What If You Can't Be Reasonable Without Faith?

Sam Harris, one of the new atheists, in his book The End Of Faith defines faith this way:

The truth is that religious faith is simply unjustified belief in matters of ultimate concern—specifically in propositions that promise some mechanism by which human life can be spared the ravages of time and death. Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse—constraints that you're leaving like reasonableness, internal coherence, civility, and candor. 1

Of courses, Harris is completely wrong in his view of faith. Some aspects, such as his attempt to divorce faith from civility are a bit laughable—especially when it is the "reasonableness" of Harris that tries to label any person of faith as lost in outer space.

Sam Harris is a master at creating straw men when discussing religious belief, and that's just what this is. But the misconception has been around a lot longer than Harris. It was probably expressed most succinctly by Mark Twain who said, "Faith is believing in what you know it ain't so." But people of reason can be also people of faith, in fact the Christian practice of apologetics is designed to give reasons and evidence for faith. Part of the confusion is polemical; atheists like Harris have a desire to make people of faith look as bad as possible, so he writes that the faithful are uncivil and deceitful. But Harris isn't being reasonable here. I've written before about  Harris's misdefinition of faith; you may read articles here and here. I think another key problem with Harris; view is that he misunderstands the concept of reason as well.

What is Reason?

Everyone assumes they know what reason is, but reason involves thinking rightly about the world around us. Ultimately when we talk about reason we talk about a rational enterprise (using our minds) to aim at an objective criterion. We avail ourselves of what we know to try and make sense of ourselves, the world and our experiences. Basically, being reasonable means we are looking for truth by thinking well.

Since reason involves looking for truth, it then becomes important to realize that reason includes going beyond ourselves. Truth is an objective thing; it's something "out there" not just something subjective. Any truth claim lies outside of the individual. Truth may stand in contrast to the experience that an individual has, including even empirical/sensory experience

For example, your senses may tell you that the Sun circles the Earth. If we look up, we watch it; we can see it with our eyes. Isn't that enough proof? No, it isn't. Isn't that empirical evidence? Yes, but just a bit of empirical evidence alone may lead you astray. Just because we see something with our eyes it is not necessarily the end of the matter. How do we know that our eyes are not telling us the truth? We have to find new facts and we then use our reason to compare different sets of data.

When Copernicus offered his model of the solar system where the earth circles the sun, part of the driving nature to his belief is that the Creator of the world would prefer simpler and more beautifully designed way to arrange the planets' motion:

For Copernicus as for many ancient philosophers the sky is the visible God; therefore the study of the movement of the celestial bodies is the most excellent way to the invisible God. The Creator is the great architect of all things; in the cognition of the mathematically simple structure of the universe man will become united with Him. It is suggested that these theological ideas gave Copernicus the pertinacy to work out his heliocentric system despite the misgivings of contemporary Aristotelian physicists.2

Copernicus, then, sought to explain the universe that was as satisfying to his faith as it was to his eye. He dedicated the book containing his findings to Pope Paul III and said:

I am not so much in love with my conclusions as not to weigh what others will think about them, and although I know that the meditations of a philosopher are far removed from the judgment of the laity, because his endeavor is to seek out the truth in all things, so far as this is permitted by God to the human reason, I still believe that one must avoid theories altogether foreign to orthodoxy.3

 There was no way to deduce Copernicus' view using sense data alone. Copernicus showed mathematically why his model made more sense, and part of the attractiveness of his model was its simplicity and beauty. But Copernicus says that he wished to remain orthodox in his understanding of the world and it was his use of reason as given by God that led him to his view of a sun-centered solar system. Metaphysical faith helped propel the Copernican model forward.

When one seeks to be reasonable, it means that he must weigh all the information at his disposal. That may include considering ideas that are not based in empirical observation alone, but ones that have a basis outside of nature. If God's existence makes more sense out of things like the emergence of life from nonlife, the emergence of consciousness and the orderly nature of the universe, then, barring actual evidence to the contrary, it would be unreasonable for us to believe there is no God.

I wish Sam Harris and other atheists who like to bring up Copernicus would look at how reasonable Copernicus really was. I also wish that some of the New Atheists would also hold to not being "so much in love with my conclusions as not to weigh what other think of them." That would be a very reasonable thing to do.

