Problems With "A Rational Approach to God’s Existence"

[ethereality]

I unfortunately sympathize with “our atheist friends”: It is not clear to me why the universe cannot exist as a brute fact, why God is needed to explain it, or how that doesn’t simply make God instead the “brute fact”. Namely: “God maintains His own existence.” “How?” “He just does.” “That’s a brute fact.”

If I try to tease it out further, I arrive at what appear to be meaningless phrases: I don’t know what it means to say a being exists as a verb rather than as a noun: “No, rather, He is existence itself.” “What does that mean? What does it mean to ‘be’ existence? Existence is a property of a thing, not a thing itself.” “I mean God is the act of being.” “An act is what beings do, not a thing that a being is.” “Fine, then God continually ‘does’ Himself.” “That’s another brute fact.”

So, yes, as you say, the principle of parsimony dictates that rather than shift the ‘brute fact’ from the universe itself to God, we leave it at the universe. To arrive at knowledge of God, then, apparently requires the sort of divine intervention that Jesus did, but apparently hasn’t done for 2000 years, instead requiring men to simply trust other men – and this is belief, not knowledge.

I do not see why ‘brute fact’ is an unacceptable conclusion for the existence of the universe as a whole. A year or so ago Karlo Broussard tried to argue against this point in another website article (blog post) and failed. I recall that the reason his argument failed was that his conception of reality was overly simplistic. It is false to think “we haven’t explained anything” when we actually do explain individual aspects of the universe. It is not clear what the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” means (purpose? cause? there may be no purpose; the cause may be beyond our ability to discover), nor is there any requirement that the universe must be intelligible to us, since we are clearly finite animals within it. So I have yet to see a sound argument why the universe itself cannot be a brute fact, despite IWantGod handwaving it away.

 

[ethereality]

IWantGod, you seem to have suddenly shifted focus: The question is not whether atomic configurations have properties their individual atoms lack. The question is whether it is proper to conclude that “natures exist” given unique properties per configuration.

The controversy here is that we can say that what we think of as a dog is in fact a configuration particular to a certain set of beings that we have labeled ‘dogs’: You can call it a ‘nature’ or ‘essence’ for verbal bookkeeping, i.e. to simplify speech, but it would remain mere euphemism to refer to the atoms themselves.

The implication here is that I don’t see the basis for saying things like, “humans have rational essences and therefore immortal souls, whereas dogs have sensitive essences and, lacking rationality, have material, mortal souls,” because all that apparently exists are atoms in either case. To say human atomic configurations have “rational eternal essences” yet other animals have only “sensitive material essences” appears to be speculation (and belief, not knowledge), especially when we see more and more of animal behavior appearing no different from our own (e.g. chimpanzees acting like humans).

As a reminder, though, this is not directly related to Catholic Answers’ bad article, and my OP stands unrefuted in pointing out its problems. I’m taking the time to say all this because I want to be persuaded, to be corrected, to be a confident Christian uniting my suffering with Jesus happy to be accomplishing good through my suffering, instead of a miserable agnostic trying to suffer well as I’m told without any sign that what I’m told is correct, and multiple evidence to the contrary.

 

[IWantGod]

IWantGod, you seem to have suddenly shifted focus: The question is not whether atomic configurations have properties their individual atoms lack. The question is whether it is proper to conclude that “natures exist” given unique properties per configuration.

Are you arguing that atomic arrangements do not produce new holistic qualities of which they are a part?

If they do, then it is proper to speak of this quality as a new nature regardless of the fact that it is comprised of atoms. You cannot just ignore the existence of the whole; holistic qualities really exist, they are not just euphemisms… To speak of what a thing is, its “whatness”, is to speak of its nature. This is not controversial at all. It is the idea that there are no natures that is controversial and requires proof.

 

[balto]

No, rather, He is existence itself.” “What does that mean? What does it mean to ‘be’ existence?

Honestly I don’t think anyone other than God knows the answer to that question.

the cause may be beyond our ability to discover), nor is there any requirement that the universe must be intelligible to us, since we are clearly finite animals within it

This is a fair point to be making, it seems the expression “brute fact” is a bit overloaded, so I will attempt to draw an additional distinction. If you are referring to something whose intelligibility is beyond our capability to understand, due to us having finite intellects, let’s call that an “epistemological brute fact.” If the thing in question is just unintelligible in whole or part in itself, regardless of any intellect’s ability to understand it, let’s call that a “metaphysical brute fact.” I would contend that there are such things as epistemological brute facts (Catholic theology makes provisions for such, under the designation of “revealed mysteries”), but no metaphysical brute facts. Something could be epistemologically brute without being metaphysically brute if the reality in question were excessively or infinitely intelligible rather than being unintelligible. The doctrine of “from nothing nothing comes” seems to be equivalent to saying “there are no metaphysical brute facts.” The question is whether this is actually the case or not.

