My Challenge to “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Proof”

[jonathan_hili]

My understanding is that you are making the observation that “necessary being” is either

1. Logically tenable and therefore must imply a Being that must exist.
2. Logically untenable and therefore pure nonsense.

The concept does not allow a middle ground (which is also logical nonsense) that a necessary being is merely a possible one, i.e. a possible necessary being, which is a contradiction by definition.

I think your other point is that if the cosmological argument holds to require a necessary rather than contingent explanation, then 1) above is supported and logically excludes 2). Therefore, Necessary Being is logically, shall we say, necessary.

Personally, I see no way around the logic because the pure fact of “existence” would seem to be a necessity. If anything “exists” then existence itself is a necessary reality. Existence itself could not be a contingent reality, unless you subscribe to metaphysical magic to explain why anything actually could or does exist. That position, however, requires much greater blind faith than any religious doctrine I can imagine.

I’m trying to argue from the position developed my Malcolm (from Anselm’s second argument in Proslogion), that God is Greatest Conceivable Being (GCB).

GCB cannot be dependent, therefore cannot be caused, therefore cannot come into existence (begin to exist), therefore - if GCB exists - must exist necessarily. This does not prove that GCB exists, only that, if GCB exists, He exists necessarily.

For me, this is the genius of the argument, and I find it incredibly persuasive.

 

[jonathan_hili]

Does that mean that we can dispense with the Plantinga variant? That the “necessary” existence has nothing to do with existing in all the possible worlds? Because this was our mutually accepted starting point - in my understanding.

Well, in any modal argument (which is what Malcolm uses), you are going to be using “possible worlds”, although I’m honestly not that familiar with Plantinga’s approach.

That is more like the original suggestion of Anselm. It is simply incoherent. The reason is that that there are infinitely many possible attributes, and many of those attributes are incompatible and/or contradictory. No “being” can be both “infinitely large” and “infinitely small”. Or “infinitely smart and powerful” and “infinitely stupid and weak”… or “infinitely slim” and "infinitely “fat”… I could continue.

Therefore the GCB is simply undefined. Now some people grab a few attributes - which they subjectively consider important - and say that the GCB is unsurpassed in relation to those attributes, and they quietly forget about the rest. As such it becomes a subjective assessment, just “WHAT” constitutes “greatness”. Why those attributes and not others?

I see what you’re saying but the whole idea of GCB isn’t a being that possess a total set of infinite qualities because that would be a contradiction, since how could such a being be both infinitely visible and infinitely invisible. However, even this may not be a contradiction, since GCB could have these infinite qualities potentially, and therefore be potentially infinitely visible and potentially infinitely invisible.

But I’m digressing. GCB isn’t conceived of in this way because He would by definition have to be logically possible. Just as I can’t conceive of a square circle, I couldn’t conceive of a GCB with contradictory qualities.

Rather, GCB is maximally perfect. I don’t think we therefore grab attributes that seem subjectively important, but are looking at those that have to do with perfection. Smallness and largeness don’t seem to have to do with perfection in the way that omnipotence or omniscience does.

 

[Tyrion]

Rather, GCB is maximally perfect. I don’t think we therefore grab attributes that seem subjectively important, but are looking at those that have to do with perfection. Smallness and largeness don’t seem to have to do with perfection in the way that omnipotence or omniscience does.

That does not help either. “Perfection” is as undefined or subjectively defined as any other “aggregate” attribute. A “perfect” dinner for a carnivore is not the same as a “perfect” dinner for a herbivore. A perfect dinner for a blind person is very different from a perfect dinner for a sighted person. Besides “perfection” is not immune to self-contradiction. A perfect bullet can penetrate any armor… while a perfect armor can withstand any bullet. There is no such thing as “maximally perfect” in a vacuum. Perfection only exists in relation to something.

Not to mention that “omnipotence” and “omniscience” are also virtually undefined. The literal meaning of being able to do “everything”, and knowing “everything” are clearly nonsensical. The more modern usage of being “maximally powerful” - meaning to ge able to do everything that can be done, or knowing everything that can be known simply changes the “goalposts”… since now we need to find out just “what” can be done and “what” can be known.

The point is that there is no coherent, objective definition of a GCB. After all it requires fantasy, and people have varying amount of fantasy. For example (and let’s not get distracted here) “my” GCB is able to perform “evil acts”, but does not choose to, while the traditional catholic concept of God that he is unable to act against his “nature”, and is unable to do evil acts. As such there can be no common ground even if one attempts to “stick to” the idea of “perfection”.

