of a deliberate plan - do you want this to mean that we humans are deliberately designed after all, rather than just growing into template?

Ruskin replying: It's the exact same difference if you mean humanoid life and there say billions of planets inhabited by people look something like us. In a universe this big you can't with a straight face say it was created for our one species specifically but it will still work if you broaden the classification of human to include people who technically on a genetic level wouldn't be.

Um, “the exact same difference”?  Are you translating this from another language?

So is it a deliberate plan, or did your god plant the seeds (metaphorically) and then stand back to watch the outcome?  You flip-flop a bit on this.

Ruskin quoting neopolitan: I do love the fact that even an old universe theist will return to Genesis and quote it as if it were authoritative.

Ruskin replying: The Bible is the authority right there, fully compatible with evolution and an old Earth. Yes you have to tweak it a bit but you can see that it still would work if applied to the universe as a whole if there are people like ourselves on other planets. That would seem more like a plan of immense design by a supreme being than some kind of coincidental accident by a non-intelligent natural force.

The one thing that you are consistent on is the cherry picking.  Well done.

Tell you what.  This might convince me.  Say that the Vulcans arrive tomorrow, offering us membership of the Galactic Federation (based on our plans to visit Mars).  They then introduce us to other parallel evolved humanoids (Ferengi, Klingon, Rakhari, for example) and every single one of them have a similar story about an avatar of a god visiting their planet of origin and dying to absolve them of their sins.

When that happens, I will be convinced.

Will you be convinced that your god does not exist when we meet these other humanoids and they are generally atheist or have wildly divergent mythologies?

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Well, that's it.  At some stage, I might develop some of the themes in this (and in other threads on that forum).

Being The Grand Pixie

We tend to think of The Grand Pixie as a big man with a beard, or some sort of powerful "person" like a human being, although one who can do amazing things. This is just the childish version, it is conditioned in our thinking by a pedestrian approach to religion.

There are religions that don't have a "Grand Pixie" per se, such as Buddhism. Essentially, there is no reason to think of The Grand Pixie as a person, certainly not one with a corporeal body. That image, which is hinted at in the Pixie Manual, is merely metaphor. Depending upon the religious tradition, however, one can have very abstract views of The Grand Pixie which have nothing to do with a father figure or a mother figure.

There is a more abstract way to think about The Grand Pixie: that is "Transcendental Signifier;" the notion of a metaphysical first principle that organizes everything into a metaphysical hierarchy. This is the more sophisticated view of The Grand Pixie, and most of the works of the great Faerian philosophers hint at notions of The Grand Pixie in these abstract terms.

Some ancient Faerian, who developed a nonsensical “ontological argument” that no-one really takes seriously anymore, defined The Grand Pixie as "that which nothing greater than can be conceived." If he could have been bothered going through the charade, this old windbag would have ended all of his arguments by saying "this thing we call The Grand Pixie," as a means of keeping the exact nature of The Grand Pixie open ended. This is because The Grand Pixie is beyond our understanding, as the Pixie Manual says, but we can leave a "place marker" for the concept of The Grand Pixie by understanding that the ultimate logical function of the The Grand Pixie concept is that of the transcendental signifier.

Ground of Being

One of the sophisticated concepts used by great Faerian theologians is that of "The Ground of Being." This concept indicates, not that The Grand Pixie is the fact of things existing, but that The Grand Pixie is the basis for the existence of all things. The Grand Pixie is more fundamental to existing things than anything else. So fundamental to the existence of all things is The Grand Pixie – that The Grand Pixie can be thought of as the basis upon which things exist – the ground of their being. To say that The Grand Pixie is The ground of being or being itself, is to say that there is something we can sense that is so special about the nature of being that it hints at this fundamental reality upon which all else is based.

The phrases "Ground of Being" and "Being itself" are basically the same concept. Some use both at different times, and other pixiologians prefer "Being Itself," but they really speak to the same concept. Now Sceptics are always asking "how can The Grand Pixie be being?" I think this question comes from the fact that the term is misleading. The term "Being itself" gives one the impression that The Grand Pixie is the actual fact of "my existence," or the existence of my flowerbed, or any object one might care to name. Some random guy, on the other hand, said explicitly (in some book, so it must be true, right?) that this does not refer to an existential fact but to an ontological status. What is being said is not that The Grand Pixie is the fact of the being of some particular object, but, that he is the basis upon which being proceeds and upon which objects participate in being. In other words, since The Grand Pixie exists forever, nothing else can come to be without The Grand Pixie's will or thought, and since there can't even be a potential for any being without The Grand Pixie's thought, all potentialities for being arise in the "mind of The Grand Pixie" than in that sense The Grand Pixie is actually "Being Itself." I think "Ground of Being" is a less confusing term. The Grand Pixie is the ground upon which all being is based and from which all being proceeds.

