Answering Hutchinson's Critique of Objectivism

A Christian named John Hutchinson posted some comments to my blog Is Atheism Inherently Arrogant. In those comments, Hutchinson spelled out his criticisms of Objectivism. In this entry, I will answer those criticisms.

First, Hutchinson began with a compliment:

Dawson:

Despite the great extent to which I disagree with you, I must confess to appreciating the lucidity by which you present your case.

It is good to see these kind remarks. It is interesting to note however that while some acknowledge the lucidity of my writing, others seem to find my writing simply too difficult to engage. David Smart of Aristophrenium, for instance, seems to think that one would have to be a masochist to read my writings (as Smart suggests here). At any rate, it is good to see that at least some of my critics can allow themselves such dignity.

Hutchinson writes:

First, I suggest that in upholding Objectivism as the criteria by which all things are judged, you are engaging in just another form of Presuppositionalism. I quote from one your blogs:

"The primacy of existence is a fundamental precondition of proof."

Is this any different in kind from those who uphold the primacy of Scriptures as a fundamental precondition of understanding the cosmos?

It is profoundly different in so many ways, but I can see how one might think the two belong to the same species if he focuses only on superficial similarities. Presuppositionalism is an apologetic method which attempts to defeat non-presuppositionalists in debate by claiming that human knowledge, logic, induction, morality, science, etc. presuppose the Christian god. It is a very specific set of claims associating human cognitive faculties with something we can only imagine, namely the Christian god. It does not address the issue of metaphysical primacy directly (it couldn’t survive if it did), but instead keeps this concern safely out of view in order to advance a subjective agenda. The goal of presuppositionalism is two-fold: first, to reinforce the believer’s commitment to the devotional program of Christianity, and two, to silence Christianity’s critics. It has nothing to do with discovering the fundamental roots of knowledge, logic, induction, etc. These are simply opportunities for the inherently religious predation which drives the believer’s yearning to achieve these goals. In the case of the first goal, it does little more than tease its own practitioners; that’s why they’re continually trying to reinvent it. In the case of the latter goal, it’s clearly not done very well at all. If anything, quite the opposite is taking place.

By contrast, the primacy of existence describes the proper orientation between consciousness and its objects and consists of the affirmation that the objects of consciousness hold metaphysical primacy over the conscious activity by which one has awareness of those objects. Since knowledge, logic, induction, etc., all involve conscious activity, the question of the proper orientation between consciousness and its objects in these matters is ever-present and inescapable. Any time one formulates a thought about something, makes a statement, constructs and argument, draws a generalization, studies a phenomenon of nature, pursues his values, etc., he is making use of his conscious faculties and thereby engaged in a relationship between himself as a conscious subject and whatever object(s) he perceives and/or considers. There is no agenda here to convince oneself of some religious formulation that has been handed down through the centuries as the tradition of men, nor is its purpose to silence critics. Its purpose is to provide the basis for objective cognition by clearly identifying and understanding the fundamental roles between the two basic components of any cognitive activity, namely the subject of consciousness and its objects. The goal of the primacy of existence is not to bamboozle non-believers, or defend an arbitrary worldview, or encourage belief in what is only imaginary.

Hutchinson continued:

I don't have a problem with Presuppositionalism as A form of proof. My problem is when it is made THE only form of proof. (It is also badly grounded on a theological and Scriptural basis but that is neither here nor there.) As a form of proof, it is useful if it presents an internal coherence and a correspondence to reality. I.E. Does the Christian worldview demonstrate a coherent consistency with objective reality. Do those assertions in Scriptures, which can be measured, be validated? Or in your Objectivist faith, do your axioms stand up to objective reality and logic?

First of all, Objectivism is not a “faith.” It is a philosophy. Its fundamentals are not accepted on faith, and it does not require one to be willing to “die for” it, as a religious faith demands of its adherents. As Kreeft and Tacelli tell us, “Religious faith is something to die for” (Handbook of Christian Apologetics, p. 14). Objectivism represents a diametric opposite to this view: where the Christian believes he is obligated to serve his worldview, the Objectivist recognizes that his worldview is supposed to serve him.

