Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Irrefutable Evidence that Christianity is True!

In a recent blog entry, presuppositional apologist Chris Bolt once and for all settles the age-old question about evidence for the truth of the Christian worldview.

In his blog Bolt tells his readers:

If you want evidence that Christianity is true you need not look any further than Dawson Bethrick.

With this incontestable revelation now out in the open, I would think that the folks over at Choosing Hats would be eager to post a hyperlink on their blog’s main page directing traffic to my site in the interest of advertising evidence for the truth of Christianity for the benefit any doubters who stumble onto their blog.

Send the doubters to me, and I will be more than happy to set them straight on the matter.

Will they do it?

Well, I don’t see why not if Chris Bolt truly believes what he says.

But we must keep in mind that actions do in fact speak louder than words. If Bolt does not provide a link to my blog from his blog’s main page, what does this tell us about his confidence in what he says in his blog?

One can only infer.

by Dawson Bethrick

John Robbins and the Foreclosure of His Critique of Objectivism

In a recent blog entry on Choosing Hats, Christian apologist Chris Bolt quoted from the late John Robbins, the student of “Reformed” theologian Gordon Clark who sought at one time in his life very strenuously to take down Objectivism. Though they have historically called themselves “Scripturalists,” Gordon Clark and his followers have commonly been referred to as “presuppositionalists,” however their apologetic viewpoint differs significantly from that of Cornelius Van Til and his followers. Clark and Van Til, both believers in the Christian god whose followers claimed that they were “led by the Spirit” in their walk and talk, found themselves locked in a bitter, unending dispute over some trifling aspect in their respective theologies (specifically, on the issue of the incomprehensibility of their god).

Robbins vs. the Vantillians

For the benefit of the uninitiated, it should be noted that the rivalry between Van Til and Clark spawned a blood feud which continues to boil to this day among their ideological heirs. Consider for instance the recent controversy brewing between Vantillian James Anderson and Clarkian Gary Crampton on the issue of “paradox” or “apparently contradictory” teachings. The constant believer-versus-believer imbroglios which have characterized Christianity since the Pauline epistles summons to mind the old “Spy vs. Spy” cartoons in Mad Magazine: humorous and inconsequential.

John Robbins (1948-2008) was a die-hard Clarkian who eventually died. He is probably best known for his work with the Trinity Foundation and sundry trouble-making on the internet. Robbins did write a book attempting to refute Objectivism called Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System (Hobbs, New Mexico: The Trinity Foundation, 1997. 399 pp.). The cover of Robbins’ book features a photograph of Ayn Rand’s headstone. This book offers a glimpse into the horrific sophistry of the Calvinist mindset, and has been reviewed by several non-Clarkians (see for instance Bryan Register’s and Jim Peron’s).

Now when a Vantillian presuppositionalist runs to Robbins as his savior, you can be assured that he’s on the ropes. Vantillians and Clarkians are bitter enemies, but in my experience Vantillians tend to cave into the Clarkian camp before Clarkians ever resort to Van Til. This is because the Clarkian position is more consistently mystical. For instance, it denies empiricism in toto (and just so readers know that I’m not making this up, check out this monstrosity). As such, it is only logical – on the basis of Christianity’s premises – for believers who are faced with insurmountable difficulties to retreat into the thick forest of an overtly subjective viewpoint, even if it belongs to one of their arch-rivals. So in a sense, Bolt is right on schedule.

Robbins on the Objectivist Conception of Causality

Unfortunately, Robbins makes numerous mistakes in his attempt to challenge the Objectivist position, and scores zero points in discrediting the conception of causality which I have presented in this blog. Some of Robbins’ mistakes are incidental, while others demonstrate a significant failure to grasp the position which he was critiquing.

As an example of a somewhat easily corrected mistake, consider the following. Robbins quotes (purportedly) an Objectivist source (no citation is given in the portion which he quotes from Robbins’ book) stating:

the premise that every action is only a reaction to an antecedent action, rules out, arbitrarily and a priori, the existence of self-generated goal-directed action

Robbins mistakenly states that Objectivists “hold that this premise applies to all reality except man.” But this is not the case, and it’s puzzling that Robbins didn’t know any better. As Rand stated:

Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it is only a living organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. On the physical level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest to the most complex—from the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man—are actions generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the organism’s life. (“The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 16)

Clearly Rand held that more than merely man is capable of self-generated, goal-oriented action. Rand identified this as a distinguishing characteristic of life as such, not just human life, but all living organisms. All living organisms is certainly much broader than just human beings. The former category includes single-celled protozoa, plants, tilapia (yum!), kangaroo rats, gorillas, etc. And even when it gets to man, this attribute is not restricted merely to his volition, but also includes autonomic biological functions, such as his heart beat, respiration, nerve activity, etc. The type of actions which these entities and features perform are not of the billiard-ball-acting-on-billiard ball type of causation.

Also, it is arguable that some entities other than biological organisms are capable at least of self-generated action (apart from goal-orientation), such as magnets and celestial bodies exerting gravitational pull on others. At any rate, Robbins is wrong to assume that Objectivists hold that only man is capable of self-generated action.

Robbins then states (in reaction to the quote above purportedly from an Objectivist source):

This is the central problem in their theory of free-will.

At best this is misleading. While man possesses free will (as Objectivism understands it), the theory of causality which Objectivism endorses (namely that the relationship between an entity and its own actions is a necessary relationship; see here) pertains to more than just human beings given the volitional nature of their consciousness. As noted above, other types of biological organisms are capable of self-generated and goal-oriented action, and yet Objectivism does not attribute a volitional form of consciousness to these species.

Robbins continues, saying:

They also reject the modern notion that causality is a relationship between motions, in favor of an older view that it is a relationship between things.

No, not “a relationship between things” (where “things” is understood to be different entities), but between an entity and its own actions. Either Robbins was not aware of what the Objectivist theory of causality holds, or he was simply a poor reader. Another possibility is that he was so consumed with a lust for smearing Objectivism that he didn’t care to factor in such pesky details, since they don’t serve his agenda.

Taking such confusions as a point of departure, Robbins presses on only to prove himself to be a rather belligerent thinker. After quoting Nathaniel Branden at length (see Bolt’s post for the entire quote; Bolt states that Robbins is quoting Branden from The Objectivist, March 1966, pp. 11-12), Robbins accuses Branden’s position of

presuppos[ing] that which an empiricist cannot presuppose: that he somehow ‘knows’ the nature (or identity) of a thing apart from observation of it.

Unfortunately, Robbins does not pinpoint where Branden’s position relies on knowledge of things acquired apart from observation of them (unless of course Robbins is objecting to conceptual integration and application of concepts here, which of course would be glaringly self-defeating). Robbins simply asserts that Branden does this, and probably does so by clinging to the Humean conception of causality without realizing it (and thus failing to perform an internal critique of Objectivism). In the portion which Robbins quotes from Branden, Branden nowhere claims to know something apart from observation. If Robbins thinks that Branden’s statement implies such a move, he needs to show us where. But he doesn’t.

Robbins goes on to stipulate that

observation, of course, does not mean staring at an immutable object, but manipulation of an object and watching the changes it undergoes or “causes”.

These are not jointly exhaustive alternatives, so it is unclear why “observation” must mean either horn of Robbins’ dichotomy. We can observe objects which are not immutable without manipulating them, too. I can, for instance, observe a squirrel gathering nuts or the second hand of a clock moving in radial fashion. Neither object here is “immutable,” nor am I manipulating them. But I am observing entities in action all the same. Robbins’ stipulated meaning of observation arbitrarily rules out such activities. Nor is it clear what Robbins thinks he may be gaining by doing this.

At this point Robbins says that “this is precisely Hume’s point,” but what specifically does Robbins have in mind here as “Hume’s point”: that we cannot know the identity or nature of something without observing it, or that observation entails manipulating an object and “watching the changes it undergoes or ‘causes’”? I ask, because Robbins’ own statement here suffers from imprecision and clumsiness.

Contrary to what Robbins is saying, Hume’s point was precisely what Branden states, namely that

If all that is involved [in causality] is motion succeeding motion, there is no way to establish necessary relationships between succeeding events: one observes that B follows A, but one has no way to establish that B is the effect or consequence of A.

Unfortunately, Robbins’ muddle gets increasingly thicker after this point. For instance, he writes:

the observation of change (of motion-to-motion causality to use Branden’s term) is the only observation that can be made.

But what is Robbins’ argument for this claim? None that I can see. He has yet to justify the dichotomy into which he tried to shoehorn “observation” in the first place. But even if we do accept Robbins’ preferred notion of observation, why is “observation of change” “the only observation that can be made”? We can observe entities as well as what they do (i.e., their actions, movement, change, etc.). Also, we can observe things which are not acting, in motion, or changing, such as a photograph. Indeed, even if one claims that one observes changes within the photograph (such as from one color to another, or one image in the photograph to another), this type of change itself is not a form of motion, but rather a static difference.

Even more to the point, Objectivists would be right to point out to Robbins that when we observe change, we are observing some thing that is undergoing the change, not just the change itself as if it could exist independent of the thing which is changing. When I observe the second hand moving in radial fashion around the face of a clock, I’m observing the second hand - a thing,not merely “change” in and of itself.

So if, contrary to what Robbins asserts (without argument, mind you), we observe not only “change” but also the entities which undergo the changes we observe, and we understand that there is a necessary relationship between an entity and the actions it performs, we observe not only the action (or change) but also the entity which performs it. We are not observing merely a succession of “events,” but rather entities in action. But even here, Robbins seems to think that, neither can we observe entities in action, but to have knowledge of what entities do we need some kind of non-sensory input. Not surprisingly, Robbins never explains how this works.

Robbins then asserts:

In the example Branden uses, no empiricist, including Ayn Rand, can state truthfully that the lighted match caused the wastebasket to burn.

Apparently Rand and other “empiricists” are supposed to know that the lighted match caused the wastebasket to burn through anamnesis or some other non-empirical means (perhaps prayer?), even though this could be observed directly. According to Robbins, observing a lighted match being thrown into a wastebasket supposedly gives no indication of how the wastebasket ignited in flames. But that’s Hume’s view, not the Objectivist’s view. If action is the action of a thing (a premise which Robbins & co. never refute), and a thing acts in accordance to its nature (another premise which Robbins & co. never refute), why would not a flammable object burn when it comes into contact with a flame? It is in the nature of a flammable object to burn when it comes into contact with a flame. But Robbins objects to the recognition that we can learn this by perceiving a flammable object catching fire when it comes into contact with a flame. Presumably we are supposed to ignore what we observe and rely on mystical means to learn about reality (though this always leads to conflict among mystics; see for instance here and here).

Notice that throughout all this, Robbins gives no indication of any alternative means by which one can know these things, nor does he make any genuine attempt to refute the recognition that action has identity or the view that an entity’s actions depends on the nature of the entity performing that action.

But Robbins has not exhausted his appetite for bald assertions. He continues, saying:

Causality is not observed at all.

Again, Robbins is simply affirming the Humean conception of causality here: we observe “events” in succession, but not the causality which connects them. But this requires that we observe only “change,” arbitrarily implying as we saw above that we do not observe the entities which do the changing. But if causality is the identity of action, and we perceive action (such as when an entity moves) as well as the entity which does the action, why are we not also observing causality? Robbins’ explanation appears to be in the following statement:

What is observed is a change in the condition of the wastebasket following the placement of a lighted match in it.