References

1. Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. 65. Print.
2. G Zimmermann, Die Gottesvorstellung des Nicolaus Copernicus. Studia Leibnitiana 20 (1) (1988), 63-79. As quoted from O'Connor, JJ and E F Robertson. "Christianity and the Mathematical Sciences - the Heliocentric Hypothesis." The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. University of St Andrews, UK. July 2014. Web. Accessed 03-11-2014.
3. Copernicus, Nicholas. "Dedication of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies." The Harvard Classics. By Charles William Eliot. Vol. 39. Connecticut: Grolier Enterprises, 1993. 55. Print.

Heresies and Scripture - Podcast

What are heresies and why are they so important to avoid? During the first 400 years of the Christianity's existence, the church fathers wanted to ensure that the doctrine passed down from Christ and his apostles would remain uncorrupted. Thus, heresies were a significant concern.

In my most recent podcast series, I reviewed a few of the significant heresies that the early church answered and why a proper understanding of who Jesus is can make all the difference. All four podcasts are available for download by following the links below.

• Heresies and Scripture - Part 1 
• Heresies and Scripture - Part 2 
• Heresies and Scripture - Part 3 
• Heresies and Scripture - Part 4

If you would like to subscribe to the Come Reason podcast, just grab the RSS feed here.

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.

Is God Limited by the Laws of Physics?

It seems that yesterday's post on the Fine-tuning argument ("A Mostly Lethal Universe Does Not Disprove Design") struck a nerve on the Twittersphere. I was involved in a long Twitter conversation with a number of atheists concerning the implications of a universe that contains vast spaces where life cannot survive. While I won't recount the entire exchange here, here are a couple of tweets that seems to be indicative of the thinking:

.@comereason @joesw0rld @Justinsweh God could have designed the universe with different laws, constants, and initial conditions
— Secular Outpost (@SecularOutpost) October 31, 2014

@SecularOutpost @comereason @joesw0rld @Justinsweh The FTA makes it seem as if god himself is constrained by the laws of physics.
— Atheism And The City (@AtheismNTheCity) October 31, 2014

This was interesting as it highlighted a couple of atheistic misunderstandings about the fine tuning argument and about the nature of God.

First, the premise of their objection rests on the idea that God can make anything He wants happen. While Christianity holds to an omnipotent God, it has never taught that God can do absolutely anything. God cannot do what is logically impossible (make a rope with only one end or create a triangle with four sides). God also cannot learn, cannot lie, and cannot cease to be. Omnipotence has always been defined as God is capable of doing anything that is within His nature. Since God is logical, his universe would follow logic as well.

Looking at the fine tuning argument then, one must understand that part of God's prerogative is how to set up the universe to begin with. If God chooses to create intelligent beings that are three dimensional, then it follows that there are certain limitations that follow from that choice, such as the beings will need to have the world in which they live also be three dimensional. Other restrictions may also follow from this, but what doesn't follow is that God is constrained by the laws of physics. To show why, we merely need to look in the kitchen.

If a chef desires to create a dessert, he or she has many possibilities. First, he would need to choose whether he wants to make a hot or cold dessert. This is entirely his preference; he has access to both the oven and the freezer and may use either However once he has made his choice, that choice will present itself in a certain way. So, if our chef seeks to make a soufflé, he won't be using the freezer, because soufflés simply are not frozen. And if our chef wants to use cherry filling instead of egg whites, he would no longer be making a soufflé but a cherry pie. The choices are free, but they begin to define the outcome.

Choosing to create a three dimensional universe that can support life requires creating certain parameters by definition. Saying God is limited by physics when creating our universe is like saying God is limited by a geometry textbook because he cannot draw a four-sided triangle. That's silly, because anything with four sides is simply not a triangle. Ultimately, the objection is simply a version of "If God is all powerful, why can't he make salsa so hot that even he can't eat it?" These are nonsense statement.

The fine tuning of the universe that we see shows, as I have said, that the Laws of the universe are set just right, the constants of the universe are set just right, and the initial conditions of the universe are set just right for life. In other words, God's recipe for our universe uses just the perfect ingredients in just the right amounts to achieve his end goal. Arguing that God should have used cherry filling instead of egg whites is not the same thing as proving there was no chef at all.

A Mostly Lethal Universe Does Not Disprove Design

One of the proofs of God has been how the universe has been incredibly finely-tuned for the existence of life. I've written on this in several different posts, and highlighted Robin Collins' argument that given the extremely improbability of a single universe coming into existence without a God, it is irrational to believe in a such an atheistic universe.