Second, in response to the question of whether or not the Objectivist “axioms stand up to objective reality and logic,” I can only ask: how does one conceive of the concept of ‘objective reality’ without the axioms? The very concept ‘objective reality’ (itself a redundancy, albeit a necessary one in certain contexts), denotes the view that reality is what it is independent of conscious activity. The bible never speaks of something called “objective reality”; its authors appear to have been utterly ignorant of the idea, and the worldview which they accepted and endorsed in their writings about a universe-creating conscious being which “controls whatsoever comes to pass” (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 160) and to whose will everything else in reality supposedly conforms, only confirm their commitment to the primacy of consciousness metaphysics. Objective means in accordance with the primacy of the object in the subject-object relationship. It is the strict and comprehensive adherence to the fundamental, incontrovertible recognition of the fact that a thing is what it is independent of what one may think about it, feel about it, wish about it, etc.

In the case of logic, I have already explored the notion that logic somehow rests on the existence of the Christian god in my five-section study on the issue:

Does Logic Presuppose the Christian God? Part I: Examining the Presuppositionalist Viewpoint - In this entry, I examine the claim that logic presupposes the Christian god by reviewing the defenses for this view proposed by several presuppositionalist theorists. In that examination, I uncover many deficiencies, confusions and discrepancies in the presuppositionalist “case” for this view.

Does Logic Presuppose the Christian God? Part II: Reasons Why Logic Cannot Presuppose the Christian God, #1: Christianity’s Lack of Objectivity - In the remaining four entries, I identify reasons why logic cannot presuppose the Christian god or the Christian worldview. I begin by pointing out the facts that logic rests on the view that reality is objective while Christianity consists of a subjective version of metaphysics, which precludes objectivity both as an orientation grounding one’s worldview as well as a principle guiding one’s judgments.

Does Logic Presuppose the Christian God? Part III: Reasons Why Logic Cannot Presuppose the Christian God, #2: Christianity’s Lack of Concept Theory - In the second installment identifying reasons why logic cannot presuppose the Christian god or Christian worldview, I develop the case for logic being conceptual in nature, then point out the facts that Christianity lacks a theory of concepts and that presuppositionalism seeks to fill this void with what can rightly called a storybook understanding of logic. Without a theory of concepts, the Christian worldview can hardly “account for” logic, since logic is conceptual in nature.

Does Logic Presuppose the Christian God? Part IV: Reasons Why Logic Cannot Presuppose the Christian God, #3: Contradictions in Christ - In this entry, I point out the fact that the doctrine of the incarnation is inherently self-contradictory, and note the fact that logic (which is “the art of non-contradictory identification” – Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged) cannot be premised on a self-contradiction.

Does Logic Presuppose the Christian God? Part I: Reasons Why Logic Cannot Presuppose the Christian God, #4: The Trinity - In the final installment, I argue that the doctrine of the trinity is incoherent due to its inherently self-contradictory nature, and therefore that logic cannot presuppose the Christian god or the Christian worldview because “the art of non-contradictory identification” could not itself have a self-contradictory basis.

I’ve tried to share these profound deficiencies with the presuppositionalist system with many apologists, but none that I can find have attempted to deal with them, and yet they still go on to claim that Christianity is the only worldview which can “account for” logic. I can only conclude that they aren’t really concerned about “accounting for” logic and are chiefly concerned with sustaining their faith commitments as an end in itself.

Hutchinson stated:

I have several problems with your viewpoint

And then proceeded to ask the following question:

Are objects necessary for consciousness to exist?

He then quoted Ayn Rand:

"a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms" (Atlas Shrugged, Galt’s Speech)

Then he commented:

It makes consciousness not an entity unto itself but both entity and relationship between itself and its object.

It’s not clear what Hutchinson has in mind when he says “it makes consciousness… both entity and relationship…” What the “it” here is supposed to refer to remains unstated. Is it supposed to refer to the quote from Atlas Shrugged? If so, I do not see where this quote “makes consciousness… [an] entity” in the first place. Rand was very clear that consciousness is part of an entity – namely the organism which possesses it – not an entity as such. Consciousness is a type of biological activity like other forms of biological activities, such as digestion, respiration, circulation, etc. Yet one would not call any of these “entities,” would they? Why call consciousness an “entity”? What justifies this?

As to Hutchinson’s question, “are objects necessary for consciousness to exist?” I would of course say yes, since consciousness is consciousness of some thing. This does not mean that consciousness is “both entity and relationship between itself and its object,” but rather an attribute of a biological organism which is engaged in a relationship between itself and some object. The proper orientation of the relationship between the subject of consciousness and its objects is what the primacy of consciousness denotes.

