I read only part way through the argument, when I made two decisions. First I would read his response to Atheist attacks on TAG to reveal what they saw as weaknesses and Slick’s replies to the attacks. Then I would try my own hand at developing the argument myself, using Premise, Assertion, Conclusion (P,A,C), and that is what follows here:
Presuppositions:
1. Logic exists.
2. We do not experience non-random events or objects that are not contingent.
FIRST:
P1: Non-random existence is contingent.
A1: Logic exists,
AND,
is non-random.
C1: Therefore, logic is contingent.
SECOND:
P2: If contingent, then a cause is required.
A2: Logic is contingent.
C2: Therefore, a cause for logic is required.
THIRD:
P3: Logic has characteristics, [U], which are non-physical and non-material.
A3: Non-physical and non-material existence is not expected from physical causes.
C3: Therefore, a physical cause for logic is not expected.
FOURTH:
P4: IFF a material cause is not expected, THEN a non-material cause must exist, OR no cause at all exists.
A4: We do not experience existence without causation.
C4:Therefore, the expected cause for logic is a non-material cause.
FIFTH:
Conclusion:
P5: Every cause is expected to have, at a minimum, the characteristics of the effect, plus the ability to force the effect to exist.
A5: The characteristics of Logic, [U], must exist within the set of the characteristics of the cause for the existence of [U],
AND,
the cause must have the ability to make the characteristics of Logic, [U], come into existence, both ontologically and epistemologically.
C5: Therefore, Logic which demonstrates characteristics, [U], was made to exist by a source which had, at a minimum, the characteristics of Logic, [U],
AND,
the ability to make the characteristics of Logic, [U], come into existence, both ontologically and epistemologically.
We might call the source of Logic: "[S]"; the source of Logic, [S], is equal to or greater than the characteristics of logic [U],Preliminary Analysis of the Argument.
AND,
powerful enough to cause their existence,
AND,
Is non-physical and non-material.
Atheists have attacked Slick’s argument and he has rebutted some of the attacks successfully, it appears to me. I am not certain that he has responded to all attacks, however, and that is the problem with theodicies: there will always be more attacks yet to come, so no theodicy can be said to be absolute.
The first credible attack was to premise P3 (or Slick's equivalent). It was declared that without material existence to verify the First Principles of Logic, logic could not exist; therefore, material existence precedes Logic and Logic cannot be other than materially derived.
Slick’s answer to this was adequate, but I think that the following point would make the entire subject more clear:
The First Principles exist conceptually, both as ontological axioms and epistemological axioms.
This is shown as follows:
A. First Principle of Identity / Tautology:
If it exists then it exists. (Ontological)B. First Principle of Non-Contradiction:
If it is True, then it is True. (Epistemological).
C. First Principle of Excluded Middle:
A thing cannot both exist and not exist simultaneously. (Ontological)
A concept cannot both be True and be False simultaneously. (Epistemological).
A thing cannot somewhat exist and somewhat not exist. (Ontological)Perhaps it is the epistemological First Principles that so annoy the Atheist philosophers into declaring that there is no absolute, that there is no Truth, and therefore there is no argument that could possibly lead to a metaphysic. (When they declare this, they declare it as Truth, of course).
A concept cannot be somewhat True and somewhat False. (Epistemological).
But the problem with their assertion is seriously flawed: Logic has no meaning if it is not True. Stated another way, there is no Logic if there is no Truth. Atheists claim to be logical and rational, so when they deny the existence of Truth, then they have eliminated any value to any of their own arguments. The statement,
“It is True that there is no Truth,”is a logical non-coherence: a paradox. The statement has no Truth value.
So it is apparent that, logically speaking, Truth cannot NOT exist. And that being the case, then the epistemological First Principles are just as valid as the ontological First Principles.
The other arguments against Slick’s version of TAG are riddled with false usage of Fallacy, such as “Begging the Question” which is commonly misused.