If Objectivism adopted the Humean conception of causality, where all that is observed is a series of events in succession (as Robbins himself believes to be the case), then the charge of fallacy here could be sustained. However, if it is conceded that we are observing “a change,” and change is action, and action is the action of some entity which does the acting, then it is conceded that we are in fact observing causality, for Objectivism conceives of causality as the law of identity applied to action. Q.E.D. Thus no such fallacy as Robbins claims has been committed. On the contrary, Objectivism demonstrates its dynamic potential by adhering to reality.

Robbins then seeks to charge “empiricists” with an elementary fallacy:

On empiricist grounds, to say that the latter caused the former is the fallacy post hoc ergo proper [SIC] hoc.

But this charge cannot apply to Objectivists, for on the Objectivist view we are observing causality (contrary to Robbins’ confused contentions to the opposite), and we also have recourse to concepts – i.e., we can integrate what we perceive according to objective principles (including the law of causality) in formulating rational judgments about what we have observed.

Meanwhile, Robbins demonstrates that he can only beg the question against Objectivism by assuming – without argument or any attempt to validate it – the Humean conception of causality while advancing his criticisms of the Objectivist alternative. All that he accomplishes is to deny the Objectivist position while assuming it to be false. He denies that we observe causality, only “change” or “events,” and claims arbitrarily that we cannot know that an action rests on the nature of the entity performing it except through some non-sensory means which he never identifies or explains.

Robbins offers the following highly confused summary of what Objectivism (as he disunderstands it) to entail:

The Objectivists illegitimately separate knowledge of events (motions) and knowledge of things (identities) and seek to establish causality on the latter, while conveniently ignoring that knowledge of things (identities), insofar as it deserves to be called knowledge at all, on empirical grounds must be identical with knowledge of motions.

Really? Which part of the Objectivist viewpoint does this: the part which recognizes that action has identity (again, if action did not have identity, how could we form concepts denoting actions in common parlance?), or the part which recognizes that the action of an entity depends on the nature of the entity which performs that action? In affirming these positions, are Objectivists really trying to “separate knowledge of events (motions) and [from?] knowledge of things (identities)”? On the contrary, Objectivism holds that an entity acts in accordance to its nature; it does not seek to “separate” these as Robbins insinuates. (That is not to say that we cannot abstract the actions which an entity performs and apply them in various ways; see below).

Does Objectivism “seek to establish causality on the latter [i.e., on “knowledge of things (identities)”], while conveniently ignoring that knowledge of things (identities)… must be identical with knowledge of motions”? No, it does not. Apparently Robbins (and I suspect other detractors of Objectivism) interpret the Objectivist view of applying the law of identity to action in formulating the law of causality, as affirming that an entity and its actions are one and the same, that they are not distinct. If that is the case, then they have completely misread what Objectivism teaches. Objectivism teaches precisely the twin components which I explicated above, namely that:

(1) action has identity (since action exists, it is something; concepts denoting certain actions confirms this), and

(2) the actions which an entity performs depends on the nature of the entity which performs it (i.e., an entity acts according to its nature).

That Objectivism does not hold that “knowledge of things (identities)… must be identical with knowledge of motions,” owes to the conceptual nature of knowledge. Where Robbins’ critique implicitly depends on a one-to-one relationship between knowledge of entities and the entities one perceives and likewise for actions or “events” (confirming that Robbins himself cannot, ironically, break away from the anti-conceptual, concrete-boundedness of his own presuppositions), the Objectivist theory of concepts accounts for man’s ability to apply concepts of actions to different types of entities. For instance, human beings can swim, and so can fish; waste baskets can burn, and so can houses; index fingers can point, and so can traffic signs; babies can crawl, and so can ants, etc. True to certifiable subjectivist form, Robbins drops the entire context of the conceptual nature of knowledge from his attempt to interact with the Objectivist position. For Robbins, it’s simply embarrassing.

Back to the point, when an individual, operating on the Objectivist view of the world, says that it is the nature of a match to ignite a wastebasket, he is not (as Robbins stipulates) merely saying “no more than ‘I (or others) have seen wastebaskets ignite after lighted matches have been dropped into them’,” but rather applying the law of causality to entity classes, a capacity for which Robbins’ (and Bolt’s) Christian worldview cannot account (since it lacks a theory of concepts as well as a consistent understanding of causality), and which their attempts to exegete and discount are self-undermining.

Tabula Rasa

Robbins, clearly failing to have seen the manifold shortcomings of his own analysis of the Objectivist position, attributes the “problems” he says he’s uncovered to Objectivism’s theory of knowledge, namely

that the mind is a tabula rasa at birth and that all its knowledge comes by the senses. By accepting this premise, they must also maintain that the three laws of thought are derived from experience, unless they wish to deny the three laws are knowledge. But the establishment of the law of identity, for instance, as an ontological law on the grounds of experience, cannot be done. It would involve knowing the objects of experience in some non-sensory manner and comparing this knowledge with one’s sensory data.

To buttress this criticism, Robbins quotes from his mentor Gordon Clark, who wrote:

…Aristotle’s claim that the law of contradiction is an ontological law as well as a law of thought involves a hysteron proteron. To suppose that logic is adequate to reality requires a knowledge of reality prior to and independent of the law. But the law itself denies that there is any knowledge independent of it. Therefore, concludes Nietzsche, we can never know that the world of things corresponds to our laws of thought.

Robbins then continues:

Just as the three laws as ontological laws cannot be established by an appeal to experience so neither can the knowledge of “identities’ be established by experience of events. Events are all that is experienced by man’s senses. To claim that some sort of superior knowledge of “identities” as the Objectivists do, is to claim a means of knowledge other than the senses. Their view of causality is radically at odds with their epistemology.

It is true that Objectivism affirms that man’s mind is tabula rasa at birth (cf. Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 28; Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, p. 54; et al.), and it is right to do so. This is the view that, at birth, man begins life without content in his consciousness (particularly conceptual content, but also perceptual), and implies that man acquires awareness of the world by means of cognitive activity which begins in infancy, that knowledge must be developed by an objective process (beginning with sense perception) which a human subject must perform, that man learns his knowledge through effort, etc.

Now it is hard to see how any mature thinker could seriously deny this aspect of man’s nature, and the reasons which Clark-Robbins give are not the primary motivation for rejecting this view. Mystics have historically had problems with the tabula rasa model because it threatens their enshrinement of the imaginary. Since imaginary beings cannot be perceived, for instance, mystics find it necessary to oppose any epistemology which endorses an objective process for discovering and validating knowledge. An objective process for discovering and validating knowledge begins with sense perception and adheres to the primacy of existence. But as we have seen, theists reject (either in full or in part) the fact that human awareness begins with sense perception of objects existing independent of their cognitive activity, and are continually befuddled when confronted with the primacy of existence.

Robbins attempts to find fault with the tabula rasa model by insisting that those who accept it

must also maintain that the three laws of thought are derived from experience, unless they wish to deny the three laws are knowledge.

Why must any laws of thought themselves be derived from experience, as opposed to merely one’s knowledge of those laws being derived from experience? On the latter view, rather than being “derived” from experience, the “laws of thought” are foundational to experience as such, regardless of what that experience may be or what one takes away from it, owing to the nature of the faculty which makes experience possible in the first place (namely consciousness) and its interaction with any object. In affirming the tabula rasa model and the view that there are “laws of knowledge” (i.e., general principles which objectively guide the mind in discovering and validating knowledge), there is no conflict in supposing that the principles obtain independent of any particular experience, but that one’s knowledge of those principles must come by means of experience (i.e., through conscious interaction with the realm of independently existing objects). Notice that Robbins does not show any conflict in this proposal; he doesn’t even consider it. In fact, in developing his line of criticism, Robbins fails to integrate Rand’s understanding of consciousness and the primacy of existence (which Robbins sought to slander by revising it as “the primacy of unconscious - a flagrant stolen concept if there ever were one) with the tabula rasa position and the Objectivist understanding of logic as a conceptual system based on the axiom of identity. Robbins is implicitly (whether he realized it or not) relying on the diaphanous model of consciousness here, which is riddled with irresolvable problems (see Kelley, The Evidence of the Senses and The Primacy of Existence). In his review of Robbins’ book, Bryan Register points this out about Robbins’ presuppositional underlayer. It is evident from Robbins’ criticism that he implicitly accepts the premise that, as Register puts it, “if a means of awareness conditions how we are aware of the world then it must distort that awareness.” Thus by ignoring (and performatively denying) the fact that consciousness has identity, Robbins fails to consider the possibility that the relationship between a subject and object by itself sets in place the metaphysical fundamentals which are later discovered and understood as principles governing objective thought. This is just one reason why the primacy of existence is so pregnant with valuable philosophical meaning.

It should also be noted that the axiomatic concepts of existence, consciousness and identity put to rest the remainder of Robbins’ concerns by tying human knowledge directly to reality at the most fundamental level of cognition. Robbins holds that

the establishment of the law of identity, for instance, as an ontological law on the grounds of experience, cannot be done. It would involve knowing the objects of experience in some non-sensory manner and comparing this knowledge with one’s sensory data.

Robbins does not elaborate on what he means by “the establishment of the law of identity… as an ontological law,” but by using this language and the context of his complaint he suggests that it is a formal process. Nor does Robbins explain why this process requires “knowing the objects of experience in some non-sensory manner and comparing this knowledge with one’s sensory data.” Just by referencing “sensory data,” Robbins is granting the application of the law of identity. “Sensory data” as opposed to what? If one perceives an object, he perceives an object, whether by sight, hearing or touch. This is to say that the law of identity is not a phenomenon which needs to be formally “established,” since it is implicit in any act of awareness to begin with:

Man grasps [the concept of “existent”] implicitly on the perceptual level—i.e., he grasps the constituents of the concept “existent,” the data which are later to be integrated by that concept. It is this implicit knowledge that permits his consciousness to develop further. (Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, p. 6)

Since the same is the case for the axiomatic concepts of consciousness and identity, I would even say that the law of identity is inescapable: it is implicit in any awareness, including the perceptual level, and therefore inavertible (as we saw above in the relationship between an entity and its own actions). Why then does the law of identity need to be “established… as an ontological law” rather than simply recognized in an explicit manner and integrated contextually throughout his knowledge, a la Rand’s axiomatic concepts? Blank out.

In grasping the axiomatic concepts explicitly, one does not need to acquire non-sensory awareness of objects and then compare it to sensory data. To suggest this is simply ridiculous.

Robbins then states that

Just as the three laws as ontological laws cannot be established by an appeal to experience so neither can the knowledge of “identities” be established by experience of events.

Why can’t “knowledge of ‘identities’ be established by experience of events”? Robbins simply asserts this, as if Objectivism taught that we do not also perceive entities as well as the actions (“events”) which they perform. He provides no argument, nor does he seem able to interact with Objectivism on its own terms, especially given its explicit affirmation of the view that perception gives us direct awareness of entities:

A “perception” is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism, which gives it the ability to be aware, not of single stimuli, but of entities, of things. (Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 19)

As man integrates the entities which he perceives into concepts, he also integrates their attributes into abstractions. Some of these abstractions integrate the actions which some entities perform. These actions are included in the concepts subsuming the entities themselves (as units integrated by the conceptual process), but can also be abstracted and re-applied to different entity classes (if this were not possible, there’d be no such thing as metaphors).