Hutchinson states:

I would submit that just as existence can exist without consciousness, consciousness can exist with nothing to be conscious of, including itself. Consciousness can be immersed in a void, within and outside of itself. It would not be a contradiction in terms, but rather a living hell. Indeed, in US military experiments, 'volunteers' were experimented upon with sensory deprivation. Most exited displaying symptoms of temporary insanity. If that occurs with a mild case of deprivation of objects with which to dwell upon...

Experiments in sensory deprivation do not validate the notion of consciousness without anything to be conscious of. The subjects of such experiments had certainly been conscious of objects prior to those experiments by means of sensory perception, and they went into those experiments with fully developed memories, conceptual inventories and the ability to feel emotion, imagine. Thus even if their sensory faculties are diminished or debilitated, they still had something to be conscious of, namely their memories, thoughts, imaginations, emotions, etc. These are known as secondary objects, since they are consciousness’ way of responding to what has been perceived. So there’s no consciousness without something to be conscious of. If anything, the experiments demonstrate the need of the human mind for mind-independent objects to maintain cognitive stability. So rather than serving as a counter-example to the primacy of existence, or as evidence that consciousness can exist without something to be conscious of, such experiments only underscore what Objectivism has already understood.

Hutchinson raised another objection:

Another point of order is that you suggest that other philosophies / theologies suggest that consciousness creates existence or objective reality. Outside of existentialism, I don't know of any Western philosophy or Christian orthodoxy that asserts that. I don't think that Rand accuses those other worldviews of that.

It is not I who says that certain philosophies grant metaphysical primacy to consciousness, as if I were their spokesman. On the contrary, there are philosophies which do in fact affirm the primacy of consciousness, and I simply point it out. That Christianity numbers among such worldviews is incontestable. The Christian doctrine of creation is an obvious case in point, exhibiting precisely what Hutchinson denies: conscious activity producing existence. The entire universe, we are told, was “created” by the will of a supernatural consciousness. Observe what Cornelius Van Til tells us:

Creation, on Christian principles, must always mean fiat creation… If the creation doctrine is thus taken seriously, it follows that the various aspects of created reality must sustain such relations to one another as have been ordained between them by the Creator, as superiors, inferiors, or equals. (The Defense of the Faith, pp. 26-27).

Van Til goes on to explain that the orientation which the subject of consciousness known as “God” is supposed to enjoy between itself and the objects it has created does not end with merely creating them; it also controls them, personally directing their every move, and able to revise the particulars of its creation at will:

God may at any time take one fact and set it into a new relation to created law. That is, there is no inherent reason in the facts or laws themselves why this should not be done. It is this sort of conception of the relation of facts and laws, of the temporal one and many, embedded as it is in that idea of Go in which we profess to believe, that we need in order to make room for miracles. And miracles are at the heart of the Christian position. (The Defense of the Faith, p. 27)

So unless one does not grasp the basics of the issue of metaphysical primacy, I do not see how one can affirm that the Christian worldview does not assume the primacy of consciousness. If anyone has any trouble understanding it, I suggest they read the following entries on my blog:

Confessions of a Vantillian Subjectivist

The Inherent Subjectivism of God-belief

How Theism Violates the Primacy of Existence

Pay close attention to the Christian reaction in the comments.

As for what Rand said of other worldviews adopting the primacy of consciousness, we need look no further than the essay in which she introduces her theory of metaphysical primacy:

The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity. The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists – that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward. The rejection of these axioms represents a reversal: the primacy of consciousness – the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both). The epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward (either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another, superior consciousness).

The source of this reversal is the inability or unwillingness fully to grasp the difference between one’s inner state and the outer world, i.e., between the perceiver and the perceived (thus blending consciousness and existence into one indeterminate package deal). This crucial distinction is not given to man automatically; it has to be learned. It is implicit in any awareness, but it has to be grasped conceptually and held as an absolute…. Very few men ever choose to grasp it and fully to accept it. The majority keep swinging from side to side, implicitly recognizing the primacy of existence in some cases and denying it in others, adopting a kind of hit-or-miss, rule-of-thumb epistemological agnosticism, through ignorance and/or by intention – the result of which is the shrinking of their intellectual range, i.e., of their capacity to deal with abstractions. And although few people today believe that the singing of mystic incantations will bring rain, most people still regard as valid an argument such as “If there is no God, who created the universe?” (“The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, pp. 24-25)

So Rand was pretty clear: the primacy of existence is “is implicit in any awareness,” but that “it has to be learned” since it “is not given to man automatically.” Rand explicitly states that it must be “grasped conceptually and held as an absolute,” i.e., it must be identified in conceptual form (not just a “hunch” or some vague belief), and applied without exception throughout one’s cognition.