I still think, at this point, that there is no theodicy that will lead a closed mind away from its dominant dogma. However, there is value to a strong argument that is available to those who search for Truth and validity in their worldviews. My position here has always been to attack the Atheodicies that are foisted about as if they were sterling Truth; there is no Atheodicy that can withstand the Atheist’s own strategy of logical attack. Now Atheists claim to believe only that there “probably” is no deity. But they never show the probability calculations, which leads one to suspect that that conclusion is not a deterministic, factual production of material knowledge, it is rather a personal opinion, a subjective judgment, a faith statement with no basis that can be reproduced with certainty.
Slick does make one error, it appears to me. I do not think that it is possible to absolutely attach the Christian God to the source, [S]. Slick attempts this by saying that other deities do not have the coherence that the Christian deity does have. The Christian God is coherent and very powerful, but is more than that. What I think TAG argues for is not theism, but deism. A different argument must be made for the personal God of theism – if that is how theism is differentiated from deism.
Now I will return to Slick's argument to see how it compares when it is read through completely.
15 comments:
Never have so many words meant so little to so few.
Stan, I know you think you have formulated a valid argument here, but I just can't see a good way for you to respond to Ginx's objection.
I think this argument can be safely thrown away. Thanks Ginx!
I see trouble with the SECOND, specifically, with invoking a "cause" for logic.
If logic has a cause, and by that it means logic was brought into existence, that would mean logic has not eternally existed. Yet God has eternally existed. This would suggest logic is not essential to God's nature.
I don't however, see a problem with invoking contingency. Any entity which depends upon another entity for its existence is contingent. The existence of logic depends upon the existence of a mind. Therefore logic is contingent.
Or
Logic is conceptual. That which is conceptual is contingent upon the existence of a mind. Therefore, logic is contingent upon the existence of a mind.
The other trouble I think is with the THIRD, specifically A3:
Non-physical and non-material existence is not expected from physical causes.
What about a human government law? For example, a law against treason. This could qualify as a non-material entity that was brought into existence by physical beings (humans), which would be a counter-example to the above. (unless we want to argue that such a law requires a mind, humans have an immaterial mind apart from brain, therefore...but that could over complicate this whole thing!).
I think TAG is a powerful argument, I've read Matt Slick's presentation on it and watched his debate with atheist Edwin Kagin in which he employed this argument, as well as his using it when he called into The Atheist Experience show. When I first read the argument on CARM, I thought it was very good, but to really test it is to see how it fairs against unanticipated objections.
Ah, yes, to be serious now, I think Ana is correct. I don't see how logic is contingent. Logic (and mathematical truths) are generally thought of as "necessary", in opposition to "contingent." I.e., they don't have causes external to themselves.
Theodicy Gone Awry...
Ginx of course never makes an argument, he merely urinates on the author. Hi there, Ginx! Welcome back…
Ana's comments are appreciated. I should not have tried a slam-bam theodicy, because I really do not believe in them. Don't know what got into me. I had an hour to spare this morning, so… I don’t intend to try to defend it, but there are some issues to discuss here.
Ana, I now see the distinction between cause and contingency, thank you. Logic requires a mind, but the mind does not cause logic - or does it? That seems true IFF the mind is that of the First Cause, but there is another distinction here. The rational form of the universe is not the same as "logic". Logic is the human-created response to having observed "what is" in the universe. But can we attribute our understanding which we call “logic” to also apply to a deity?
Now if we define “order” as that which is an underlying component of the universe, and “logic” as the human characterization of that order, then the picture changes somewhat. I failed to make that distinction also (failure 2, at least), and it does change things. But I am not going to try to mend a failed theodicy.
I will read Slick’s entire theodicy. But at the moment I don’t really see a way to claim that the human-derived Logic, despite being predicated on observation of universal behaviors, can be extrapolated into the absolute knowledge of the existence of God, especially a theistic – personal God. Human observation can be faulty, and is limited in its scope. So declaring an absolute based on human observation seems to be a faulty assertion to me.