Apparently Robbins was eager to make his intellectual belligerence plain for all to see, for he states:

Events are all that is experienced by man’s senses.

On Robbins’ view, we can experience only “events,” but not the entities which participate in bringing those “events” about. This is like saying that we can only perceive action, not the things which perform the action which we perceive. And yet above Robbins claimed that it was Objectivists who “illegitimately separate knowledge of events (motions) and knowledge of things (identities).” Here Robbins is doing an even graver disservice: he’s saying we can experience only events, and not entities. To do this, one would at minimum need to “separate” (and arbitrarily so) actions from the entities which perform them, and then ignore the entities responsible for the actions they perform as if they didn’t exist.

If I look at a picture hanging on a wall which stands motionless before me, I’m apparently unable to experience anything, since there’s no action here, and therefore no “event” taking place. I’m awake, I’m conscious, but there’s no object to my consciousness, because there’s no activity, and – according to Robbins – “events are all that is experienced by man’s senses.”

Does Robbins provide an argument for this claim? Of course not. Indeed, in order to provide an argument, he would hardly be able to contain its disastrous implications any more than by leaving it as a mere assertion as he does. Sadly, Robbins comes across as someone who embraces the Humean view of causality entirely uncritically, and who has no discriminated awareness of what he himself as a conscious subject perceives.

Epitaph

In all, I cannot find anything that Robbins gets right in his attempt to critique Objectivism. He exhibits in concrete form Rand’s dictum (attributed by Barbara Branden) that people who believe in God are either stupid or dishonest. It seems that in Robbins’ case, he was both, at least to some degree.

Now we shouldn’t want to make the mistake of supposing that the steady stream of mistakes uncovered here is any indication of the validity of any of Robbins’ criticisms in the remainder of his book. This could open us up to the charge of hasty generalization, and that wouldn’t be very nice. After all, it could be that the section of the book where Robbins interacts with the Objectivist understanding of causality is marked by circular reasoning, context-dropping, baseless assertions, unstated alternatives, false dichotomies, and the like, while the rest of Robbins’ book exhibits scholarship of the most exquisite caliber. Indeed, one could adopt the mentality expressed in a now-retired campaign slogan for John Kerry, which stated:

It may be the case that Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bali, Malaysia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Sudan, Somalia, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Florida, Oregon and Ohio. But don’t expect me to believe that they’re in IRAQ! Vote John Kerry for President!

Translation:

It may be the case that virtually every sentence of the quoted section of John Robbins’ book is dripping in misstatements and fallacy, but don’t expect me to believe that faults such as these will be encountered elsewhere in his writings!

Again, we could adopt this type of mentality. But I wouldn’t recommend it.

As a side note, I must say that Robbins, apart from his pervasive confusions, was quite a character. I recall the days in the late 1990s when I encountered him firsthand in a mock e-mail forum which a friend of mine had assembled (he had the e-mail address “jrob1517@aol.com”). Robbins inserted himself into every discussion as if he had some endangered reputation to protect. Truly, he was one of the most presumptuous individuals I had ever encountered in life up to that point. He exhibited no limit to the amount of hot air he was able to produce. His angst against the senses was ever-present in virtually every message that he submitted to that forum, insisting that no knowledge could ever be gained from what we perceived. It seemed difficult for him to hold back his resentment for the human mind, particularly the ability to generate inductive generalizations. After he had made some statement condemning inductive generalizations, one of the participants asked how he could know that his criticism could apply to all inductive generalizations without relying on induction. I remember specifically that he avoided answering this question. And yet he continued to participate, railing against the role of sense perception in developing knowledge. When the obvious question was asked how he could acquire knowledge of his god’s will from the writing in the biblical storybook, he still insisted that one cannot acquire knowledge from “scribbles inked on a page.” When I asked how he knew what he saw on the page were “scribbles inked on a page,” he confessed in reply to this, “I don’t know the answer to your question,” and soon abandoned the discussion entirely. One little pin prick is all it takes to pop an over-inflated balloon.

By the way, now that John Robbins is dead, should Objectivists publish a book with a photograph of Robbins’ grave on the cover? The title of the book could be something like, John Robbins: A Man Who Prayed and Then Died. Just a thought…

by Dawson Bethrick

Causality as a Necessary Relationship

In my blog Humean Causality and Presuppositionalism, I found that Hume’s view of causality entails the following points:

1. Causality is a relationship between “events”

2. There is no inherent necessity connecting one event to another (they “seem entirely loose and separate” and “we can never observe any tie between them”)

3. A single instance is never sufficient to inform a general principle

4. Exhaustive knowledge of all instances is needed to form a general principle (repetition)

5. The “necessity” of cause and effect relationships is ultimately grounded in the imagination

In addition to these findings, I noted that I could find in Hume’s analysis no defense of the premise that causality is properly understood as a relationship between “events” or of the claims that “all events seem entirely loose and separate” and that “we can never observe any tie between them.” I also noted that these premises are crucial to Hume’s skeptical conclusion about induction. Hume seems to take them for granted as if they were self-evident and unquestionable in spite of the problems which plague them.

Fortunately we do not have live with Hume’s mess. The Objectivist conception of causality, which differs significantly from the Humean view, offers serious thinkers a promising alternative.

In contrast to the Humean view which characterizes causality as a relationship between “events,” the Objectivist view is that causality is grounded in the nature of entities. This is only reasonable since it is entities which perform actions in the first place. On this view, causality is essentially the identity of action, which is directly consistent with the Objectivist axiom of identity: to exist is to be something, to have identity. Since action exists, it has identity, just as do the entities which exist. Ayn Rand explicated the principle as follows:

The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature . . . . The law of identity does not permit you to have your cake and eat it, too. The law of causality does not permit you to eat your cake before you have it. (Atlas Shrugged, Galt’s Speech).

Notice several points here. To say that “the law of causality is the law of identity applied to action,” is essentially to say that action has identity, just as an entity does, and for the same reason: it exists. Also, since “the nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act,” the actions which an entity performs depends on the nature of the entity which performs it. Moreover, the law of causality is objective: contrary to Hume’s notion that causal connection ultimately depends on the input of human imagination, causality, as a relationship between an entity and its own actions, exists independent of consciousness and cannot be abrogated.

On Rand’s view, causality is absolute: it does not conform to our imagination, feelings, ignorance, wishes, commands, etc. (This is true even in the case of man’s volition, which is a type of causation.) Since for Rand causality is the identity of action (and therefore also of motion and change), if you see an entity acting, you see causality. This flies directly in the face of Hume’s view that all we can see are “events” in succession, but not the connection which ties them together, and demolishes his skeptical argument from its very foundations. (We will see in an upcoming blog how one attempt to challenge this point results in blithering absurdity.)

H. Acstonus offers a succinct summary of the contrasts between the Humean view of causality and the objective theory of causality:

Causality, at least since Hume, has been conceived of as a chain of events, each antecedent event causing the other. This conception has led to confusion. While it is true that antecedent factors play a role, a proper conception of causality would have to incorporate a wider context. In Aristotle's view, cause and effect is rooted in the identity of acting things. What a thing is, says Aristotle, will determine what it does. An acorn can become an oak tree, and not a catfish, because that is its nature. The actions an entity can take are determined by what that entity is. On this view, when one billiard ball strikes another it sends it rolling because of the nature of the balls and their surroundings, not just antecedent events. (An Aristotelian Foundation for Objectivity)

For Hume, as we saw in my previous blog, the upshot is that causality, being conceived of as a relationship between events, entails a necessary connection only so long as one’s imagination is involved. Thus it should not surprise us when theists insist that we accept Hume’s overall position, since they too share Hume’s primacy of the imagination in both metaphysics and cognition.

The Aristotelian alternative to Hume’s position, is refreshingly sober by contrast. It is founded on the recognition that causality pertains primarily to action, that the action which an entity performs depends on the nature of the entity which performs it. As the above statement indicates, this is a broader understanding of causality than Hume’s vague notion of a succession of events, for it subsumes not only actions resulting from antecedent factors, but also includes those actions which are self-generated and goal-oriented, such as those which biological organisms perform in the effort to exist. The standard Humean view is unable to account for this latter type of action, while failing to provide an objective account of the type of action it seeks to represent (since it bases causal connectivity ultimately in the imagination of the perceiving subject).

When explaining the objective conception of causality to presuppositionalists, it never fails to provoke their ire. They apparently have ample resentment for anyone who dares to check Hume’s premises. A case in point is a recent exchange I had with one presuppositionalist who, incidentally, hesitates to state for the record whether or not he thinks Hume’s argument for inductive skepticism is sound. In a comment of mine, I stated the following:

Causation is the law of identity applied to action. Specifically, it is the recognition that the relationship between an entity and its own actions is a necessary relationship. The cause of action is the entity which does the acting. The idea of “causeless action” essentially affirms action without something which performs the action, which is self-contradictory. As Kelley puts it, “you can’t have a dance without a dancer.”

In the same comments section, presuppositionalist Chris Bolt responded to my statement with a question:

How do you know that the relationship between an entity and its own actions is a necessary relationship?

Because, as I had quoted Kelley, “you can’t have a dance without a dancer.” There can be no action without an entity to perform it. The existence of something which acts is a necessary precondition for any action. Also, action is the action of the entity which performs it. As such, action is an attribute of something that exists, which means: it is part of its nature. Since a thing is itself, and what a thing is includes all of its attributes (not just some arbitrary selection of those which belong to it), the actions which a thing performs are part of its nature. This can only mean that an entity acts in accordance to its nature. Why? It must first exist before it can act, and if an entity exists, it must be something specific, it must have a nature, it must be finite. An “infinite range” of actions is not possible for something which is finite in nature (and there is no such thing as an entity that is infinite in nature).

Stated another way: without something which performs an action, there can be no action to begin with. Action is not an entity, but the activity of an entity. Action is something that an entity does. In order for action to exist, an entity must first exist in order to perform the action. In this sense, existence comes before action. Since there cannot be any action without an entity which performs the action, an entity is necessary for action to take place. This recognition is axiomatic: it is implicit in any perception of entities performing actions, and the axiom of causality makes this recognition explicit.

As Kelley notes:

If actions depend on entities, then an action must depend on the nature of the entity that acts. A thing is its nature. If we try to imagine an action that depends on an entity but not on its nature, we have to imagine the entity as distinct from its nature. We have to drive a kind of metaphysical wedge between a thing and what it is. But a thing is what it is. There’s no such gap. So now we know that an action must depend on the nature of an entity. (Universals and Induction)

The law of identity is the recognition of the fact that to exist is to be something, to have a nature. Since action exists, action has identity. Why would the law of identity not apply to action if action exists? Blank out. But consider: if action did not have identity, how could we formulate concepts which identify actions? Think of all the verbs in the English language. Verbs like ‘to walk’, ‘to swim’, ‘to think’, ‘to exercise’, etc. All these verbs name actions. How could actions be named if they did not have identity?

But Bolt seems to think that the law of identity does not apply to action. In the same comment, he continued:

If the law of identity functioned as you assume it does (applied to action) then I am not sure that there can be change.

