The Irrational Faith of the Naturalist

Does man have an immaterial soul or is nature and the material world all there is? Atheists deny the existence of the supernatural, but they also tend to believe there is no fundamental immaterial substance to human beings, either. All our thoughts, feelings, and existence could be reduced to physical states like chemical reactions or electrical impulses. We call this belief philosophical naturalism as the person who holds it believes the natural world is all there is.

One of the greatest problems the naturalist faces is how to account for the fact that human beings are conscious creatures. We can think abstractly and conceive ideas. While many have attempted to explain the evolutionary biological development of man, no one seems able to offer any explanation of the evolution of consciousness, as Richard Swinburne has noted. They just assume that consciousness will pop into existence if the body is complex enough. But how is that science?

J.P. Moreland, in his book The Recalcitrant Imago Dei underscores the problem:

Prior to the emergence of consciousness, the universe contained nothing but aggregates of particles/waves standing in fields of forces relative to each other. The story of the development of the cosmos is told in terms of the rearrangement of micro-parts into increasingly more complex structures according to natural law. On a naturalist depiction of matter, it is brute mechanical, physical stuff. The emergence of consciousness seems to be a case of getting something from nothing. In general, physio-chemical reactions do not generate consciousness not even one little bit, but they do in the brain, yet brains seem similar to other parts of organisms' bodies (e.g., both are collections of cells totally describable in physical terms). How can like causes produce radically different effects? The appearance of mind is utterly unpredictable and inexplicable. This radical discontinuity seems like heterogeneous rupture in the natural world. Similarly, physical states have spatial extension and location but mental states seem to lack spatial features. Space and consciousness sit oddly together. How did spatially arranged matter conspire to produce non-spatial mental states? From a naturalist point of view, this seems utterly inexplicable.1

Thomas Nagel has also complained that naturalists are shirking their responsibility in assuming the appearance of consciousness. Although Nagel is an atheist, he also recognized consciousness is something fundamentally different than physical reactions which can be explained in materialist terms. In other words, your mind is not your brain. He concluded any account of consciousness on natural grounds alone would fail, writing "since a purely materialist explanation cannot do this, the materialist version of evolutionary theory cannot be the whole truth."2

Evolutionists and naturalists have left a gaping hole in their theories. The retort of "we'll find it; we just haven't yet" is akin to a man telling the IRS "I know I owe you money, but I'm going to win the lottery soon and when I do, I can pay you." It's another of those science-of-the-gaps claims. But the naturalist isn't even playing the right lottery as he keeps taking his chance betting on material items when the lottery is being played with immaterial numbers.

There's no avoiding the problem of consciousness for the naturalist. Any science that continues to assume one can get something from nothing isn't explaining anything; it's simply a statement of faith. And it's the most irrational kind of faith at that. Christians don't even believe that we can get a something from a nothing. We at least start with God.

References

1. Moreland, J.P. The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism. (London: SCM Press, 2009). 24.
2. Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. 45. Print

Attention Media: What an Evangelical Is Not

Although as I write this the vote is over a year away, we have come into the election cycle once again in the United States. Pundits will be discussing and over-analyzing the various groups and constituencies they believe are key to the race for the presidency. Certainly the terms "Evangelicals," "Fundamentalists," and "Religious Right" will be bandied about quite a bit in debates and opinion pieces, but many in the press are sloppy in their distinctions. In this excerpt from a piece on his Web site, J.P. Moreland offers some points that would define what a Christian evangelical is and isn’t.  He writes:

Frequently, Evangelicals are identified with Fundamentalists and the Religious Right. This identification is false and harmful to the spirit of civil public discourse. Since I am an Evangelical, it may be helpful for me to explain what the term means. Two preliminary points are important. First, Evangelicals, just like anyone of commonsense, reserve the right to define who they are and what they stand for and we Evangelicals resent the media’s superficial and misleading characterization of us. Second, Evangelicalism is not primarily a social, political, or cultural movement. At its core, it is to be defined theologically.

...As Roger Olson has noted, an Evangelical is one who satisfies five characteristics: (1) biblicism (adherence to the supreme authority of the Bible regarding everything it teaches when properly interpreted); (2) conversionism (belief in the essential importance of radical conversion to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior); (3) the centrality of the cross of Jesus and the forgiveness it provides in attempts to grow in character and spirituality; (4) persuasive, respectful evangelism and social action on behalf of the poor, oppressed, and powerless, including the unborn; (5) a respect for but not slavish dependence on the history of Christian tradition and doctrine.1

Moreland goes on to quickly contrast why Evangelicals are different from Fundamentalists and why they cannot be considered the Religious Right. You can read the short article here and be ready to explain the differences before the onslaught of media misrepresentation begins.

References

1. Moreland, J. P. "Defining "Evangelical" in Public Discourse." JPMoreland.com. J.P. Moreland, 3 Mar. 2008. Web. 6 Aug. 2015. http://www.jpmoreland.com/articles/defining-evangelical-in-public-discourse/.