She also observed that “the majority [of human individuals] keep swinging from side to side,” sometimes acting on the primacy of existence, sometimes retreating to the false security of the primacy of consciousness (e.g., “it makes me feel better to ignore the pain in my chest!”). Finally, she points to theism as the ultimate expression of the primacy of consciousness, and she is right to do so.

Hutchinson continued:

My understanding is that most believe that flawed perception skews the comprehension of 'the object as is'. The person who is colour blind, (cannot see green and red), cannot perceive the object as is.

I have no idea what a “flawed perception” could be. Perception is a causal, non-volitional activity performed by a biological organism. A perception cannot be flawed any more than digestion could be flawed. An organism may suffer from indigestion, but this would not be an example of a “flaw,” as if a mistake were made. If I ingested two pounds of Thai chilies and spent the next day glued to my toilet seat as a result of it, this would not be due to my stomach and intestines making some kind of mistake. They would be reacting to the contents that they need to deal with. Similarly with perception: there’s no such thing as a “flawed perception.” We perceive according to the physical particulars of the organs we possess. Our organs do not “make mistakes,” as if I perceived a tomato when in fact I’m looking at a steamship. Mistakes are only possible where there’s choice involved, and this means that only in the realm of identifying what we perceive can we make mistakes. We can misjudge the height of a curb, for instance, and slip and fall as a result, but this is not because of a mistake made by our perceptual awareness, but rather in how we identified what we perceived.

Similarly in the case of someone who is colorblind. He sees an object precisely as his faculties can, given their nature. Joseph Rowlands speaks directly to this issue:

Imagine you're color blind. So you only see things in black and white. Now, are your senses flawed? Are you seeing the world incorrectly? The answer is no. The causal chain is still there, although it works different for you. You are still connected to reality. You may not have easy access to some data, but that's not a flaw. That's how everything is. Because there's a means of gaining knowledge, it is necessarily limited. There's nothing wrong there. Just as real people don't have x-ray vision but they still view the world fine, a color blind person is fine too. (Sense Perception)

Colorblindness is not a “flaw” in one’s perceptual abilities, any more than nearsightedness is. They may not be considered optimal, but it would occasion the fallacy of the stolen concept to argue that these are “flaws.” A colorblind person’s faculties are still operating according to their nature; he is still perceiving the object as his faculties allow him to perceive them. The “flaws” only come once we start making judgments about what we perceive, whether implicit (such as judging the height of a stair step) or explicit (such as making a statement about something). For further reading on the nature of perception, I strongly recommend David Kelley’s The Evidence of the Senses.

Hutchinson writes:

As all persons have internal biases and flawed structures by which they decode the cosmos, these act as similar filters from seeing 'things as are'. (Christianity's version is of the 'plank in the eye')

For one, I don’t think the cosmos is a “code” which needs to be “decoded.” The cosmos, or universe, simply exists. It is not a set of symbols referring to something beyond it. The systems of symbols which human create are intended to record their identifications of what exists in the universe. That’s the task which language fulfills:

Language is a code of visual-auditory symbols that serves the psycho-epistemological function of converting concepts into the mental equivalent of concretes. Language is the exclusive domain and tool of concepts. Every word we use (with the exception of proper names) is a symbol that denotes a concept, i.e., that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a certain kind. (Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, p. 11).

Second, I would be interested in seeing an argument for the claim that “all persons have… flawed structures by which they” perform any cognitive activity (including “decoding” the universe). Such a generality naturally includes the person affirming it, which only implicates the view itself. I’d say this needs to be “rethunk” a bit.

As for “Christianity’s ‘plank in the eye’,” I’m supposing this refers to Matthew 7:3, in which the following words are attributed to Jesus:

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

While Hutchinson may be correct that this refers to “filters” through which one tries to “decode the cosmos,” my understanding of this verse is that it refers to an expression of hypocrisy and a failure to examine oneself sufficiently. I don’t think these are the same thing as what Hutchinson is driving at. Then again, I do not style myself as a spokesman for the supernatural, so maybe I’m completely off here.