Notice the uncertainty here. Notice also that Bolt does not explain why he’s not sure that there can be change if the law of identity applies to action as well as to entities. Yet Bolt himself uses verbs all the time to specify actions, just as he does in the above statement. How could he do this if the law of identity did not apply to action?

Also, if change is the identity of action, then when we observe change, we are observing the identity of action. Thus to deny the identity of action is to deny change as such. But since we perceive action directly – such as when we perceive an entity moving, then we are perceiving change. And if we perceive change, then we are perceiving action which possesses identity.

On a later occasion, Bolt expressed himself more confidently:

Trying to apply identity to the problem leads to the conclusion that there is no change.

Again, no argument here. Just more bald assertion. Also, no explanation of how we could identify actions if the law of identity did not apply to them. To say that the law of identity does not apply to action, is to affirm that action has no identity. Thus, using verbs to denote actions while affirming such a view, commits the fallacy of the stolen concept. If Bolt is going to be consistent with his position, he will have to stop using concepts which denote actions. But I wager that he will not be consistent with his own position and continue to trade in stolen concepts.

In a recent blog, Chris Bolt openly confesses that Christianity does not hold to the objective understanding of causality:

The Christian is not committed to this Objectivist idea that natural law is essentially identity applied to action. Such an idea is inconsistent with the Christian worldview since there are actions God has taken which may be identified but have nothing to do with anything natural (e.g. the exchange of love between the Persons of the Trinity).

In other words, according to Bolt (Christianity’s spokesman of the moment), Christianity holds that the law of identity does not apply to actions. This can only mean that on the Christian worldview, action has no identity, for the law of identity does not apply when it comes to action. And yet, Bolt still thinks that actions “may be identified,” even though on his view they have no identity which can be idenitfied. What is it that he is identifying when he pretends to be identifying action when what he pretends to be identifying is said not to have any identity? Blank out.

Again, we find that stolen concepts are unavoidable for the Christian, as I’ve pointed out on numerous occasions before. Bolt insists, for reasons which remain unexplained, that the law of identity does not apply to actions, and yet he performatively undermines this position every time he uses concepts to denote any action. How do you identify something that is exempt from the law of identity? How can you integrate units which have no identity into a concept? Bolt has no explanation for these questions, and seems not even to have anticipated them.

But I have seen the type of objection raised by Bolt before, and can only suspect that it is informed by an understanding of identity which Objectivism does not share. According to Objectivism, the identity of an entity is not restricted to what that entity is at a given instant in time, as if it were freeze-dried and placed on a microscope slide. Such a view would arbitrarily divorce an entity from any actions it performs or could perform. If this does not characterize the Christian understanding of identity, what is its understanding of identity, and where would one go to find it? Many Christians point to Exodus 3:14 as the source for their knowledge of the law of identity (or its several immediate applications), but I’ve already pointed out several problems with this before (see here). So the question remains: Where does one go to find a distinctively Christian understanding of the law of identity, hopefully for Bolt’s sake one which supports him in his denial of the application of the law of identity to action?

Now the theist could, in contradiction to Bolt, acknowledge that action does have identity (i.e., that the law of identity does, contrary to Bolt’s protests, apply to action), and yet affirm that the action which an entity performs does not depend on the nature of the entity performing it. On this view, a billiard ball’s rolling across a pool table has nothing to do with its spherical shape; a bird’s flight has nothing to do with its wings’ movements; a skier’s descent on a snowy mountain slope has nothing to do with the skis attached to his feet, etc. But what would justify such a position? I’ve seen no attempt to address such quandaries, and yet they result directly from a denial of the Objectivist conception of the law of causality.

Neither alternative – whether it be denying that action has identity, or denying that an entity’s actions depends on its nature – bodes well for intelligibility whatsoever. Either denial reduces to a belligerently absurd conception of the universe.

By recognizing that causality is the law of identity applied to action, Objectivism is noting several facts which are perceptually self-evident, which include (but are not necessarily limited to the following):

1. Action exists

2. Because action exists, it has identity

3. Action is action of something which acts

4. The actions of an entity depend on the nature of the entity which performs it

Etc.

The first of these is perceptually self-evident: we perceive the action which entities perform directly. When we see a squirrel darting across the street to avoid an oncoming car, we see it acting (though for the Christian this action apparently has nothing to do with the fact that it possesses legs).

The second point is also perceptually self-evident: when we see a squirrel running, we see it running (as opposed to baking a cake, drilling a hole, operating heavy machinery, etc.). In other words, its action has identity, which means: the law of identity applies to the squirrel’s actions as well as to it as an entity distinct from others. Indeed, if the law of identity did not apply to the squirrel’s actions, how could we speak about its actions? How could we identity those actions? How could we make sense of them? Not surprisingly, there is no answer to these questions from the anti-Objectivists.

The third point is the recognition that action does not exist on its own, that action is the action of something which performs the action, that action only occurs if there is some entity or substance which acts. We do not say “I saw running” while intending to mean that there was nothing which did the running. We would naturally ask the question “What did you see running?” (for it could have been a squirrel, a mouse, a cat, a businessman, etc.), because – as the third point recognizes – action is action of something which acts. If in response to the question, “What did you see running?” your respondent answered, “Oh, nothing was running, I just saw running by itself,” would this be sensible? To be consistent in denying the Objectivist conception of the law of causality, one would indeed have to affirm this, and thus openly announce his worldview’s enshrinement of the absurd.

The fourth point continues the sequence of perceptually self-evident recognitions, noting specifically that, since action exists (point 1), action has identity (point 2) and action is the action of something (point 3), the identity of action rests on the identity of the entity performing it. A billiard ball has the ability to role because it is spherical, is heavier than air, is not fixed in place, etc. A bird can fly because of the movements of its wings. A squirrel can run because it has legs. Etc. To deny these facts is to say that the nature of an entity is irrelevant to the kinds of actions it can and does perform, which is simply to declare an open assault on the data we perceive in the world. Again, what justifies such a move? For some, belief in invisible magic beings apparently does. On a view which denies the objective understanding of the law of causality, the fact that a man’s legs have been amputated has no causal relationship to the fact that he can no longer walk. Given the absurdity of such a position, don’t be surprised when theists fail to be consistent with it. Don’t be surprised when you see these same people acting in accordance with their own natures. For instance, if they want to get to another part of town, don’t be surprised to find them either walking, driving a car, taking a bus, etc., as opposed to being magically transported there.

So while many thinkers will kick and scream against the objective understanding of causality, it should be of no surprise when their preferred subjective alternative leads to absurdity and is typically abandoned before it is even attempted.

Bolt asked some additional questions, and apparently believes his questions constitute problems for my position:

You have a much bigger problem though. How do you know what actions an entity is capable of?

Luckily, my worldview allows for the fact that the human mind is capable of learning about the world. I know what actions an entity is capable of by the same process that I use in knowing anything else: by means of conceptual integration. This process is explained in Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which outlines the objective theory of concepts. What method does Bolt propose as an alternative to the objective theory of concepts? The last time I checked, Christianity has no theory of concepts. And when asked to indicate where he would turn to find a reliable theory of concepts, Bolt can only respond with snarky sarcasm. Does he suggest that praying to his god is a viable alternative to conceptual integration? Or, waiting for transmissions from the “sensus divinitatus”? Since Bolt rejects the objective worldview, let’s put whatever method he proposes as an alternative side by side with the objective position, and see which is more reliable in producing genuine knowledge about the world. We could take this discussion as a point of departure.

Bolt then asks:

How do you know that the entity of water is not in a necessary relationship with the action of producing merlot all by its lonesome?

Of course, we know this by means of induction. Specifically, I know this by integrating the law of causality (as it is understood objectively) to concepts of existents. As a rational animal – i.e., as a biological organism possessing a consciousness which has achieved the conceptual level of cognition, I am capable of inductive reasoning, which makes use of a broad spectrum of specific information that I have gathered from reality and validated according to an objective process, and subsequently integrated with yet further information which has similarly been developed through the same objective process, to produce knowledge on a general level. After all, that is what induction does: it empowers a mind to move from knowledge about particular units to knowledge about the general class of units to which those particulars belong. This is a conceptual process, but it will never be understood fully without a good understanding of concepts.

I expect that Bolt & co. will charge my answer here of begging the question. But this would be a category mistake, and suggests that charging opponents with such fallacies is an acquired habit which has not been critically examined. When one is asked to identify the process by which he arrives at a judgment about the behavior of a specific class of entities or substances, how could induction not be part of the process? Asking “How do you know that the entity of water is not in a necessary relationship with the action of producing merlot all by its lonesome?” is not asking one to justify induction (as if it needed justification), but to apply it.

It is fascinating, however, that a Christian would ask the question which Bolt poses above. It suggests that his real concern is not to defend Christianity, but to denigrate human cognition as such (it’s true: in the end these two activities share the same goal). Suppose for a moment that I were to respond to Bolt’s question by saying, “I see no reason why the entity of water should not be in a necessary relationship with the action of producing merlot all by its lonesome,” I would well be in the position of supposing that Bolt’s god was not necessary for the water in the water pots at the marriage of Cana to turn into wine (cf. John 2:1-11). The skepticism which Bolt is in effect endorsing here would effectively bring his god’s role in causing miracles into serious question. The miracle story in the gospel of John assumes that something other than the water itself brought about its transformation into wine, namely the conscious activity of an omnipotent savior-deity. Similarly, what if one affirms that there is no reason to suppose that a human corpse cannot rise from the dead on its own, thus dismissing Christianity’s supernatural explanation of the resurrection of Jesus? By going with the alternative view which Bolt raises in his line of questioning, how is Christianity served? How is he giving glory to his god? If Bolt’s god is glorified by his denial of the fact that action has identity, that the actions which an entity performs depend on the nature of the entity performing it, that the relationship between an entity and its own actions is therefore a necessary relationship, this tells us not only about Bolt’s overall worldview, but also the god which he worships.

by Dawson Bethrick

Humean Causality and Presuppositionalism

David Hume’s Understanding of Causality

Back when I was explaining to Chris Bolt the importance of an objective approach to induction, I pointed out one of David Hume’s key flaws in formulating his skeptical conclusion about induction. Specifically, I explained that Hume’s conception of causality as a relationship between “events,” as opposed to a relationship between an entity and its own actions, is a crucial premise in his infamous argument for skepticism in induction (see for instance here and here). The reason for this should be simple to understand: on Hume’s conception, there is no inherently necessary relationship which connects one event to another which happens to follow it.

As Hume himself put it:

All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding)

Hume’s conception of causality, as expressed here, essentially guarantees a skeptical analysis of induction. (Hume made other mistakes as well, and these simply doomed the Scottish thinker’s understanding of induction all the more.) Since “all events seem entirely loose and separate,” and causality is understood essentially as a succession of events - one called cause, and the one which happens to follow it called effect - it’s just a happy accident that touching the hot surface of a stove (the “cause”) results in the experience of pain (the “effect”). On this view, touching the hot surface of a backyard grill or molten iron could just as easily result in pleasure, a musical performance, paper production, or anything else, since they “seem… never connected.”