How Can "a Being" be Being Itself?

Part of the confusion stems from a misunderstanding of what is being said. I say that The Grand Pixie is 'necessary being' not "a necessary being," not because I forgot the "a" but because The Grand Pixie is not "a being." He is above the level of any particular being that participates in being, but exists on the level of the Being, the thing itself, apart from any particular beings. There is Being, and there are "the beings." This is a crucial distinction, but it leaves one wondering what it means and how it could be. I think the answer lies in the fact that The Grand Pixie is ultimate reality. The Grand Pixie is the first, and highest and only necessary thing that exists, and thus, had The Grand Pixie not created, The Grand Pixie would be the only thing that exists. Could one somehow ponder a universe in which The Grand Pixie had not created, in which The Grand Pixie was all that was, one might well ask "what is it to be in this universe where there is only The Grand Pixie?" In such a universe the only conceivable answer is "to be is to be The Grand Pixie." In that sense The Grand Pixie is Being Itself.

(Original article being satirised is here.)

Null hypothesis

The null hypothesis (warning, the linked cartoon is satirical) is the default hypothesis of science.  Fundamentally, before considering any other hypothesis you should first prove false some formulation of the null hypothesis.

In earlier articles, like On Evidence, I’ve talked about how Christian apologists attack atheists for their presumptions.  As an example, the Shaved Chimp points out (negatively) the fact that “the starting point for the atheists is that there is no purpose out there”.

Well, yes.  That is pretty much what we all should start out with, that’s approaching a good null hypothesis.

Similarly, if you want to consider a god hypothesis you should first find some evidence to negate the relevant null hypothesis – that there is no god.

If you want to consider a claim like “God saved my cat”, you should first disprove the null hypothesis - that there was no supernatural agency involved in the on-going existence of my cat.  Once you've done that, you can try to zero in on the nature of the supernatural agency involved, given that it might have been the witches down the road rather than some sort of sky-fairy.

But until the null hypothesis is negated, there is simply no excuse for considering anything else.

A lot of atheists are, to coin a phrase, null hypotheticians.  They don’t progress past the impossibility to show that anything supernatural is required to explain the universe.  Such atheists don’t need to actively reject god because there’s no need to even consider the god hypothesis in the first place.  To establish such a need, they’d first have to reject the null hypothesis – and no-one has been able to that.

I doubt that the average theist has even tried.

Planting a Special Plea for Warrant

Putting out a Warrant for Plantinga

If William Lane Craig were the Crown Prince of Christian Apologists then Alvin Plantinga would be one of his key advisors.  A couple of times now I have found that arguments coming out of WLC’s mouth had actually originated in the brain of Plantinga.  Given the damage that could be wrought by an apologist with some intelligence and formal training, I thought that Plantinga might be worth a closer look.

This led directly to me listening to a couple of longer presentations by Plantinga, for example an Unbelievable interview hosted by Justin Brierly in which Stephen Law also took part and a “debate” between Plantinga and Daniel Dennett.   This article draws quite heavily on the latter.

The engagement between Plantinga and Dennett was titled “Debate: Science and Religion: Are they compatible?” but it was not really a debate.  It was structured like this:

·         Plantinga (43 minutes) – defence of the proposal that science and religion are compatible, consisting in the main of a basic sketch of his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism together with a reference to the Irreducible Complexity argument of Michael Behe.