 

[tonyrey]

When I ask skeptics why they don’t believe in the supernatural, they often say, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” I argue that skeptics also make an extraordinary claim without proof.

No one has ever established the criteria of what is “ordinary”, let alone “extraordinary”. There is far more in life than meets the eye (or ear, nose, tongue or skin).

 

[Ion]

No one has ever established the criteria of what is “ordinary”, let alone “extraordinary”. There is far more in life than meets the eye (or ear, nose, tongue or skin).

There are skeptics left without comment in such circumstance, and accepting an supernatural event with some abstention, which only the sincere are capable, but believing in God, trusting and loving Him, is far much more. If somebody imagines that after roaming through some logical journeys he might find God, is delusional, there is only a flat and empty sentence.
Meaning is far much more important.

 

[Peter_Plato]

That does not help either. “Perfection” is as undefined or subjectively defined as any other “aggregate” attribute. A “perfect” dinner for a carnivore is not the same as a “perfect” dinner for a herbivore. A perfect dinner for a blind person is very different from a perfect dinner for a sighted person. Besides “perfection” is not immune to self-contradiction. A perfect bullet can penetrate any armor… while a perfect armor can withstand any bullet. There is no such thing as “maximally perfect” in a vacuum. Perfection only exists in relation to something.

Not to mention that “omnipotence” and “omniscience” are also virtually undefined. The literal meaning of being able to do “everything”, and knowing “everything” are clearly nonsensical. The more modern usage of being “maximally powerful” - meaning to ge able to do everything that can be done, or knowing everything that can be known simply changes the “goalposts”… since now we need to find out just “what” can be done and “what” can be known.

This, certainly, is far from true. We are not talking about dependencies such as reliance on meat or vegetation. We are talking about characteristics that would place a necessary being beyond any possible dependent relationships.

There are qualities that are conducive to necessity and characteristics that are clearly not. Being infinitely stupid (a property you listed previously) is not in any way conducive to necessity. Nor are many other characteristics that were conceived by you. It seems to be clear that in order to qualify as necessary, any being would require potency or power to the degree that no other possible existent could create a threat to the necessity or existence of such a being. Stupidity would clearly not be logically essential to necessity of existence.

Likewise, in order to bypass contingency as an essential aspect of existence, a necessary being would need to transcend any dependence upon causality, physical or otherwise, for existence

I am not clear that you have made anything like a case against necessity by claiming infinite properties are contradictory. It would seem that necessity could readily entail specific, non-contradictory properties as a matter of logic and definition.

Your conclusion that omnipotence and omniscience are nonsensical is nothing more than a personal opinion. Why are the capacities to know and do “everything” possible logically incoherent? You must mean by that something like, beyond your capacity to understand, which clearly is not the same as logical incoherency. You haven’t presented anything like a clear argument for thinking you might be right. Shall we take that on faith strictly based on your say so?

 

[Love4All]

atheist believes in the supernatural

Categorically, definitionally, no such thing. You can either be atheist or believe in the supernatural, not both.

 

[Love4All]

Pope John Paul II is one miracle away from sainthood and yes, they will call in doctors, scientists and other experts as needed, to verify whatever happens.

Minor point of correction, Ed. They will call in scientists, not to verify, but to falsify. If they fail to falsify, then the next step proceeds. Science cannot verify a miracle, as that is outside of its competence.

 

[Love4All]

I’d suggest there’s at least one other: We don’t currently have an explanation.

So, the null set is inhabited?

 

[tonyrey]

There are skeptics left without comment in such circumstance, and accepting an supernatural event with some abstention, which only the sincere are capable, but believing in God, trusting and loving Him, is far much more. If somebody imagines that after roaming through some logical journeys he might find God, is delusional, there is only a flat and empty sentence.
Meaning is far much more important.

How do you decide what is meaningful?

 

[Love4All]

Wrong! The James Randi Foundation is interested. They investigated many claims and… 100% turned out to be a “hoax” or mistake. They are willing to pay a million dollars to anyone, who can prove any kind of supernatural, paranormal, whatever claim in properly controlled, double-blind circumstances. There are very few takers, and no winners so far.

The prize, Alas! seems to be confined to manifesting paranormal abilities under controlled circumstances. You know, like spoon-bending and the like.

That is, it does not appear that a manifestation of Divine Power would even be considered for the prize.