The implications which such a view of causality has for induction are hard to miss. For instance, since on Hume’s view “all events seem entirely loose and separate” and “we never can observe any tie between them,” a single instance of one event following another is never sufficient to give us knowledge of a necessary connection between two events such that we can be assured that they are causally related (or “connected,” as Hume puts it). In other words, for Hume, observing one instance of cause and effect is insufficient to validate what some have come to call “the inductive principle,” that is, “the principle that future unobserved instances will resemble past observed instances” (James Anderson, Secular Responses to the Problem of Induction; cf. also Brian Knapp, “Induction and the Unbeliever,” The Portable Presuppositionalist, pp. 121-122). Hume tells us this explicitly when he states:

When any natural object or event is presented, it is impossible for us, by any sagacity or penetration, to discover, or even conjecture, without experience, what event will result from it, or to carry our foresight beyond that object which is immediately present to the memory and senses. Even after one instance or experiment where we have observed a particular event to follow upon another, we are not entitled to form a general rule, or foretell what will happen in like cases; it being justly esteemed an unpardonable temerity to judge of the whole course of nature from one single experiment, however accurate or certain. (Op. cit.)

Why is “one instance or experiment” not enough for us “to form a general rule, or foretell what will happen in like cases”? Because, according to Hume, “all events seem entirely loose and separate” and, he says, “we can never observe any tie between them.” This seems strange to me, as the pain that I experience when I touch a hot stove top does seem very much “connected” to my touching the hot stove top in the first place. But Hume says that “we never can observe any tie between” the one and the other. Apparently we’re supposed to take his word for this.

But Hume doesn’t think we’re entirely lost on this. There is a way around this, as he explains:

But when one particular species of event has always, in all instances, been conjoined with another, we make no longer any scruple of foretelling one upon the appearance of the other, and of employing that reasoning, which can alone assure us of any matter of fact or existence. (Ibid.)

So touching a hot stove top and experiencing pain only once is not sufficient, says Hume, to draw the general inference that touching it again will result in the same experience. But, he says, if this happens “always, in all instances,” there is apparently no objection against considering such a rule. In other words, in order to formulate the general rule that touching a hot stove will cause pain, we need to know that in “all instances” of touching a hot stove – that is, not 50%, not 75%, not 98% of the time, but 100% of the time – the one touching it experiences pain.

The question at this point becomes: how do we know when we have knowledge of “all instances” of “one particular species of event”? Since we are not omniscient, it can reasonably be supposed there will always be the possibility that some instances of a particular species of event lie outside of our knowledge, and among them may be instances which do not resemble the instances which we do know about. Hume gives no indication as to how one could confidently be assured that he has “all instances” to work with, or how one can reliably conclude that there are no instances outside of his knowledge which defy the norm of those which he does know. Since no one individual has knowledge of “all instances” of touching a hot stove, Hume is essentially saying that no one meets the minimum requirements needed to conclude as a general rule that touching a hot stove will cause pain.

Hume’s own terms arbitrarily require omniscience as a standard, even though there is no such thing as omniscience. But without it, his conception of causality dooms us to the skepticism for which he is so famous.

To make matters worse, Hume seemed to believe that the imagination serves as some kind of final court of appeal in settling the difficulty. In his search for a “connexion” between one event (the cause) and another (the effect), Hume explicitly pointed to what one “feels” in his imagination, and only when repetition of the conjoined events in succession is involved:

It appears, then, that this idea of a necessary connexion among events arises from a number of similar instances which occur of the constant conjunction of these events; nor can that idea ever be suggested by any one of these instances, surveyed in all possible lights and positions. But there is nothing in a number of instances, different from every single instance, which is supposed to be exactly similar; except only, that after a repetition of similar instances, the mind is carried by habit, upon the appearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant, and to believe that it will exist. This connexion, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connexion. Nothing farther is in the case. Contemplate the subject on all sides; you will never find any other origin of that idea. This is the sole difference between one instance, from which we can never receive the idea of connexion, and a number of similar instances, by which it is suggested. The first time a man saw the communication of motion by impulse, as by the shock of two billiard balls, he could not pronounce that the one event was connected: but only that it was conjoined with the other. After he has observed several instances of this nature, he then pronounces them to be connected. What alteration has happened to give rise to this new idea of connexion? Nothing but that he now feels these events to be connected in his imagination, and can readily foretell the existence of one from the appearance of the other. (Ibid.)

Essentially, Hume is saying here that, without a sufficient number of iterations (Hume indicates no specific quantity here), the imagination does not have enough input from the world to consider one event “conjoined” with another, to be “connected” – i.e., to be causally connected. If you touch your finger to a hot stove and feel the pain of a burn one time, that’s not sufficient to attribute a causal connection between the one action of touching your finger to a hot stove and feeling pain. For Hume, you have to do this numerous times (how many, he does not say) for you to finally “get it” (or “feel”) in your imagination that touching a hot surface and experiencing pain are causally “connected.”

To make sure we understand this correctly, Hume states it again as follows:

In all single instances of the operation of bodies or minds, there is nothing that produces any impression, nor consequently suggest any idea of power or necessary connexion. But when many uniform instances appear, and the same object is always followed by the same event; we then begin to entertain the notion of cause and connexion. We then feel a new sentiment or impression, to wit, a customary connexion in the thought or imagination between object and its usual attendant; and this sentiment is the original of that idea which we seek for. (Ibid.)

Streminger interprets Hume accordingly:

Since we never perceive a propter hoc, but only a post hoc, causal connections have to depend on the creative imagination. (Hume’s Theory of Imagination)

Notice what is being affirmed here: that something metaphysical (“causal connections”) depends on what the imagination creates. The role of man’s imagination, says Streminger (interpreting Hume), is “to structure the stream of [one’s] perceptions” (Ibid.). Presumably, a “stream” of perceptions has no structure apart from what the imagination imposes on them. Or, they do have a natural structure, but, perhaps, the structure provided by the imagination has greater epistemological import as a faculty by which those perceptions are assembled into content amenable to inductive inference. Either way, the sequence here seems to be perception plus imagination yields the material needed to generate inductive conclusions. Causal connections in themselves are ultimately subjective phenomena on Hume’s view. As John Vickers puts it, “the objectivity of causality, the objective support of inductive inference, is thus an illusion” (The Problem of Induction, from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

In this way, I wager that David Kelley is correct in his assessment of Hume when he interprets Hume to be saying (note that Kelley is not presenting the Objectivist view here):

The mark of an axiom, of a self-evident truth, is that we cannot deny it without contradicting ourselves. And the test of whether a proposition is contradictory, is whether we can imagine it. We cannot imagine a case where A equals not A. That’s why the law of identity, A is A, is self-evident. It cannot be denied without contradiction; we cannot imagine it being false. But we can imagine that fire soothes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and burns on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, Sunday being a day of metaphysical rest. The law of causality can be denied without self-contradiction, so it cannot be an axiom. And even if it were an axiom, finally, that wouldn’t do us any good. Axioms, says Hume, are merely relations among our own ideas. They are arbitrary constructs that we make true by the way we define our own terms. And therefore they don’t tell us anything about reality. (Universals and Induction)

To be sure, Hume held some seriously defective views. To summarize, Hume’s view of causality entails the following points:

1. Causality is a relationship between “events”

2. There is no inherent necessity connecting one event to another (they “seem entirely loose and separate” and “we can never observe any tie between them”)

3. A single instance is never sufficient to inform a general principle

4. Exhaustive knowledge of all instances is needed to form a general principle (repetition)

5. The “necessity” of cause and effect relationships is ultimately grounded in the imagination

Given underlying assumptions as strange as these, it should be no wonder why Hume could only come to the conclusion about induction for which he is so well known. Indeed, it could rightly be said that the problem of induction is the problem of seeking an adequate justification for inductive generalization when one’s conception of causality is so expressly geared against it. Absent from Hume’s analysis, so far that I’ve been able to find, is a defense of the view that causality is a relationship of events, or of the premise that “all events seem entirely loose and separate” and that “we can never observe any tie between them.” And yet, as should be clear, these are key assumptions in Hume’s skeptical argument.

Hume and Presuppositionalism

Now it is important to note that, when presuppositionalists raise the problem of induction in their apologetic challenges against non-believers, they very typically cite Hume as an authority on induction. And in doing so, they express no concern for or dissatisfaction with Hume’s conception of causality which underlies his skeptical conclusion about the nature of inductive inference. On the contrary, presuppositionalists generally point to Hume as if he were an unquestionable authority on the matter. In this way presuppositionalists tacitly endorse the premises in Hume’s argument, among them, sadly, his conception of causality.

When engaging presuppositionalists who attempt to raise the problem of induction as a debating point, it is a good idea to ask them whether or not they think Hume’s argument for inductive skepticism is sound. This will answer many questions at the outset. For instance, if the apologist concedes that Hume’s argument is not sound, then he should acknowledge the fact that raising the issue to begin with is futile. An argument admitted to be unsound is not one which needs to be taken seriously. If the apologist insists that Hume’s argument is sound, we should invite him to reconstruct the argument and argue for its premises. Moreover, if he truly thinks Hume’s argument is sound, then he needs to live with its skeptical conclusion, and this would be counterproductive to his apologetic agenda.

In my experience, however, apologists who invoke the inductive version of presuppositionalism typically resist stating for the record whether they think Hume’s argument is sound or not. (See for instance my 08 Oct. 2009 comment in this blog and my exchanges with Paul Manata in the comments section of this blog.) This is quite telling, for it suggests that apologists who raise the issue are unwilling to take much of a stand on it. It becomes all the more revealing when it is pointed out that Hume’s conception of causality is faulty, and apologists subsequently distance themselves even further from taking a stand.

Swallowing Hume’s conclusion about induction in whole without examining his premises seems to be commonplace among presuppositionalists, even in the case of those who should know better. Greg Bahnsen, for instance, who holds that “the causal principle is seen to be intelligible only within the Christian framework of thought,” cites Hume as an “unbeliever” who was “both brilliant and honest about the matter,” pointing to Hume’s “devastating critique of causal reasoning in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding” as “the foremost example of this” (Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, pp. 618-619, including 619n.143). Hume is said by Bahnsen to number among those “unbelievers” who “have openly conceded that they have no rational basis for believing that the future will resemble the past” (Ibid., p. 619). Bahnsen summarizes the essence of the Humean concession as follows:

We may have observed that event B followed event A many times in the past, but to know that B necessarily follows A (i.e., that the relation is causal), calls for reference to a metaphysical principle (namely, the future will be like the past) for which the unbeliever has no warrant or right. As Bertrand Russell was driven to conclude: “The general principles of science, such as the believe in the reign of law, and the belief that every event must have a cause, are as completely dependent upon the inductive principle as are the beliefs of daily life. All such general principles are believed because mankind have found innumerable instances of their truth and no instances of their falsehood. But this affords no evidence for their truth in the future, unless the inductive principle is assumed.” Assumed? But that is what was supposed to be proved! Russell was aware of his defeat: “Hence we can never use experience to prove the inductive principle without begging the question. Thus we must… forgo all justification of our expectations about the future.” (Ibid.; quoting Russell’s “On Induction,” in The Problems of Philosophy (1912; reprint, London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 69, 68.)

What is noteworthy here is that neither Bahnsen nor Russell ever seems to question Hume’s conception of causality, an element which is integral to the skeptical conclusion for which Hume is so famous.

Similarly, in his essay “Induction and the Unbeliever” (The Portable Presuppositionalist, pp. 118-142), presuppositional apologist Brian Knapp cites Hume as one raising the question of how we can justify induction (cf. pp. 122-123), but never questions the premises underlying Hume’s argument for the view that “induction is hence unjustifiable” (p. 129, citing this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article). Nor does Knapp express any concern for the particular understanding of causality assumed by Hume in framing the famous problem.