·         Dennett (35 minutes) – attack on the proposal that science and religion are compatible, basically by indicating that religion can only be considered compatible with science if one accepts gratuitous claims and that any compatibility that religion has with science exists only to the extent that the claims of religion are not testable

·         Plantinga (10 minutes) – response to Dennett

·         Question and Answer session (17 minutes)

Plantinga spent a lot of time going over his probability theory, a version of which I have already addressed elsewhere, but I want to focus on two things he said.  The first is this little chunk of Christian goodness:

…if theistic belief is true then it probably doesn’t require propositional evidence for its rational acceptability.  As I argued in this book, Warranted Christian Belief, if theistic belief is true, then very likely it has both rationality and warrant in the basic way; that is not on the basis of propositional evidence.  If theistic belief is true then very likely there is a cognitive structure something like John Calvin’s sensus divinitatus, an original warranted source of theistic belief.  This way, belief in God, like belief in other minds, has its own source of rationality and warrant and doesn’t rely on arguments from other sources for these estimable qualities.  The demise of the theological argument, if indeed evolution has compromised it, is perhaps little more of a threat to rational belief in God than the demise of the argument from analogy for other minds is to rational belief in other minds.

To put this in context, you might want to know what Plantinga means by “warrant”:

According to Plantinga, warrant involves four factors:

·         the mechanisms producing the belief must be functioning properly;

·         they must be operating in a cognitive environment for which they are suited;

·         they must be operating according to a design plan or aspects of a design plan aimed at arriving at the truth; and

·         the objective probability must be high that operating in this manner will reach the truth.

(James B. Freeman in Acceptable Premises: An Epistemic Approach to an Informal Logic Problem p44)

Plantinga has argued for a new definition of knowledge, being warranted true belief as opposed to justified true belief (although it could be argued that Plantinga is merely arguing that “warrant” is a better form of justification to those in traditional theories of justification).  I touched on “justified true belief” when discussing my world view (when I did so, I was describing an empirical variant of coherentism, not that I would necessarily consider myself an “empirical coherentist”).  Because Plantinga wants to replace standard forms of justification with warrant, we might be justified in looking more closely at what both mean.

KNOWLEDGE
Warranted True Belief	Justified True Belief
That which is known is believed	That which is known is believed
That which is known is true	That which is known is true
The belief in that which is known is warranted	The belief in that which is known is justified

Comparing warrant and justification:

Warrant	Justification
Belief is generated correctly	The believer is not deluded
Belief is generated in a suitable environment	The believer is using suitably collated data
Belief generation must be operating according to a “design plan” aimed at arriving at the truth	The believer is using an appropriate method for processing available data to reach a conclusion
Objective probability that the truth will be arrived at via the belief generation mechanism is high	If the believer is not deluded, is using suitably collated data and is using an appropriate method to process available data, then the probability of the believer arriving at the truth will be high

 Plantinga doesn’t really seem to be adding anything to justification, unless his use of the term “design plan” is meant to be literal (which he denies) or if his fourth point is intended to be more than a summation of the previous three.  He does, however, seem to be taking two things away.

It’s difficult to take Plantinga at his word when he writes:

it is perhaps possible that evolution (undirected by God or anyone else) has somehow furnished us with our design plans

and also refers to “belief-forming and belief-maintaining apparatus of powers … working the way it ought to work”.  He could mean this usage to be figurative, in the sense that a materialist atheist with cancer might say “my body isn’t dealing with this problem the way it ought to” meaning “certain cells in my body are reproducing without limitation, leading to the growth of tumors which are not recognised as alien and thus not removed by my body’s defences and this state of affairs will lead to my dying earlier than otherwise would be the case – an outcome which I consider to be suboptimal”.  However, I don’t think so.  I think Plantinga means for the four factors underlying warrant to be understood (by the right audience) approximately as follows:

·         Warranted true belief is generated using a design plan which is intended to arrive at the truth, if

·         the design plan was well crafted so as to lead to a high probability that truth will be arrived at, when

·         the belief is generated according to that design plan, and

·         the belief is generated in an environment which is appropriate for the design plan

If I am correct, Plantinga’s warrant can be summed up as “Warranted true belief is a belief that God expressly designed humans to have”.  Now, iff knowledge (which is defined as warranted true belief) is defined as God given, then the existence of God is a fundamental fact, a basic truth, because without God there is no knowledge.

Note that I used “iff” deliberately, rather than “if”.  The term “iff” means “if and only if”.

This is what we atheists call a theological argument.  Plantinga, on the other hand, calls this a “philosophical” argument.

Try reading through the extract from Plantinga’s presentation again.  I’ll help by converting the phrase “if theistic belief is true” to “if God exists” (see Plantinga’s definition of naturalism as discussed in Planting a Tiger for a justification).  The word “it” becomes “belief in God” in two instances.