 

[Love4All]

Very good suggestion. The problem is the good old “epistemology”. How do we gain knowledge about the different aspects of “reality”? How do we decide if a certain claim is “true” or not. It is obvious that different types of claims need to substantiated in a different manner.

There are several basic aspects to be considered.

1. Claims about the physical reality.
2. Claims of abstract sciences.
3. Claims of historical nature (claims about past events).
4. Claims which fall “beyond” the observable universe. (These could be claims of paranormal nature, or claims pertaining the to religions, or maybe “new-age” type of claims).

Category 1) is simple (in principle, though not necessarily in practice). If a claim can be verified, and the verification process is successful, then the evidence is sufficient.

Category 2) is also simple. Take the axioms, the rules of inference and see if you can “reach” the suggested the claim. If the answer is yes, you have proved the claim (not just substantiated).

Category 3) is not so simple. If that claim pertains to an event which left “marks” on reality (for example a volcano erupted) then no problem. If it did not leave any observable clues then one needs to rely on testimony, if there is one. The evaluation of testimonies is problematic. The more testimonies remain, from different, opposing sides, and the more those testimonies corroborate each other, the more reliable the testimony MIGHT be. Also one needs to evaluate the authors of those testimonies. How reliable are they, based upon other writings. But let’s face it: one piece of physical evidence will beat one million testimonies.

Category 4) is a huge mess. There has never been (to my knowledge) an epistemological method offered to decide the veracity of the claims in this category. The problem has been brought up many times, and no one was able to offer an objective, repeatable epistemological method. Generally the proponents go back to “Category 3)”. Of course, it is already problematic, but in a compounded fashion. After all the proponents assert that their “claims” pertain to the present, not just to the past. So to refer to ancient texts, of unknown authors, and the like make their claims highly dubious and thus: unacceptable. Or they offer the word of some so-called “authority”. Never mind that the “authority” cannot substantiate those claims either. All they can do is use the “age-honored” brow-beating of a lousy parent: “Because I said so!!!”. No wonder they do not earn any respect, outside their own circle.

Of course in these boards, the categories 1), 2) and 3) are of little importance. It would be nice to see some headway to be made in category 4), but since no one could offer a proper epistemological method (despite the high quality of the thinkers who already tried) it is very unlikely that the present collection of the people (who are simple laymen) will make a useful suggestion.

Tyrion, if category 4 regards those things (if any) that are beyond the physical universe, what kind of evidence can we expect?

To get straight to what may be a larger discussion beyond the scope of this thread, but related, it seems to me that, from category 3 with regard to the Church, the existence of the Church is an artifact of the events recounted in the Gospel. Histories of Cairo are not too much questioned, because Cairo still exists. Histories of Ur were more suspect, until archaeologists actually uncovered Ur. If we treat the New Testament as the historical account of the infant Church, it seems to be that the current existence of the selfsame Church is a huge bit of confirmatory evidence for the veracity of those accounts.

 

[Love4All]

. . . there is one possible situation where scientific method can be tried. Exorcisms. However, I doubt the Church will permit it. Perhaps other denominations may get easier approval to record an exorcism to be setup by an approved person(s) of the skeptic world.

How would you set up an experiment to prove that exorcisms really work? It seems first, you’d need to find and authenticate cases of possession. I have my own ideas on this, and in some sense I am playing Devil’s Advocate here, but, how would you authenticate a real possession in the first place? Do you suppose they are very common?

 

[Love4All]

Example of an extraordianary claim: “the gospel will be preached to all nations”
The written evidence of this claim is from a time when the christians were a handfull of people and were living as outlaws in the roman empire.
Do we have evidence about it? Absolutely yes.

That is a really good point. The Catholic Church exists. For an itinerant preacher in the backwoods of Judea to make a claim, while still alive, that his particular message would be carried to the ends of the earth, is an extraordinary claim in and of itself. The historical evidence is very strong that that claim was not written in to the Gospels after the fact, since the Gospels were written long before the Church had spread to every nation. Particularly in light of the bad end that the Roman Empire made of that particular preacher, how is it that He could have known that His Name would one day be known to all the world? That is extraordinary.

 

[Love4All]

Except you cannot. All the attempts of “proving” God are abysmal failures. And even if they could succeed, they would only prove the existence of a “faceless, deistic” creator, and there is no “road” from that to the christian God.

This seems to me an extraordinary claim. Do you have some extraordinary supporting evidence?