Hutchinson writes:

I think Rand rages at this idea that things cannot be perceived as they are. But I have yet to have found where she states that Western thought believes objects are projections of one subjectivity.

Rand understood the distinction between perceiving an object, which is automatic and non-volitional, and identifying it by means of concepts, which is a volitional process. The objects which we perceive “as they are” are perceived by processes which are “as they are.” The objects do not change because of the nature of our perceptual faculties, nor are we necessarily “biased” or “theory-laden” simply because we are colorblind or nearsighted. A good analogy that I once heard from Harry Binswanger involves traveling to New York City. The argument that we do not perceive objects “as they are” is akin to saying that we do not enter New York City “as it really is” if we enter it by Interstate 95 from New Jersey as opposed to the Southern State Parkway from Long Island. Regardless of how you enter the metropolis that is New York City, you are still entering New York City as it really is. It’s not something other than New York City as it really is simply because you entered it by means of a specific route.

Rand pointed out that the mistake which this view commits is essentially what Kant believed. Writes Rand:

[Kant’s] argument, in essence, ran as follows: man is limited to a consciousness of a specific nature, which perceives by specific means and no others, therefore, his consciousness is not valid; man is blind, because he has eyes—deaf, because he has ears—deluded, because he has a mind—and the things he perceives do not exist, because he perceives them. (“For the New Intellectual,” For the New Intellectual, p. 30)

Proposing a similar objection, one Objectivist asked the following:

why do you imply that perrceptions [sic] have to be the same for all people in order for them to be a base for objective individual knowledge? Each person makes the implicit judgement "this is how this object looks under these circumstances to me." I may be colorblind or I may be wearing rose colored glasses or be looking at an object passing thru a refractive surface such as a stick passing thru the surface of a lake. That is how those things look to me under those circumstances.(What does it mean to perceive Objectively?)

The bottom line is that the senses are causal, and thus so is perception, since perception is an automatic, non-volitional process performed by the nervous system of a biological organism.

Also, as we saw above, she did characterize the primacy of consciousness as “the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both).” Western thought is a mixed bag; we have little if any basis to ascribe any fundamental uniformity to it. If a person has not learned to grasp the primacy of existence explicitly and fully, he is like a ship at sea with no rudder or compass, meandering about in a “hit-or-miss” fashion, as Rand puts it, sometimes acting on the primacy of existence, at other times assuming the primacy of consciousness, and never recognizing the difference between them. If there were ever a contest between worldviews on concealing the distinction between the primacy of existence and the primacy of consciousness from its adherents, Christianity would take the cake.

Hutchinson went on:

But the largest problem I have, is with your Objectivist presumption of the Primacy of Existence. And by that presupposition, you presume to disprove the Christian God because the Scriptures 'affirms the existence of a consciousness on which existence depends.'

As I pointed out above (see specifically the blogs to which I linked), the fact that Christianity assumes the validity of the primacy of consciousness is incontestable. To deny the fact that Christianity does rest on the primacy of consciousness, is to deny the authoritative sovereignty of the Christian god.

Hutchinson then wrote:

My question to you is that when you write and project a thought, actually codifying this entity with your keyboard upon electronic media somewhere on the Net; at the point at which you create and communicate it, is not the object that you create a projection of your consciousness? If that is true, does that mean that you do not exist?

Hutchinson’s question reminds me very much of a claim made by presuppositionalist Paul Manata, who wrote:

There are some respects which reality is the product of human consciousness. For example, Dawson’s mind causes blog posts to appear in the world. (Bethrick Burner)

My response to Manata should suffice to answer Hutchinson’s question:

My consciousness does not cause blog posts to appear in the world. My physical actions do. Without a functioning computer hooked up to the internet and without my fingers busily typing away and pointing and clicking hyperlinks, etc., I would not be able to post even one word on my blog. My mind does not put the blog on the internet, my actions, along with the electronic mechanics of my computer and www.blogger.com, do.