It is false to think “we haven’t explained anything” when we actually do explain individual aspects of the universe. It is not clear what the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” means

I think this is at the crux of the present discussion. I think the meaning of the question might become more clear if we clarify what we mean by “explaining things.” It seems that you may have an idea of how to clarify this since you are claiming that we have actually explained individual aspects of the universe.

Let’s use a simple example of waking up in the morning and seeing the ground wet and eventually concluding it had rained the night before. Why does the observation of a wet ground demand explanation, and what does it mean to say that the rain has explained the wet ground? I’m not asking for the scientific details but the general form of the thinking involved. I think the answer to this question can be generalized to other realities. I’m actually not sure how this discussion will turn out, but we can see where it goes. I can try to offer something if you’d rather have me go first.

 

[AlNg]

“Unconditioned reality” means a reality that does not depend on any other reality of any kind for its existence or occurrence.

Can someone give an example of a tangible unconditioned reality which can be observed and measured by experiment.

 

[balto]

Can someone give an example of a tangible unconditioned reality which can be observed and measured by experiment.

I think we have to analyze what is being asked in this query. If a thing exists unconditionally, then it exists through itself. This seems to follow from the definition of unconditional given in the quoted post, since it does not depend on anything else for its existence and we are nevertheless supposing it does exist (the present discussion seems to be over the coherence of an unconditional reality existing through itself).

Experimental analysis seems to presuppose that the reality being studied is capable of being otherwise and hence capable of being empirically falsified. If the reality in question is incapable of being otherwise, as something existing through itself would be, then it cannot be subject to experimentation. So the answer is that there is no such thing as an unconditional reality that can be measured by experimentation.

 

[AlNg]

there is no such thing as an unconditional reality that can be measured by experimentation.

this is perhaps why many scientists have expressed disbelief in such.

 

[IWantGod]

I think we need to make a distinction between people’s epistemological philosophy and the subject of science. Science is a tool. There are of course scientists who hold the philosophical opinion that science is the only legitimate way of knowing something through inference. I think science is good at knowing or measuring particular things. But we can also know things about reality in general that doesn’t require scientific validation.

 

[fisherman_carl]

I can’t really comment too much about what Fr. Spitzer wrote as I have not read it. Nor am I versed in quark theory. However, I would recommend you check out Dr. Feser’s books like ‘Aquinas’ or his latest one ‘Five Proofs…’ Aquinas’ argument for a first cause, if successful, does not rely on current scientific theory to be successful. If Aquinas’ argument is true it would true regardless of what the scientific understanding of the universe is. Because it is a philosophical argument that is more foundational than science itself.

 

[fisherman_carl]

One way to look at it is anything that is composed of parts requires an explanation outside of itself for how those parts came together. And I would even say that anything that is located in some location of space requires an explanation outside of itself for how it is located in that part of space vs another part of space. Even considering the number of quarks in the universe requires an explanation outside of the universe itself for why there is that particular number of quarks and not another amount of quarks in the universe.

This is why the concept of divine simplicity makes so much sense.

 

[balto]

this is perhaps why many scientists have expressed disbelief in such.

Most likely. Whether or not this disbelief is rationally defensible is another matter.

 

[ethereality]

I think I see an aspect of reality that IWantGod has overlooked, but due to time constraints it seems prudent to limit myself to answering questions asked of me. (I have mostly given up hoping for clarification to the objections I have raised in the OP.) To answer his question, "No, rather: To speak of “holistic qualities” appears to be a euphemism to refer to how we (our atomic configurations) interact with those atomic configurations. If material existence is the brute fact – or, to put it another way, without knowledge of God as being responsible for underpinnig it – our descriptions of the world are essentially useful fictions, mental models of reality. Those “qualities” are not immaterial realities, but simply what our brains (i.e. those neural atomic configurations) have stored (i.e. been configured) in response to stimuli.

The bottom line is that it appears to me an atheistic, materialistic understanding of reality is plausible and consistent, with the advantage over Christian faith of explaining suffering. It has the disadvantage, of course, of robbing us of moral absoluteness – but one could talk to great length about apparent benefits and detriments of theism and atheism. The more foundational point for me is that I still lack knowledge that God exists; realizing this, I quickly grow tired this thread’s forcing me to explain my views …

Why does the observation of a wet ground demand explanation, and what does it mean to say that the rain has explained the wet ground?