How do you know that there is categorically “no road”? You seem to be poisoning the well.

 

[Love4All]

“(v) [God is impossible] only if the concept of such a being is self-contradictory or logically absurd.”

Since (v) is true - this being is self-contradictory AND logically absurd… (vi) is incorrect, and thus God does not exist.

This is an extraordinary claim! I think it deserves its own thread, so I am going to start one. I invite you to support your claim there.

 

[Tyrion]

The prize, Alas! seems to be confined to manifesting paranormal abilities under controlled circumstances. You know, like spoon-bending and the like.

That is, it does not appear that a manifestation of Divine Power would even be considered for the prize.

I am sure, if someone wishes to go and demonstrate the existence of angels and demons, then they will pick up the glove.

Tyrion, if category 4 regards those things (if any) that are beyond the physical universe, what kind of evidence can we expect?

Well, that is the point, isn’t it?

To get straight to what may be a larger discussion beyond the scope of this thread, but related, it seems to me that, from category 3 with regard to the Church, the existence of the Church is an artifact of the events recounted in the Gospel. Histories of Cairo are not too much questioned, because Cairo still exists. Histories of Ur were more suspect, until archaeologists actually uncovered Ur. If we treat the New Testament as the historical account of the infant Church, it seems to be that the current existence of the selfsame Church is a huge bit of confirmatory evidence for the veracity of those accounts.

For some events, yes, but generally, no. Just because there are events which are corroborated by external evidence, that does not lend credence to the rest. But this would be a different topic.

This is an extraordinary claim! I think it deserves its own thread, so I am going to start one. I invite you to support your claim there.

On my way.

 

[MPat]

I am sure, if someone wishes to go and demonstrate the existence of angels and demons, then they will pick up the glove.

Er, not really… Unless those “angels” would be supposed to be extremely obedient to the applicant and respond in the same way to the same “stimulus” every time… And that would be rather strange, given that they are supposed to be more free and more powerful beings than humans. And, in general, even humans do not respond in the same way to the same stimulus. For example, if someone on this forum started to post the same messages again and again, different messages would not get the same responses.

Actually, the FAQ about the challenge - randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-faq.html - even has a question: “Why can’t I submit a religious or spiritual claim?”. Also, one of the answers in the FAQ says “Test your power at home”, implying that it is expected that it is not the general “existence of angels” (or something) that is will be tested, but some “paranormal abilities” - and, as we know, even then only reliable, observable ones are likely to be tested.

So, while this challenge does show that “Parapsychology” does not deserve much trust (and it is a useful function of the challenge), it doesn’t tell us much about Catholicism (nor about many other religions). Though, of course, it does make the miracles much harder to explain away by “paranormal abilities”. Not that most of the atheists would want to do that…

 

[Tyrion]

Er, not really… Unless those “angels” would be supposed to be extremely obedient to the applicant and respond in the same way to the same “stimulus” every time… And that would be rather strange, given that they are supposed to be more free and more powerful beings than humans. And, in general, even humans do not respond in the same way to the same stimulus. For example, if someone on this forum started to post the same messages again and again, different messages would not get the same responses.

Actually, the FAQ about the challenge - randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-faq.html - even has a question: “Why can’t I submit a religious or spiritual claim?”. Also, one of the answers in the FAQ says “Test your power at home”, implying that it is expected that it is not the general “existence of angels” (or something) that is will be tested, but some “paranormal abilities” - and, as we know, even then only reliable, observable ones are likely to be tested.

So, while this challenge does show that “Parapsychology” does not deserve much trust (and it is a useful function of the challenge), it doesn’t tell us much about Catholicism (nor about many other religions). Though, of course, it does make the miracles much harder to explain away by “paranormal abilities”. Not that most of the atheists would want to do that…

I went and read the linked page. Actually it refers to “paranormal” as “supernatural” - according to the dictionary definition. Moreover, the exclusion of “religious claims” is not absolute. If someone would submit a testable claim, it would be considered. For example: “claiming that a certain prayer will have better results than a mere statistical fluctuation”. Or the demonstration of demons - as long as the demonstration occurs during the testing process.

After all, there is no real difference. A rose is a rose is rose … or in this case a hoax is a hoax is a hoax…

 

[Ion]

I am sure, if someone wishes to go and demonstrate the existence of angels and demons, then they will pick up the glove.

This is so pathetic…There are hundreds of people in US, and thousands in the whole world, who would never show up in Randi’s office for 1 million dollars…