Most atheists have responded to this problem in one of two ways. The first is to claim that while the values of several dozen parameters are indeed uniquely positioned for life, this isn't a problem because there are an infinite number of universes that exist—all with different parameters—and we just happened to live in the one that will sustain life. I've already shown why this claim fails. But it's the second response that I've been hearing more often lately. Many atheists to day simply claim that our universe just isn't designed for life. Many Internet atheists have made such arguments, but I will use the one Richard Carrier presented in our debate as typical of them:

With regard to the nature of the universe and it supposedly being finely tuned for life, it really isn't. I want you think about the cosmology in astrophysics for a moment.  99.9999 percent (a large percentage) is filled with a lethal radiation-filled vacuum. Life can't exist in it. That means that a vast quantity of the universe is inhospitable or lethal for life. That aside, if you look at the other material in the universe, 99.9999 percent consists of stars and black holes in which life cannot live. So, a vast amount of the material in the universe is inhospitable for life. And even if you look at the remaining stuff, most of that also is inhospitable for life. In fact, if you were to put the entire observable universe into a house and do the math, the amount of volume in that house that would be hospitable for life would be smaller than a proton. Now, if you walked into a house and there was only one proton in there that was hospitable for life, you would not conclude that the house was designed for life. The universe is clearly not designed for life.1

Missing the Point

First off, objections like this miss the point of a universe designed for life. The claim of not only theologians but scientists such as John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, Paul Davies, and Martin Rees2 is not that the majority of the universe is set up so that life could thrive, but that the parameters that govern all aspects of the universe are set precisely with life permitting values. Robin Collins breaks this down into three areas: The fine-tuning of the laws of nature, of the constants of nature, and of the initial conditions of the universe.3 Collins goes on to use the gravitational force as one example, explaining that if there were no force attracting bodies at long ranges, no stars would ever be able to form, there would be no heat for life, there would be no way for a planet to hold water or an atmosphere, and thus life would be absolutely impossible no matter where you are in the universe. It isn't the ratio of inhabitable verses uninhabitable space is great or small, the fine-tuning question centers on a binary answer: Can life exist anywhere at all ever? With just one or two minor changes to any of 20 or more constants or laws, the universe becomes unable to put forth any life at all.

Large, Uninhabitable Areas Don't Disprove Design

While Atheists like Carrier are misunderstanding the argument, their responses may still provoke another question. After all, if the universe is designed for life, then wouldn't one expect God to create more than a minuscule area able to support life? However, this objection also draws the wrong conclusion. One cannot argue that simply because there are vast areas that are lethal for life that therefore the universe was not designed with life in mind. That doesn't follow. In my debate, I answered Carrier with this example:

Now Richard asks, “Why make the universe so lethal in so many parts? This obviously argues against God.” Well that doesn't follow at all. Picture a rancher in Texas—a man who lives alone and has 5,000 acres of land and a 100,000 head of cattle. Why would one man need so much land that's arid, desolate, and one where he can't survive in? How can you imagine that there is a 5,000 acre ranch only dedicated for one man? Well maybe it's there because that's what he desired. That serves his purposes. So just because the universe is vast, it is not an argument against God. People will move great mounds of earth to get to one diamond. You see, it's the value of the thing that matters and not how much space is taken around it.4 

Thus, the conclusion is shown to be false from the premises. Simply because the majority of the universe is not life supporting doesn't mean that supporting any life wasn't the original purpose for the universe. It could be that God wanted to support life, but He also wanted to give us the beauty of the stars for our enjoyment. Of course scientists like Stephen Hawking have argued that the rate our universe expanded is actually just right for life, thus implicating that vast uninhabitable areas are part of what it takes to allow life to exist.5  Or God could have had another purpose for the expanse of space. But no matter. It's clear that the expanse of life-prohibiting space is not an argument against the universe's design. It only shows that we are rare and therefore highly valuable.

References

1. The Great Debate: Does God Exist? Dir. Come Reason Ministries. Perf. Lenny Esposito and Richard Carrier. Come Reason Ministries, 2012. DVD. Available at http://www.comereason.org/tools/default.asp?mode=category&dt=4&pcid=20
2. For books on this subject by these authors see The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986) by Barrow and Tipler, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? (London: Allen Lane, 2006) by Paul Davies, and Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (New York: Basic, 2000) by Rees.
3. Collins, Robin. "The Teleological Argument." The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. By William Lane. Craig and J.P. Moreland. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 211. Print.
4. The Great God Debate, ibid.
5. Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. Toronto: Bantam, 1988. 128. Print.