An explanation is only demanded by a rational agent seeking some goal. For someone late for an appointment, the ground they’re passing being wet or not is irrelevant, and no explanation is needed. So please be careful not to presume that explanations must exist.

Assuming someone is seeking to know the cause of the ground becoming wet, if that is what you mean, an explanation is demanded because, again, there is a rational agent seeking some goal who demands it. Then, the wet ground is considered to be explained when the rational agent has been given enough information to achieve his goal. In this case, if rain explains the wet ground, then it does so because the agent’s goal is to successfully avoid being rained on, and so he knows to prepare an umbrella for the future.

Can someone give an example of a tangible unconditioned reality which can be observed and measured by experiment[?]

Assuming you mean ‘physical’ by the word ‘tangible’, you’d really need to clarify what you mean by an ‘unconditioned reality’. If it is something with no constituent elements, a quark may be such an example. If you mean something that is not affected by any other thing, then I cannot do so.

 

[ethereality]

fisherman_carl, I have started Dr. Feser’s /Aquinas/, but unanswered questions piling up caused me to turn elsewhere. I suppose I should list the questions and email him at the end of each chapter, post the same questions online, and await their answer before reading the next chapter.

Even considering the number of quarks in the universe requires an explanation outside of the universe itself for why there is that particular number of quarks and not another amount of quarks in the universe.

I don’t see the logic to arrive at this question. To ask, for example, why bananas are yellow rather than blue (equivalent to ‘why x quarks and not y’) seems implicitly to assume God’s existence by supposing that it cannot be a brute fact. Whenever you assume that something cannot be a brute fact, you must either conclude that God explains it or that there is no explanation (i.e. no answer, in which case I think you’ve asked a meaningless question, i.e. put together words in a nonsensical way).

 

[balto]

Assuming someone is seeking to know the cause of the ground becoming wet, if that is what you mean

Yes, that is what I was aiming at.

an explanation is demanded because, again, there is a rational agent seeking some goal who demands it. Then, the wet ground is considered to be explained when the rational agent has been given enough information to achieve his goal

So is there an objective fact of the matter about why the ground is wet, independent of any rational agent’s motives? The answer to this question seems to determine all of the difficulties you are having at present. If the answer is yes, we can get all the way to God I think.

our descriptions of the world are essentially useful fictions, mental models of reality

This leads me to believe the answer to the previous question will be no. If the answer is no, absolutely everything we think we know is a “brute fact.” We don’t know anything at all about reality, we only know how our own minds represent whatever it is, if there is even anything else.

but simply what our brains (i.e. those neural atomic configurations) have stored (i.e. been configured) in response to stimuli.

You can no longer claim this with any degree of objectivity. This is another mental model that is a useful fictional description of reality, and hence only true to you personally.

I am having a difficult time believing that you don’t acknowledge that at least some of our knowledge is objective or at least could be objective, especially considering the line of argumentation you were using in the original post. I assume you will want to respond to the above, but I also can tell that you are getting a bit frustrated with the direction of this thread, so if you are done just say so in the next post, correct me and point out why I am mistaken, and I’ll leave it at that and let you have the last word. I hope you don’t misinterpret what I am trying to say, I am not trying to play “gotcha” with you but trying to elucidate the consequences of the claims being advanced in this thread.

 

[ethereality]

You appear to be conflating objectivity-subjectivity with
physical-metaphysical: You seem to misunderstand me again.

To answer your question, yes, I think beings external to myself do things
independently of my knowledge and perception.

The point we are disagreeing about is that you apparently want to conceive
of these objects as “contingent beings unable to exist unless God gives
them the property of existence”, whereas it appears to me this metaphysical
model is archaic and now obsolete given our understanding of atomic
interactions and spacetime: They exist because the previous moment of
spacetime put them there.

God may be responsible for this spacetime, but I don’t see how we can know
this unless He tells us. Until He works some miracle verifying the Catholic
Church, I don’t see that He has told us. Every miracle I have researched
has been unverifiable. I don’t see why the Catholic Church isn’t more
transparent with its internal review (eg hosting a website publishing the
documentation, submitting case studies to medical research journals),
unless it’s because they know it isn’t truly rigorous.

The question of objectivity is irrelevant: In neither model am I asserting
that reality depends on my perception of it.