Just last week I was editing a post on blogger.com when a storm outside caused the power to fail temporarily. I lost the edits that I had been making. My wishing was not sufficient to prevent this, nor was my wishing able to restore those edits once the power came back on. If my consciousness causes posts to appear in the world, my wishing should have been sufficient to do all this. But reality does not conform to consciousness. On the contrary, to get the job done, I had to start over, physically going through each paragraph again to review what was written and make any edits that needed to be made. (Theism and Subjective Metaphysics)

If my blogs were merely a projection created by my consciousness, why would I need a computer to write and upload my writings? It is precisely because I do not have the ability to “project” my thoughts onto the internet that I must work with the hardware and software which allow me to do this. In other words, it is entirely because existence holds metaphysical primacy that I must obey the natures of the entities involved in order to accomplish the tasks I’ve set before myself, if I want to accomplish them. As Bacon succinctly put it, “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” My consciousness does not have the ability to supersede nature. If Hutchinson can unmistakenly identify an instance where this really happens, I’d like to see it. Perhaps he could wish a hundred million dollars into the bank account of my choosing, and then I could devote my life full time to writing blog entries, without ever having to work a job again. Hey, Matthew 21:22 says “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." I’m guessing that Hutchinson believes. So why doesn’t he ask for such an outcome? If “the Scriptures” in fact hold metaphysical primacy, as he claims, then the next time I check my account, I should see quite a bounty! But something tells me that this won’t be happening. That something, is the primacy of existence.

Hutchinson sought to anticipate my counter-objection, writing:

Now, you might argue that a thought is not a real object or entity. But then I would ask, "Why do you engage in imaginary entities when you spurn the theists for engaging in theirs?" Indeed, the materialist would suggest that there are chemical messages that constitute the physiological components of that thought. You might suggest that you are merely manipulating objects by typing them on an electronic page. But the thought itself is independent of the manner by which you codify it and the tableau on which you inscribe it.

For one, Objectivism is not materialism. It is amazing how often theists equate the two. So whatever “the materialist would suggest” should not be taken for granted as representing the Objectivist position on the matter in question.

Also, since Objectivism explicitly affirms the axiom of consciousness, and consciousness has a nature (including the conceptual activity of human consciousness), there is no reason to suppose that thoughts cannot be real objects of awareness. Part of the confusion here may be due to a lack of understanding as to what the concept ‘object’ means in the present context. An object in the present context is anything which one perceives and/or considers. It can be a primary object, such as something one directly perceives (a tree, a ball, a mountain, a skyscraper, a computer screen, etc.), or a secondary object – one which is assembled by the mind on the ultimate basis of perceptual input (such as thought, a feeling, a concept, an argument, a thesis, etc.). Thoughts can be objects, just as they are at many points in this paper (such as at the present moment!). But thoughts are not entities in the sense of mind-independent entities, like trees, mountains, automobiles, biological organisms, staplers, and the such. To treat them as entities within the confines of a certain context (namely one defined by the primacy of existence), is harmless. But failure to grasp the distinction between a thought and the things it denotes, can lead to major confusions and unnecessary mistakes in philosophy.

And it may very well be the case that “the thought itself is independent of the manner by which [I] codify it and the tableau on which [I] inscribe it,” but this does not validate the notion that my blog articles are a “projection” of my consciousness on the internet in the sense being debated. Indeed, I had the thought before I went through the physical motions of typing the symbols which record that thought in visual form. That’s not a counter-example to the primacy of existence; indeed, it is due to the fact that existence holds metaphysical primacy.

Hutchinson went on to say:

It could be argued that any creation that a man creates is a projection of their consciousness at the point of your creating it. It would seem that the logic of the Primacy of Existence denies any form of creation, including that belonging to mankind.

The primacy of existence does not “deny any form of creation,” if by creation one means assembling pre-existing materials into a desired formation, such as when construction workers build a house. In such an endeavor, the workers take materials which exist, and put them into new relationships to each other – such as one board nailed to another board, and then to another, and so on, then being anchored to a concrete foundation, then fastening drywall, setting a roof, installing windows and doors, etc. Gee, makes it sound so easy, doesn’t it? Actually it’s not so easy. It’s a very laborious process. Why? Because existence holds metaphysical primacy. Man does not simply think “house” and the house of his dreams appears before him. He does not “create” a house as the god of the Christian religion is said to have created the universe. It is not the case that man can simply “project” his will onto his environment, and his environment snaps into the desired shape. Why? Because consciousness does not hold metaphysical primacy.

Finally, Hutchinson closed with the following remark:

If my reasoning is sound, it would seem to destroy your disproof of God and challenge the presumption of the absolutist maxim of the Primacy of Existence. (I am, by no means, suggesting that this proves God's existence.)