So the tendency to miss the significance of Hume’s conception of causality in generating his skeptical conclusion in regard to induction does not appear to be an isolated incident, but rather a widespread habit. It is therefore unlikely to occur to presuppositionalists that a worldview which avoids the defects in Hume’s conception of causality may very well be immune to the systemic skepticism to which it leads. Since Hume’s conception of causality plays a central role in establishing his skeptical view of induction, a philosophy which holds to an alternative understanding of causality is unlikely to suffer from the same vulnerability.

In a forthcoming blog, I will explain just how the Objectivist view of causality does in fact avoid the pitfalls which plague Hume’s problem of induction. However, it is my prediction that presuppositionalists will ignore these points as if they did not pertain, and continue to insist that only Christianity somehow solves the problem of induction (even though it lacks an objective understanding of causality). But don’t be surprised when at this point they fail to present arguments and instead prefer simply to rattle off questions in rapid succession in the manner of “How do you know….?” over and over and over again, while ignoring answers given to those questions.

by Dawson Bethrick

The Uniformity of Nature

In their deployment of the “transcendental argument for the existence of God,” presuppositionalists often raise the problem of induction as a debating point and demand that non-Christian opponents provide an “account for” the uniformity of nature. The presumption of this strategy is that induction presupposes the uniformity of nature, and its intent is to expose a non-Christian’s failure to provide an “account for” this vital presupposition necessary for inductive reasoning.


The Meaning of “Account For”

Now it is not always clear what exactly the presuppositionalist is looking for when he requires that a non-believer provide an “account for” the uniformity of nature. Some presuppositionalists have indicated that in this context an “account” for something is a logical proof. But in the case of the uniformity of nature, this seems quite an odd thing to expect from anyone, since it can be reasonably held that proof as such presupposes the uniformity of nature. To categorize a line of inference as a “proof” suggests that it is a proof on every day of the week, not just on Tuesdays which happen to fall on a holiday in Laos. Any proof given to satisfy the apologist’s line of inquiry could feasibly be rejected for assuming what is supposed to be proved.

It may be that the apologist is asking the non-believer to identify the cause of nature’s uniformity. But here again, pointing to any specific cause which makes nature uniform would be vulnerable to the charge of circularity, since it could reasonably be postulated that causation as such presupposes the uniformity of nature. If the non-believer were to attempt an answer to the presuppositionalist’s inquiry by pointing to something which causes nature to be uniform, he could again be charged with circular reasoning for appealing to a law whose persistence itself requires the very thing he’s been called to provide an “account for.” If an “account” is understood in this way, it seems unreasonable to require it from anyone, regardless of his stance on theism.

Alternatively, presuppositionalists may characterize the challenge to “account for” the uniformity of nature as a request to present a “logical warrant” or “rational justification” for assuming that nature is uniform, thus presumably broadening the challenge beyond the need to present a formal proof or identify the cause of nature’s uniformity. Of course, this would in turn broaden the range of viable candidates which can satisfy the challenge, which may in turn pose certain subsequent challenges for the apologist. By expanding the latitude of the meaning of “account” in such a manner, the apologist widens the possibilities of acceptable contenders. But with this broadening may also come ambiguity which, it seems, needs some tightening down in order to clarify what exactly is being requested of the non-Christian, and to make clear at the outset what validly constitutes an “account for” the uniformity of nature, and what could not. After all, it is clear from the context of the controversy which the presuppositionalist intends to stoke, that appeals to an invisible magic being constitute, in his mind, a valid approach to settling the matter.

Then again, as we venture into this matter, it may be wise to bear in mind the possibility that presuppositionalism is essentially geared toward entrapping non-Christians, perhaps in the hopes of scoring a debating point rather than clarifying some genuinely mysterious philosophical issue. It should be no secret that presuppositionalism has a predatory agenda. It may seem to be the case, and possibly for good reason, that the apologist is deliberately seeking to corner the non-Christian into producing a question-begging “account” so that the apologist can say “Ah ha! Gotcha!” The situation grows even more suspect when we remember that presuppositionalists themselves “prefer to reason in a circle to not reasoning at all” (Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 12), suggesting that there really is no alternative to tail-chasing petitios. Apologists of this school seem, however, to reserve this excuse exclusively for themselves, while citing circularity as a fatal error for their opponents’ position if and when they are charged with this.


Uniformity and Metaphysical Primacy

Because the issue of metaphysical primacy is the most fundamental concern in all philosophy, the first item to address in considering the question of how one “accounts for” the uniformity of nature is not whether or not nature’s uniformity entails theism or atheism per se, nor would I say that trifling over what exactly the presuppositionalist means by “account for” will be very productive (good luck getting him to commit to a clear meaning here). Rather, the controversy here first needs to be understood in terms of metaphysical primacy. Specifically, if it is agreed that nature is in fact uniform, does the uniformity of nature presuppose the primacy of existence, or does it presuppose the primacy of consciousness? Is nature uniform independent of anyone’s thoughts, feelings, wishes, commands or temper tantrums? Or, does the fact that nature is uniform depend on some form of conscious activity?

This is the central question to be considered before all others: is consciousness involved in “making” nature uniform, or is nature uniform on its own, regardless of what consciousness does?

As an Objectivist, my answer to this question is that nature is uniform on its own, independent of anyone’s conscious activity. A person can deny the uniformity of nature, but nature remains uniform all the same, in spite of such denials. This means that if no consciousness exists, the entities which do exist still act according to their natures. This is the view consistent with the axioms “existence exists,” ”to exist is to be something” (i.e., to have identity), and “entities act according to their natures” independent of consciousness.

In his discussion on the problem of induction, presuppositionalist Brian Knapp speaks of the need to have a “logical justification for doing something” (“Induction and the Unbeliever,” The Portable Presuppositionalist, p. 124), including presumably assuming that nature is uniform, and asks “Why do you believe nature is uniform, and how is that belief rationally justified?” (Ibid.). But to speak of rationally justifying a position, what can one mean other than justifying that position in accordance to reason? Reason is the faculty by which an individual identifies and integrates the objects of his perception. This faculty presupposes the metaphysical primacy of existence – i.e., the view that the objects of one’s consciousness exist and are what they are independent of the conscious activity by which he is aware of them.

But this does not seem at all consistent with what presuppositionalism affirms.


The Presuppositionalist Approach

The standard presuppositionalist “justification” for the premise that nature is uniform is quite different from the Objectivist view that nature is inherently uniform independent of conscious activity. While presuppositional apologists often make a big deal about “accounting for” the uniformity of nature, they exhibit no concern for the issue of metaphysical primacy. On the contrary, presuppositionalism is exclusively concerned with advancing the view that the uniformity of nature is theistically caused. Specifically, it affirms the existence of a supernatural conscious being

who has created the universe in which we live (Gen. 1:1, Col. 1:16), and who sovereignly maintains it as we find it to be (Heb. 1:3)… This God has a plan for his creation (Eph. 1:11), not the least part of which is revealing himself to it (Rom. 1:19-20). Part of this revelation involves creating and sustaining the universe in such a way that his creatures are able to learn about it and function within it (Gen. 8:22). (Brian Knapp, “Induction and the Unbeliever,” The Portable Presuppositionalist, p. 132)

Although presuppositionalists can be expected to insist that this “account for” the uniformity of nature has not “simply ‘moved the problem’ by introducing God into the equation” (Ibid., p. 135), it seems that this is precisely all that such appeals ultimately accomplish. The claim that a being “has created the universe in which we live… and… sovereignly maintains it as we find it to be,” amounts to the view that the uniformity of nature is a product of some prior cause. This assumes the continuity of any causal process by which said being allegedly accomplishes these tasks. In other words, the “justification” for the premise that nature is uniform proposed by presuppositionalism assumes the uniformity of nature from the get go.

It is unhelpful to the presuppositionalist case for apologists to seek exemption from the applicability of a law of nature – and therefore, by implication, the uniformity of nature – in their proposed solution by pointing to their god’s “supernatural” character, for however they wish to conceive of their god, they are unable to escape the causal implications embedded in their proposed justification. Essentially they are saying that their god causes nature to be uniform, and are thus invoking a natural law – namely the law of causality - even if they wish to refer to it by some other name. The presuppositionalist appeal to theism, then, to “account for” the uniformity of nature, assumes the very thing that this appeal is supposed to explain, and is thus an instance of reasoning in a circle. As Brian Knapp himself explains:

To reason in a circle is to assume the very thing you are attempting to demonstrate. (Ibid., p. 126)

Knapp holds that circular reasoning “is just as devastating as the arbitrariness of one who has no answer at all” (Ibid., p. 125), and thus any explanation of the uniformity of nature which incorporates such fallacy is to be rejected.

In order to maintain a theistic “account for” the uniformity of nature here, the only alternative to circular reasoning would be to commit the fallacy of the stolen concept. This would be the case if the presuppositionalist denies that his proposed explanation of the uniformity of nature is circular on the grounds that his god’s creation of the universe and maintenance of its consistent functioning is in effect causeless, in an attempt to avoid invoking a law of nature – namely causality - as the mechanism by which his god allegedly accomplishes its feat of sovereignty over the universe. But this too is a dead end for the presuppositionalist, for he is still affirming that the uniformity of nature throughout the universe is the result of some action taken on the part of his god, and causality is essentially the identity of action. The dead give-away here is that the presuppositionalist is in fact naming the actions of his god – specifically “creating” and “maintaining” its creation – which result in nature being uniform. This would-be rebuttal, then, would in effect affirm acts of creation and maintenance (i.e., actions which have identity) while denying their genetic root, namely causality, of which the actions which presuppositionalists attribute to their god are merely species. Causality, it should be noted, is essentially “the law of identity applied to action” (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Galt’s Speech). To name an action (as the presuppositionalist does in his “account”) is to acknowledge that the action in question does in fact have identity.

Now the presuppositionalist may object to any of this by insisting that the causality by which his god affects uniformity in nature is not natural causality, but rather “supernatural causality,” and therefore that appeals to “supernatural causality” do not presuppose or depend on the uniformity of nature as necessary precondition. This maneuver assumes that there is, between causality as we know it (that is, causality as a natural law – as “the law of identity applied to action”) and so-called “supernatural causality,” some distinction which relevantly bears on the issue at hand in a manner that is sufficient to alleviate the tensions exposed above. It is thus incumbent upon the apologist who invokes this disclaimer to explain this supposed distinction and make the case for immunity to the charges of circular reasoning and/or the stolen concept fallacy. Indeed, what exactly is “supernatural causality,” and how is it different from natural causality? If causality is essentially the law of identity applied to action, and the presuppositionalist implicitly acknowledges that the actions he attributes to his god (“creates” and “maintains”) in fact have identity (which he does simply by naming them), how are these actions beyond the scope of natural law if by natural law we ultimately mean that the law of identity applies? Blank out.