…if God exists then belief in God probably doesn’t require propositional evidence for its rational acceptability.  As I argued in this book, Warranted Christian Belief, if God exists, then very likely belief in God has both rationality and warrant the basic way; that is not on the basis of propositional evidence.  If God exists then very likely there is a cognitive structure something like John Calvin’s sensus divinitatus, an original warranted source of belief in God.  This way, belief in God, like belief in other minds, has its own source of rationality and warrant and doesn’t rely on arguments from other sources for these estimable qualities.  The demise of the ontological argument, if indeed evolution has compromised it, is perhaps little more of a threat to rational belief in God than the demise of the argument from analogy for other minds is to rational belief in other minds.

Now some readers might divine from this that Plantinga is saying that you don’t need evidence to believe in God and that believing in God, even in the absence of evidence, would be “very likely” rational.  Some might just read it as saying that logical arguments (resulting in propositional evidence) don’t affect the existence or non-existence of God.  The latter is of course true.

I might have a very good argument that Kim Kardashian does not exist, for example, no-one I know has ever met her.  The brilliance of this argument, however, has no effect whatsoever on the existence or otherwise of Kim (or indeed any other possible form of Kardashian).

However, I suggest that Plantinga really means the former – the very weak claim that iff God exists, then believing in such a God would be rational even in the absence of evidence.  But he goes further.  Time for the second chunk of Christian goodness from that “debate”:

And even if contrary to fact, there were scientific evidence for unguided evolution and hence for atheism, that would by no means settle the issue.  Suppose there is scientific evidence against theism, it doesn’t follow that theism is false or that theists have a defeater for their beliefs, or that theistic belief is irrational, or in some other way problematic.  Perhaps there is also scientific evidence or otherwise for theism.  But second and more important, as I mentioned, if theism is true, it is likely that it has its own intrinsic and basic source of warrant …

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Plantinga said, in a “debate” in which he was arguing that religion and science are compatible, that if there is scientific evidence against theism (noting that evidence against a hypothesis is the only scientific evidence worth having, since hypotheses only survive in their original form as long as there is no evidence against them), then the theist can just ignore that inconvenient scientific evidence and instead rely on the possibility that there might possibly be some evidence for theism or, alternatively, rely on a completely hypothetical sense (sensus divinitatis), for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence at all, as your basic source of “warrant”.  Remembering of course that a warranted true belief looks like this:

“I believe that God made me in such a way that I will believe that God exists, therefore God exists”.

This is, in context, an admission that religion is fully compatible with pseudoscience, but not actual science.

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Just in case anyone is in any doubt, in science if you have evidence against your hypothesis (and by that I mean proper evidence, not false evidence), then your hypothesis is false.  End of story.

You can have evidence which does not support your hypothesis which might not necessarily be a hypothesis killer, but this is usually due to poor framing of the hypothesis or difficulty with obtaining experimental data.  Years of not finding evidence for the Higgs Boson did not disprove the hypothesis that it exists because no evidence against existence of the boson was obtained either.

If you only accept evidence which supports your hypothesis and you ignore any other sort of evidence, then you have pseudoscience.  That approach puts you in the same category as the 9/11 Truthers, Alien Abduction enthusiasts, Loch Ness Monster spotters, astrologers, mediums, water dowsers, shamans, homeopathy practitioners, homotoxicologists, quantum healers, moon landing hoaxers, Holocaust deniers, millenarianists, flat earthers, Nibiru cataclysmists, rumpologists and theists.

Many of the claims of a pseudoscience are not strictly testable but sometimes theists, like the Intelligent Design crowd, make outlandish claims and these can be shown to be false:

God must exist because the eye cannot have evolved naturally – shown to be false

God must exist because irreducible complexity is impossible via evolution – shown to be false

God must exist because evolution is false since it’s ridiculous to imagine that humans evolved from monkeys – shown to be false (the subordinate claim about human descent from monkeys being ridiculous is agreed but it’s irrelevant to the evolution argument since monkeys and humans have a common ancestor – the link isn’t actually proof, per se, but an explanation)

What science can do, and does, is chip away at all the “God must exist because ...” arguments.  Eventually, the theist is left with no undefeated claim for the necessity of God.

What the average theist can then do, and obviously does, is retreat into a form of special pleading (“my hypothesis is special and has God in it, therefore it doesn’t need evidence”).