It should be clear from the foregoing, that Hutchinson’s objections are far from sound, but in fact suffer from some rudimentary misunderstandings about the issues to which they pertain. Indeed, it seems that with each statement Hutchinson has made, a correction is needed. Thus if Hutchinson has set out to challenge my criticisms of the Christian religion, I submit that he should give the relevant issues some deeper thought.

by Dawson Bethrick

Is Atheism Inherently Arrogant?

Many theists seem to obsess over what they consider to be “atheist arrogance.” The fact that someone dares not to believe in their god apparently really gnaws at them. The very thought that somewhere someone has declared intellectual independence and has cleansed his mind of supernatural superstition, must be very unsettling to those who resent others for having a mind in the first place. The potential that such a thought represents an accurate assessment of reality, vies against the inherently theistic view that man is a mere puppet of some supernatural coordinator.

Many theists charge atheists with arrogance. This is a habit I’ve seen among theists for as long as I can remember. The accusation of arrogance is usually put out there as if it were self-evidently true, and all anyone needs is for someone to point it out, and every by-stander will automatically “see the light” and recognize its unassailable truth.

I must be at a disadvantage, for even though I have been called arrogant many times for simply being an atheist, it was never quite clear to me why someone would sincerely think that I am arrogant simply because I didn’t believe another person’s claims. Indeed, it seems quite the reverse is the case: I’m being told that my non-belief is an offense to something which the believer can only imagine, and that I should “repent” of the “sin of unbelief” and submit myself in fear to what is nothing more than a fantasy, just as the believer has chosen to do. Meanwhile, I’m “arrogant” for simply being honest and recognizing that I don’t believe the theist’s claims because I know that they are not true.

But apparently my grasp of the situation is off a bit. Thanks to David Smart of the Aristophrenium blog, my misunderstandings on this matter have been corrected. (David Smart posts on his blog under the name “Ryft Braeloch” and elsewhere as “Arcanus” – not to be confused with Arch-Anus I’m sure.) In a recent post of his, Smart explains the problem once and for all. Apparently it is arrogant for an atheist

to presuppose the truth of his system of thought and expect the Christian to work within the framework of that system.

The alleged arrogance of such a presupposition is

evidenced quite sharply by the response of the Atheist when the Christian opens the Bible to support their claims. Rather immediately the Bible is denounced as any sort of acceptable method of supporting claims, precisely because it fails to satisfy the Atheist’s presupposed criteria.

Smart explains that

This criticism applies only to those Atheist responses which deny for the Christian the very principle the Atheist allows for himself. Such a response is a one-way street that exhibits an arrogance that cannot be defended except by fallacy.

So apparently this criticism does not apply to Christian responses which do essentially the same thing (such as those which require the atheist to take the bible seriously as intellectual support for the theist’s god-belief claims). It’s not as if Christians presuppose the truth of their system and expect non-Christians to work within the framework of that system (such as when we’re told that we’re “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” when we question the believer’s god-belief claims). Or do they?

The controversy which concerns Smart involved an exchange between himself and atheist Austin Cline. In that exchange Cline posed the following challenge to Smart:

Why don’t you point to someone actually doing that [shoving their beliefs down my throat] before whining that this is your “true” argument.

In response to this, Smart stated:

When an Atheist presupposes the truth of his system of thought and expects the Christian to work within the framework of that system, but denies for the Christian the inverse thereof because the only presuppositions the Atheist permits in the field of debate are his own, he is precisely shoving his beliefs down my throat.

One of the fundamental truths of my system of thought is that there is a fundamental distinction between what is real and what is imaginary. And it’s true, and I freely admit it: I do expect other adults to grasp this fundamental distinction and apply it in their thinking as well.

Perhaps Smart thinks I would be “shoving” this “belief” down his throat if I expected him to abide by this distinction “in the field of debate.” But why? Theists observe the fundamental distinction between what is real and what they imagine in so many areas of their lives, such as when they get out of bed in the morning, consume breakfast cereal, dress themselves, drive their vehicles to work (if they work), tally their monthly bills, balance their bank accounts, walk across their yard, etc.

Why would they object to observing this fundamental distinction “in the field of debate”?

The “inverse” of this principle is that there is no fundamental distinction between what is real and what is imaginary. But on this premise, whatever one imagines could be real. So what’s behind Smart’s gripe? If allowing the distinction between reality and imagination to be blurred is the preferred ideal, the atheist may simply be imagining that the theist’s god is not real. In so doing, the atheist is adopting the essentials of the theist’s worldview (as we’ll see below), but I suspect that the theist will find some way to object to this outcome.