As suspected above, the solution which presuppositionalism proposes does in fact seem to accomplish nothing more than to move the problem back a step rather than actually addressing it (insofar as it can be said that there is a problem here in the first place). By referencing “supernatural causality” as opposed to “natural causality” as the means by which his god allegedly created and maintains the order of the universe in a uniform manner, the presuppositionalist is implying a uniformity of “super-nature,” especially in the claim that his god “maintains” (or “sustains”) the order of the universe, as this action would be continuous (even if not eternal), rather than merely a single gesture. The apologist is essentially saying that “supernatural causality” is today as it has been in the past and will be in the future, thus presupposing a principle of uniformity prior to nature. But what accounts for this uniformity of “super-nature” which underlies the presuppositionalist’s appeal to a god in order to “account for” the uniformity of nature? Where is the presuppositionalist’s “justification” for this principle of uniformity on which his justification for order in the universe relies and without which his “account” could have no philosophical substance?

Of course, since the presuppositionalist appeals to a god as both the creator of the universe and as the sustainer of uniformity in nature, he likely means by “supernatural causality” (or whatever motor he has in mind behind the creating and sustaining his god is allegedly responsible for) some form of conscious activity to make these things happen, as if by wishing. At the very least, the presuppositionalist should make it explicitly clear whether or not he thinks that his god creates and sustains by means of an act of consciousness, and if so, how we can distinguish this act of consciousness from something akin to mere wishing. In other words, the presuppositionalist needs to come clean about his position’s commitment to the primacy of consciousness in his “account for” the uniformity of nature. Since an appeal to theism in order to account for the uniformity of nature essentially signifies the view that the uniformity of nature rests on the primacy of consciousness, it is this presupposition which the presuppositionalist needs to justify. But this would entail arguing for the view that the uniformity of nature finds its basis in subjectivism: the uniformity of nature is the result of some conscious action (see here and here).

Some direct questions may help eliminate some of the presuppositionalist’s standard obfuscations:

1. Is nature uniform? (Yes or no)

2. If no, we would likely have an instance of the fallacy of the stolen concept, for a denial of the uniformity of nature would have to assume that nature is uniform in order for that denial to make sense.

3. If yes , is nature uniform independent of consciousness, or is nature’s uniformity a product of conscious activity?

4. If nature is uniform independent of consciousness, the uniformity of nature cannot imply theism.

5. If it is thought that nature’s uniformity is a product of conscious activity, why suppose that such an overt appeal to subjectivism is at all philosophically impressive?

Involved with the presuppositionalist strategy is the tacit assumption that the principle of the uniformity of nature is the end-all and be-all of induction, that the uniformity of nature is equivalent to the so-called “inductive principle.” (This habit is common outside of presuppositionalist circles as well, which is probably where presuppositionalists get it in the first place.) If it can be proven that nature is uniform, so the implicit reasoning goes, then induction is justified. Of course, this approach takes for granted – and leaves completely uninvestigated – all the activity which the human mind performs in the activity we call inductive reasoning. It rests all of induction’s validity on whether or not nature is uniform and how one “accounts for” this. This tendency fails to recognize that while the uniformity of nature is a metaphysical concern, the justification of induction is an epistemological issue. Sadly, those who take the presuppositionalist approach are missing much of the story.

Often coupled with this gaff is the inclination to think of natural laws as phenomena that are in some way independent of the universe and to which the universe must somehow adhere or conform in order for those laws to apply within the universe and thereby serve as reliable principles upon which our reasoning rests. This understanding itself has no objective basis, and in fact invites the fallacies which typically accompany the primacy of consciousness. Implicit in this view may be, for instance, the notion that the laws existed first, then the contents of the universe, and then the contents of the universe (which on their own would be utterly mired in chaos) are compelled by some external force to comply with those laws. Presuppositional apologetics seeks to exploit such assumptions by making the laws of nature extra-universal, otherworldly, indeed “supernatural.” For instance, observe the following statement by Brian Knapp:

In the Christian’s worldview, at least from the Reformed perspective, laws are not so much “natural” as they are “supernatural”. They are an expression of the way in which God providentially orders his creation, rather than something that is “built-in” which operate on their own and independent from God. [sic] (“Induction and the Unbeliever,” The Portable Presuppositionalist, p. 121n.4)

On Knapp’s view, the natural laws describe “the way in which God providentially orders his creation.” But how would anyone be able to acquire knowledge of “the way in which God providentially orders his creation,” if said “God” is a mind distinct from the believer’s own mind? As the believer imagines his god, his mind departs from reality in radical fashion. When he ascribes the course of nature to the handling of a being which he can only imagine, the believer ignores the constraints of rational epistemology (which addresses the how of his knowledge), because he is no longer speaking from knowledge, but from imagination. This is why the believer can speak of “the way in which God providentially orders his creation” as if he were intimately familiar with the universe of details which such cosmic handling of the contents of the universe would entail. It essentially represents the believer attributing what he takes completely for granted (and does not understand philosophically) to the activity of a being which resides only in his own imagination.

Objectivism does not share the view expressed by Knapp as it (Objectivism) does not grant the assumption that the laws of nature are somehow independent of the universe. I have already discussed at length the Objectivist axioms and their role in anchoring human cognition to reality (see for instance my essay The Axioms and the Primacy of Existence). But it may still be unclear how they relate to the laws of nature.

Nor does Objectivism grant objective validity to the notion of the “supernatural” (see here). The laws of nature are not divine commands on the contents of the universe, nor are they rules which the objects literally obey in an effort to remain in good standing with “the Lord.” On the contrary, the laws of nature are conceptual integrations, and as such they are general identifications based on perceptual input (as all concepts are ultimately). They represent discoveries of facts which are integrated into open-ended principles which can be applied to all particulars of a certain class. They do not originate from outside the universe, for they are based on facts which obtain within the universe and which are discovered and integrated by minds which also exist in the universe. There is no “outside the universe” to begin with. There is the universe (the sum total of all that exists), and there is what we imagine.


The Meaning of “the Uniformity of Nature”

But what specifically do we mean by the term “uniformity of nature”? Not all conceptions of the uniformity of nature are created equal. Presuppositional apologist Greg Bahnsen tends to conceive of the uniformity of nature as “the resemblance between events that we have experienced and events that we have not experience” (Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 342n.167), thus holding to an “event-based” model in which “resemblance” (presumably, how something appears to an observer) conjoins that which has been experienced with that which has not been experienced.

On the one hand, Bahnsen’s conception of the uniformity of nature, given the central role he gives to “resemblance” and “experience,” does not lend itself very well to the supposition that nature is uniform independent of conscious activity. The viewpoint of the observer seems to have a lot of sway in the matter, and it needs to be clarified whether uniformity in nature obtains independent of consciousness, or if conscious activity is a preconditional consideration. Of course, this does not concern Bahnsen, and making such clarifications would likely be counterproductive to his apologetic ambitions.

On the other hand, Bahnsen’s view seems conspicuously well geared toward positioning apologists in the vantage of criticizing opponents. For how can two things be said to share a “resemblance” unless (and until) they can be compared side by side? And how can two “events” be compared side by side unless they have both already occurred? But isn’t that the whole point behind the principle of the uniformity of nature – namely to provide an objective basis for expecting that things which are not available to be compared to what has already been experienced, will operate in a manner similar to what has been experienced?

Brian Knapp presents a somewhat different rendering:

Nature must proceed to operate according to the same laws it has operated according to in the past – laws which determine the effects which arise from a given cause or set of causes. (Op. cit., p. 121)

Here we see the implicit notion that the contents of the universe “obey” (either volitionally or by some means of compulsion) the laws of nature, since it is “laws which determine the effects which arise from a given cause or set of causes.” If this is stated metaphorically, then it may not be problematic. But if it is understood literally, it invites the primacy of consciousness. Again, it is unclear on this conception whether or not the uniformity of nature is understood to obtain independently of consciousness, or if it is supposed to be something which is put into place by means of conscious activity.

What’s also noticeable in Knapp’s statement here is that it seems absolute: “Nature must proceed to operate according to the same laws it has operated to in the past…” The way that it is stated here does not seem to allow for exceptions. This, we will find, is not what Christianity really teaches when it comes to the uniformity of nature.

Both Bahnsen and Knapp ultimately agree, however, that the Christian god is the proper (or “only”) answer to the question “How do you account for the uniformity of nature?” But in pointing to the Christian god, believers are, in terms of essentials, claiming that the uniformity of nature is a product of conscious activity. It seems, however, that by supposing there is a consciousness which has the power to cause nature to be uniform, they are also granting that said consciousness also has the power to cause (or “allow”) nature to be chaotic. Since “God controls whatsoever comes to pass” (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 160), Christianity puts everything which takes place within nature entirely in the hands of a supernatural mind which is imagined to be completely free from the constraints of nature. Indeed, as the Christian worldview itself explicitly teaches, miracles can and sometimes do happen. The water in your drinking glass can be water one moment, and then magically transformed into merlot the next (cf. John 2:1-11). In the final analysis, since everything that happens is up to the will of an invisible magic being, predictable outcomes are as much a crap shoot as are miracles. As Knapp puts it, “In a very real sense, all events in the universe are ultimately supernatural events as God is personally behind each and every one of them” (Op. cit., p. 139). The believer, then, is to imagine that his god is “personally behind each and every” event which occurs in the universe, which can only mean – in the context of a worldview which takes such imaginations seriously – that the uniformity of nature (to the extent that nature is at all uniform in the first place) is the result of conscious activity. In other words, the uniformity of nature, on the Christian view, presupposes the primacy of consciousness.

Knapp’s response to the objection that on the Christian view nature could be chaotic as much as it is uniform, is that such objection could be “sound only if [Christian theism] assumes that nature is absolutely uniform, which it does not” (The Portable Presuppositionalist, p. 140). Indeed, by conceding that, on the Christian view, nature is not absolutely uniform, then nature might as well not be supposed to be uniform at all (since exceptions to uniformity are granted as legitimate possibilities), and consequently all bets are off: there is no reliable basis for expecting future events to “resemble” those of the past (which is the presuppositionalist’s own measure for understanding whether or not nature is uniform). The ruling consciousness can make it such that glass shatters into dozens of broken shards when struck with a hammer one moment, and that it turns into a flock of geese under the same conditions the next. What Christian would deny its god the power to bring about such outcomes? Indeed, they claim that their god is omnipotent and can bring about any imaginable outcome. But how does this “account for” the uniformity in nature which we observe on a constant basis? Blank out.

Once nature’s “behavior” is placed in the hands of a consciousness which is supposed to possess the power to “control whatsoever comes to pass,” anything can happen. Uniformity is a once-in-a-million chance. The fact that nature is uniform, only demonstrates that there is no rational basis to put any stock in the presuppositionalist’s “account for” the uniformity of nature which is clearly observed.

As one non-Christian succinctly put it:

I believe that there is consistency in the universe because there is no god that has the power to mess with it. (See The Contra-Pike Files, May 10, 2003)

Indeed, if there is no invisible magic being which has the ability to manipulate the objects populating the universe according to its will, the objects in the universe can be reasonably expected to behave in a manner consistent with their own natures. In this way, the uniformity of nature logically implies an alternative which is not theistic in nature.


The Objective Alternative

On the Objectivist view, the notion of the uniformity of nature seems to be unnecessarily redundant.