I do take the position that the First Principles can be known intuitively to be valid, by asking how would the universe appear if those principles were not, in fact, so. In other words, necessary, as Martin points out. But that takes the knowledge of God outside the constraints of solid, objective, factual proof and into subjective acquisition of knowledge. My experience is that such intuitive knowledge is just the start of the search for real knowledge of the deity… the key in the door lock, as it were.
None if this should be taken to mean that the video argument by "Theoretical Bullshit" (see next post) is anything near a logical refutation of anything in particular.
Why are you picturing me pissing on you? Uralognia?
The truth is, I wouldn't micturate on you if you were on fire (though I would run and get some water).
Why do you assume logic "exists?" I have found people can reason anything to themselves, and I think logic is largely subjective.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Transcendental_argument Also attacks Matt Slick's argument if you're interested.
Ginx,
Why would you deny that logic exists? Is there no possible way to determine if a propostion is valid? Have you examined deduction?
No one is forced to use it, and many don't or if they do, use it incorrectly. But it gives a set of principles for organized thinking. Much of life doesn't require logic: Where are my keys? What is your favorite color? What's for dinner? I think I'll go get a beer.
But the fact that it is not essential for daily trivia doesn't mean it is not useful. For example the old Atheist position, "there is no God", could not be deduced from a valid principle. So the new Atheist position, "there's probably no God", attempts to rectify that. But the probability is not calculated and is both relativist and subjective and is not deduced, either. This tells us a lot about Atheism.
So logic is very useful, and it is unusual to hear an argument that it doesn't exist, because such an argument would be expected to be logical, itself, and if so, then it self-refutes. If not, then it has no value as a statement with any validity. Either way, denying logic is a plunge into irrationality. Which is why few people make that claim, I suspect.
Why do you assume logic "exists?"
Most philosophers of math are realists. I.e., they believe that numbers and logical truths exist independently of any mind. Indeed, they do. How else would the Aricebo message work? It's written in math, a language that any alien would be able to understand because it really does exist, "out there".
"Logic has no meaning if it is not True."
This statement is, of course, false. Logic is a tool created by us to navigate the world better using our minds. The fact that it is not perfect and can´t be universally aplied entails no contradiction, because we can still use logic were we can and get good results from it, like we do with any other tool. And all tools have knwon and unknown limitations.
The Law of Identity, for example, can be widely used with good results, but this law can´t be used all times, and we have examples of it in our own universe. Light is both particle and wave, wich violates identity. Light is something, and at the same time, something else.
Something can´t be here and there at the same time, we all accept this, but it is not true in Quantum Mechanics. Time can´t pass faster for me than for you. It is not true, and we know it from General Relativity.
No logical construct alone will show you such realities. In order to access them you need empirical evidence. And that´s why no logical argument alone will grant the apologists the path for the truth about the origin of our Universe. In order to do that you need evidence, and they don´t have it. Nobody has.
All they have is logic, a human made construct, and our logic, like we already know, does not always match reality, and you don´t fall in any contradiction by realizing that our minds and our logic tools are limited, but still useful.
Anyone can address this by saying that, if logic is not allways 100% correct, all my statements can be false, nobody should believe me. The fact is, I can´t show you with 100% certainty that gravity is true. Be my guest and go jump from a buildind, because I can´t guarantee you gravity 100%. Be my guest and keep believing in myths created by ancient jews, because, after all, I can´t prove to you 100% that it´s not a myth.
There you go Stan, your materialist atheist who uses Quantum Mechanics to undermine the absolute principles lol.
Luiz Fernando Zadra said:
"Logic has no meaning if it is not True."
This statement is, of course, false.
Taken together these two sentences form the following:
“It is false that Logic has no meaning if it is not true.”
Which is to say,
“Logic does have meaning if it is not true.”
So this shows a failed charge of falseness. You probably meant something other than what you said, but I have no idea what it might have been.
Logic is more than merely a tool invented by humans to negotiate the world. It is a reflection of the operation of the universe as observed from a human standpoint.