J.P. Moreland: Why the Church Must Overcome Its Aversion to Intellectual Development

One job of the church is to be salty to the world in which it finds itself, so if that world grows saltless, we should look first to the church herself to glean what we can about her contribution to the situation. ... A major cause of our current cultural crisis consists of a worldview shift from a Judeo-Christian understanding of reality to a post-Christian one. Moreover, this shift itself expresses a growing anti-intellectualism in the church, resulting in the marginalization of Christianity in society—its lack of saltiness, if you will—and the emergence of the most secular culture the world has ever seen. That secular culture is now simply playing out the implications of ideas that have come to be widely accepted in a social context in which the church is no longer a major participant in the war of ideas.1 In the rest of this book, then, I’ll try to demonstrate how the church must overcome the neglect of this critical area of the development of the Christian mind, perhaps the most integral component of the believers’ sanctification. The role of intellectual development is primary in evangelical Christianity, but you might not know that from a cursory look at the church today. In spite of this, if we are to have Christ formed in us (Galatians 4:19), we must realize the work of God in our minds and pay attention to what a Christlike mind might look like. As our Savior has said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37). To do this, we cannot neglect the soulful development of a Christian mind.

 J. P.Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul. 2nd Ed. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2012. Print.

A Culture Filled With Empty Selves

In his book Kingdom Triangle, Dr. J.P. Moreland warns that our culture continues to slide towards immaturity through an increasingly "thin" view of the world and the aggrandizement of pleasure over other pursuits. While we have more free time and more entertainment choices than ever before, happiness seems to be more elusive than in previous generations. J.P. blames part of this on the empty self. He writes:

My observations about happiness are not ivory-tower ruminations. I speak here with real gravity. For the first time in history a culture-ours-is filled with what psychologists refer to as the "empty self". The empty self (also called "the false self") is so widespread in Western culture that it is sometimes referred to as a cultural plague. According to psychologist Phillip Cushman:

the empty self is filled up with consumer goods, calories, experiences, 'politicians, romantic partners, and empathetic therapists .... [The empty self] experiences a significant absence of community, tradition, and shared meaning ... a lack of personal conviction and worth, and it embodies the absences as a chronic, undifferentiated emotional hunger.

Most of us would recognize characteristics of the empty self among adolescents, and it would be wonderful if the problem left when teenagers became old enough to vote. Unfortunately, that is not the case. People continue to manifest features of the empty self well into middle age. It does not take a rocket scientist to observe that the features of the empty self simply make spiritual growth impossible. The path of discipleship and the life of an empty self mix like oil and water.1

J.P.'s seven characteristics of the empty self are outlined in this brief article. Even though one who desires to be a disciple of Jesus should strive to avoid all of these traits, they are far too prevalent in the church today, let alone the larger world.

References

Moreland, J.P. Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit's Power. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007. Print. 24-25.

Top Five Apologetics Posts for October

People turned to the articles on the Apologetics Notes blog 21,799 times last month. One key piece that generated our second-highest traffic of all time focused on the recent Hillsong controversy. While I've written before about the importance of holding to natural marriage as the only legitimate form of marriage, I took a different tack with Hillsong, calling them out for their unbiblical Word-Faith teachings. The post really resonated and generated a lot of talk on social media. Here then are the top five posts for October:

1. The Missing Piece in the Hillsong Controversy
2. What Archaeology Can Tell Us About the Bible
3. Moral Laws Necessitate a Moral Lawgiver
4. Christianity Properly Diagnoses the Human Conditon
5. Does Being Old Disqualify the Bible's Teachings?

Christianity Properly Diagnoses the Human Conditon

Dr. J.P Moreland, in an article he wrote for Focus on the Family, offered four specific principles that one should use when weighing different religions. In the third of four, he points to the human condition and notes that religion should offer a solution to the problems we face as human beings.

He writes:

Principle 3: A religion's diagnosis of and solution for the human condition should be more profound than its rivals.

A student of mine came from India to study at Talbot School of Theology. Having been raised a Hindu, he began an intense search for religious truth as a teenager. His search led him to study the religious texts of the world's leading religions. His search also led him to Jesus Christ. Why? He said that, by comparison, the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament towered over the others for their depth, profundity and power. While all religions have some truths in them, one should choose a religion that does the best job of diagnosing what is wrong with human beings and how their condition can be solved. 

When one does a cross-cultural study of the human condition, one finds the following universal human experiences and desires: All humans (1) experience threefold alienation — they feel alienated from God, from other people (including those they love), and from themselves; (2) experience deep and abiding shame and guilt; (3) desire personal life after death in which their loves and ideals may continue to be a part of their experience; (4) desire that their individual lives have meaning and purpose; (5) desire a life of beauty and drama, to be a part of something big and important, to be part of the struggle between good and evil; and (6) experience the need for help and empowerment to live a life of virtue and character. 

I believe that if one carefully compares the New Testament with other religious approaches (including atheism), like my student, one will discover that the religion of Jesus of Nazareth provides the deepest, most penetrating analysis of these six factors, along with the richest solution to these longings of the human heart. 

Principle 3 points straight to Christianity.

You may read the entire article on J.P.'s web site here.