Peikoff explains what is meant by the concept ‘nature’ as follows:

What is nature? Nature is existence—the sum of that which is. It is usually called “nature” when we think of it as a system of interconnected, interacting entities governed by law. So “nature” really means the universe of entities acting and interacting in accordance with their identities. (The Philosophy of Objectivism, (1976) Lecture 2)

“Nature is existence,” says Peikoff. And he is right to say this. The uniformity of nature, then, is existence being itself. As Rand succinctly put it, “Existence is Identity” (Atlas Shrugged, Galt’s Speech). Nature is uniform with itself, since to exist is for something to be itself. If A exists, it must be A.

The uniformity of nature, then, is essentially the applicability of the axiom of existence to all of reality and the absolute (i.e., exceptionless) concurrence of identity with existence. Both of these aspects of the uniformity of nature are undeniable – that is, they cannot be denied without self-contradiction. Since reality is the realm of existence, the axiom of existence necessarily applies to all of reality. Since reality is the realm of existence, existence and identity are concurrent absolutely - i.e., without exception.

In this way we can confidently say that nature is inherently uniform (since existence exists, to exist is to be something, and nature, since it exists, is therefore itself), and that it is such independent of consciousness. Uniformity is not a property which consciousness injects into nature, nor is it the manner in which consciousness regulates nature since:

a) consciousness does not regulate nature (the primacy of existence is true), and

b) nature is self-regulating (per the law of identity).

Since nature is uniform independent of consciousness (the primacy of existence tells us this), nature is uniform independent of any particular being’s consciousness. This means that, if consciousness is to know that nature is uniform, it must discover this fact, not “create” or “cause” it. Uniformity is not a property which consciousness gives to nature, nor is it something consciousness causes in nature.

Moreover, since discovery is a process which begins with perception (i.e., with direct awareness of objects which exist), one must discover the fact that nature is uniform through experience. Man discovered, at least on an implicit level, that nature is uniform long before he wrote any storybooks or mused about what lies beyond the universe. Such activities presuppose the uniformity of nature. So we need not consult some storybook to learn, even on the level of implicit knowledge, that nature is uniform. This knowledge would be accessible to us, even if we had no access to any storybooks. Reading the bible, then, is no precondition for recognizing that nature is uniform with itself.

Notice that this conception of the uniformity of nature is immune to the charge of circular reasoning. For one, it is not an attempt to prove that nature is uniform as the conclusion to an argument. Also, this conception of the uniformity of nature does not make it dependent upon experience. Rather, it’s the other way around: experience depends on the uniformity of nature (since experience, as the actual relation between a subject and the objects of its awareness, exists and is therefore a part of nature, and thus has identity), since experience is processional over time. It is not an appeal to experience, but rather to the preconditions of experience as such.

Moreover, this conception of the uniformity of nature is impervious to the standard attacks, common among presuppositional apologists, which seek to defuse attempted justification of induction by assuming that future experience will be like (or will “resemble”) past experience by appealing to past experiences. For one, it is forthrightly acknowledged that this conception of the uniformity of nature does not tell the whole story behind induction. The uniformity of nature is merely one of several factors involved in induction. Also, the uniformity of nature is a precondition not only of experience (as we saw above) but also of concepts designating temporal categories (such as ‘past’ vs. ‘future’). The fact of existence is timeless, and consequently, so is identity.

Note that the Objectivist conception of the uniformity of nature is not an appeal to “experience,” but rather to the preconditions of any experience, namely those facts named explicitly by the axioms, facts without which no experience could be possible. Even to dispute the premise that nature is uniform, itself requires the uniformity of nature in order to make sense of the dispute in the first place.


Is the Uniformity of Nature a Matter of Faith?

As mentioned in the beginning of this blog, the uniformity of nature is not itself subject to proof, for proof presupposes the uniformity of nature. Attempts to prove the uniformity of nature would commit either the fallacy of begging the question (by assuming the truth of what is to be proven) or the fallacy of the stolen concept (by placing proof prior to its genetic roots). This of course does not mean that one must accept the uniformity of nature on faith. To suppose as much is to accept as false dichotomy: a claim can only be accepted on the basis of proof, or on the basis of faith. This is not the first time I’ve seen this bifurcation. In his review of John Robbins’ critique of Objectivism, philosopher Bryan Register encounters this same mistake and offers an eloquent correction:

Robbins asserts that reason always relies on faith: "Reason can never cease to be the handmaid of faith: All thought must start somewhere, and that initial postulate is unproved, by definition... . The only question that remains is, Which faith-which axiom-shall reason serve?" Since Objectivism is grounded on a set of axioms, which are by definition unprovable, Robbins concludes that Objectivism rests on an act of faith in those axioms. But this assumes that there are only two kinds of claims: those one proves and those which one takes on faith. In fact, as the Objectivist literature makes clear, there is a third type of claim: one which is valid because it formulates a fact that is directly perceived. Such are the most fundamental perceptual judgments and such are the axioms.

Uniformity, then, is not something we merely expect, as if we had no rational basis, but something we actually observe. However, it is typically when our expectations of certain outcomes are thwarted that we question the validity of those expectations. But the cause for questioning our expectations turns out not to be a cause for questioning the uniformity of nature, not simply because investigating why our expectations were thwarted uncovers factors which we were not aware of (and thus could not factor into our expectations), but also (and primarily) because existence holds metaphysical primacy. The recognition that factors which we did not know had an influence on what actually happened, only confirms the more fundamental recognition that nature is uniform independent of consciousness: those factors exist and had their influence on the given state of affairs, even though we were not aware of them. They had a causal impact on what occurred, and the very concept ‘cause’ presupposes the law of identity (since, as pointed out above, causality is the law of identity applied to action). So merely because our expectations did not pan out, is not an indictment on the uniformity of nature, nor on the objective understanding of the uniformity of nature.


Confusion in Presuppositionalism

Presuppositionalism essentially tells us that we cannot know that nature is uniform (even though we observe a uniform nature directly whenever we perceive it), but that we do and cannot fail to know a god which allegedly lies behind the question mark which our worldview allegedly produces when it comes to “accounting for” the uniformity of nature. On this view, I can observe the uniformity of nature firsthand, and cannot know that nature is uniform, while I cannot observe a supernatural deity, but allegedly cannot escape the knowledge that it surely exists. This reversal of reality creates a most hideous carnival out of man’s epistemology.

But the confusion does not stop there.

Upon examination, it is difficult to see how Knapp’s proposed solution to the problem of induction actually solves it. In fact, it is unclear exactly how appealing to the Christian god can serve as a serious proposal in the interest of “accounting for” or providing a “logical justification” of the uniformity of nature.

Knapp claims that the universe in which we live was created by a supernatural conscious being, and that this supernatural conscious being “maintains it as we find it to be” (The Portable Presuppositionalist, p. 132). Even if one believes this, it in no way indicates that the universe is being maintained in a uniform manner. It would only tell us that, however the universe behaves, it is controlled by a supernatural conscious being. When it is admitted that this same supernatural conscious being is capable of, and known for, performing miracles - events which often (and overtly) go against the standard understanding of uniformity in nature – it can only undermine this approach as a means of “accounting for” uniformity: it guarantees no uniformity whatsoever! On this view, any uniformity which happens to obtain, is a fluke. Indeed, it is for this very reason that, after all his promoting of Christian theism as the solution to the problem of induction, Knapp concedes that Christian theism does not hold that nature is “absolutely uniform” (p. 140).

To make matters even worse, the individual who “finds” the universe to be a certain way when he observes and interacts with it, is dealing with only a minuscule portion of the universe. On the Christian view, inferring that all of the universe is “maintained” in a uniform manner is a wild overgeneralization, an extravagant leap of faith which Christian theism itself does not afford any believer. If, for instance, the believer happens to find that the tiny part of the universe with which he is familiar behaves in a uniform manner, this in no way tells him that his god is maintaining the rest of the universe in a uniform manner, or that any hypothetical uniformity in other parts of the universe are uniform with the uniformity with which he is familiar in his particular location. Given the premise that everything is controlled by a supernatural being, it may be the case that in the believer’s part of the universe, balls uniformly roll over plane surfaces, while in another part of the universe balls uniformly turn into marching bands upon impact with plane surfaces. How would the believer in such a being know? Knapp gives no indication of how the epistemological feats needed here might proceed.

But in spite of the self-undermining factors inherent in Christian doctrine, as well as Knapp’s own damning admission, he still thinks that the Christian metaphysics of a universe-creating, reality-ruling consciousness address’s Hume’s philosophical conundrum, even though he points to additional weaknesses native to his worldview which undermine inductive reasoning even further. He writes:

As simple as this solution seems, it contains all the necessary elements to solve the problem. The areas in which mankind fall short are all “made up for” in God. Man does not have exhaustive knowledge of how the universe operates; God does. Man does not know whether the features of the universe will continue to be as they are at present; God does. Man can be mistaken in what he experiences and how he reasons from those experiences; God is never wrong. (“Induction and the Unbeliever,” The Portable Presuppositionalist, p. 134)

Contrary to what he intends, Knapp is simply giving us reasons why Christianity cannot give us any confidence in the presupposition that nature is uniform throughout the universe. He has in effect abandoned the problem of induction, which is ostensibly the topic of his essay, and moved on to a new problem, namely that of how one can know what a supernatural conscious being knows. It is of no epistemological value for man to list things that he does not know, and then point to a supernatural being which does have knowledge on these things. This does not tell man how he can know what he needs to know in order to live. It is epistemological self-deception to concede, on the one hand, that one does not know something, only to claim, on the other, that this ignorance is “made up for” by an imaginary friend which is said to know everything. When it comes to the uniformity of nature, Knapp demonstrates only that, on the Christian worldview, one could have no confidence that nature is uniform. Everything is “whatever God wills,” and unless the believer is identical to his god, he would have no way of knowing what his god wills from moment to moment.

Moreover, on the points which he mentions, Knapp does not even tell us what specifically his god supposedly knows about these matters. When Knapp states that “Man does not know whether the features of the universe will continue to be as they are in the present,” but figures that the assertion “God does” somehow makes up for this shortcoming, what exactly does his god know, and what good does that do for man in his inductive investigation of the universe if he cannot know it? Blank out. For all Knapp knows, his god could know that the universe will turn inside out in the next second. But since Knapp’s mind is not identical to his god’s mind, simply saying that his god knows something that he does not know, is of no use to him or to anyone else, particularly when it comes to answering Hume. On the contrary, Knapp’s attempted “solution” fully concedes that Christianity has no genuine solution, not only because he fails to question Hume’s own premises, but also because he fails, due to his allegiance to a subjective worldview, to adopt an objective approach to the matter in the first place. If Knapp proves anything, he proves that Christianity can only intensify the epistemological darkness which Hume’s skepticism brought to the world.


Conclusion

The presuppositionalist “account for” the uniformity of nature is a consummate dead end. It seeks to premise the uniformity of nature on the primacy of consciousness, which is a false metaphysics. Given this, it is incompatible with the objective account of the uniformity of nature, which recognizes that nature is uniform independent of conscious activity. Furthermore, the presuppositionalist analysis is insufficient to overcome the destructive implications which Christianity, with its doctrine of a supernatural being controlling the events of the universe, the doctrine of miracles, its blinding absence of a serious epistemology, etc., poses for the recognition that nature is uniform. By aligning the uniformity of nature with the Christian worldview, presuppositionalism essentially signs its own death warrant as a viable contender in providing an “account for” the one of the fundamental pillars of a scientific understanding of the universe.

by Dawson Bethrick