For example, the quantum statement that light is both a wave and a particle, and even taking Feynman’s every conceivable pathway, is not a denial that it exists. There is nothing about this that claims that it both exists and does not exist. The state in which it exists is not known, but it is not said to not exist. There is no violation of the Principle of Identity involved.
Neither Special nor General Relativity states that someone or something can be in two places at the same time. Special Relativity says that the appearance of distance events does not correspond to the actual time that the event took place, and that this can give appearances of sequences that are not actually the case. It says that appearance at a distance is not actuality, unless the distance, time lag due to the speed of light in whatever medium it goes through, and the motion of the object are taken into account. When involving multiple objects and multiple events it can be complicated, unraveling the appearance through the algorithm of distance, medium, motion. But it does not violate any First Principle. General Relativity includes coordinate transformations and deviation in apparency due to gravitational warping of the time dimension. Neither Special nor General Relativity violate any of the First Principles, because they deal with continual existence as it appears at a distance to a local reference or even an accelerated reference body.
(continued below)
(Continued from above)
” All they have is logic, a human made construct, and our logic, like we already know, does not always match reality, and you don´t fall in any contradiction by realizing that our minds and our logic tools are limited, but still useful.”
The implication you made above, that Logic has meaning even if it is false, would definitely be a limitation. But that is not the case. Logic, the tool, is based on the idea that certain processes can always produce valid conclusions, IFF the propositions are true. The truth of the propositions is not a problem of the logic tool set, it is a problem of the knowledge base which is a different issue. Because Atheists generally declare that there are absolutely no absolutes, then the knowledge base is undercut, but only philosophically. But there are traits of the universe that are consistent enough to see that they are likely valid enough to call them absolute – within the universe and our experience of it. Plus we are able to mentally negate these traits to determine what the universe would have been like if they were actually not universal traits. The First Principles fall into this category of understanding.
Your failure to prove gravity as related to myths by ancient Jews is a Category Error and a Poisoning of the Well prejudicial fallacy all in one. Gravity is a physical force, measurable and part of the consistent universe. The Hebrews wrote of their experiences, physical and metaphysical, none of which are measurable or physical laws of nature. The experiences of the Jews as documented in their writings you define up front as myth, thereby poisoning the well. And you are right about this inability: you cannot prove anything one way or the other concerning what they have written; all you can do is to make personal judgments, filtered and colored by your own worldview and desires for how the metaphysic should be, without any evidence whatsoever for how it is or is not.
My jumping from a building due to your opinion of gravity would be to acknowledge nothing in the way of logic or rationality and their purported errors; however, your relating that to the non-existence of a rational First Cause for the rational universe does provide an acknowledgement that logic is not your method of choice for such determinations.
Logic is descriptive not prescriptive. Scientific laws are sort of the reverse of legal laws, they're closer to animal crossings. How do animals know where they're supposed to cross the road? They don't. Humans noticed a lot of animals were getting hit on that exact spot, so they put an animal crossing there. Animals don't obey human laws, human wrote down what was already happening. Rocks don't do what they do because they obey some outside master, they do what they do because they're rocks. Magical creatures like gods or pixies would be required to CAUSE rocks to dance or pass through each other, not to stop them.
" Rocks don't do what they do because they obey some outside master, they do what they do because they're rocks. Magical creatures like gods or pixies would be required to CAUSE rocks to dance or pass through each other, not to stop them."
You are caught up in juvenile arguments. The issue is that X cannot cause X to exist. That's because X would have to pre-exist itself in order to cause itself to exist.
Coupled with the modern knowledge of an expanding universe, the concept of Philosophical Materialism is falsified, unless the counter concept of infinite regression is asserted - without any hope of proof of course. The infinite regression of infinite universes is a blind leap of faith which is taken in order to avoid a rational deduction: the universe had a cause proportional to and greater than the effect.
You are stuck in the pixie arguments, which are far below the content of the actual intellectual issues.
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