Smart’s complaint suggests that the concern underlying his charge of arrogance against the atheist is that reluctance to allow the Christian to “work within the framework of [his] system” impedes debate. But I’m not persuaded that debate is what Christians really want. I know this because of the persistent futility of trying to engage Christians in debate. Where are the disputers of my worldview? The silence is indeed deafening. And it’s not because I’ve been absent from the conversation.

I suspect that the real agenda behind the charge of arrogance is much simpler: it is to smear and discredit non-believers and reinforce believers’ commitment to the religious prism through which their worldview requires them to view human nature and interpersonal relationships.

Smart explains his problem with what he considers “arrogance” on the part of atheists in an earlier post:

the Christian is expected to provide arguments in defense of Christian theism which accord with the atheist’s epistemology in particular and world view in general.

We should be able to recognize the cause of this resentment, for if the atheist in question has adopted a worldview which coheres with the fact that there is a fundamental distinction between the real and the imaginary, the theist will never be able to keep up with him. As I have already shown (see here), there are many good reasons to suppose that the god of the theist’s worship is in fact imaginary, not real. The fact that the theist cannot produce arguments which both consciously observe the fundamental distinction between the real and the imaginary, and prove the existence of his god at the same time, is not the atheist’s problem. Nor is it sufficient grounds for charging the atheist with arrogance.

This analysis is certainly compatible with what Smart states next:

This is implicitly demonstrated in challenges such as, "Provide evidence that God exists." The relevance of evidence, and even what constitutes evidence, are defined by his system of thought.

Again, speaking for myself, any evidence worthy of consideration for any proposition would have to take into account the fact that there is a fundamental distinction between what is real and what is imaginary. Evidence that is merely imaginary in nature is of course worthless, and proposed “evidence” which cannot be reliably distinguished from what is merely imaginary is at the very least subject to question. If the theist objects to such principles, then he’s not only telling us about himself, but also about the intellectual solvency of his god-belief.

Smart proposes that

if it is permissible for the atheist to presuppose the truth of his system of thought and expect the Christian to work within the framework of that system, then it is also permissible for the inverse of that situation.

It is clear that the Christian system rejects the primacy of existence. If there’s any question on this, notice how Christian apologists continually seek for ways to obviate the primacy of existence and validate the primacy of consciousness (see for instance here and here). Christians also openly affirm the primacy of consciousness roots of their worldview (see for instance here).

So if a non-Christian adopts the underlying metaphysical assumptions of the Christian worldview, as Smart would prefer that he do, then he cannot be faulted for the varieties of conclusions he might draw when applying the primacy of consciousness while trying “to work within the framework of that system.” He may, for instance, adopt the view that the universe is the product of conscious activity, and identify the author of that conscious activity as something other than the Christian god. Instead of imagining the conscious agent which created the universe as trinitarian, he may think of it as infinitarian in nature, as some theistic animists have conceived of their own deity. Where the Christian imagines his god as a “father” who chose to give up his son to vicious persecutors, the atheist trying on the theist’s shoes may conceive of his ruling consciousness as being eternally sonless. And instead of imagining that human beings are inherently in need of “salvation” because of a botched creation, the atheist who adopts the metaphysical basics of the theist’s worldview “for argument’s sake,” may draw the conclusion that the logical outcome of the creative process of a perfect creator is a perfect creation (see for instance here), and that human beings are therefore exactly what the creating consciousness had planned them to be, and that the notion of “salvation” misses the point entirely. That’s just the problem once one grants validity to the primacy of consciousness: he could imagine any scenario, and on the premise of the primacy of consciousness accept it as “true.”

So if Smart had his way, it may not work to his worldview’s advantage after all.

Smart insists that if the atheist holds the theist accountable to his own (non-theistic) presuppositions, then

the atheist would shoulder the epistemic responsibility for explaining why the only presuppositions permitted in the field of debate are his own—and I would not anticipate a rational argument for that.

The chiefest of “presuppositions” guiding my principled thought as an atheist is the primacy of existence, the view that

a) there is a fundamental relationship between consciousness and its objects, and

b) that the objects of consciousness are what they are independent of the conscious activity by which one perceives and/or considers them.

This two-fold recognition is axiomatic in nature; it is not the conclusion of any proof because any proof presupposes that there is some relationship between consciousness and its objects and that the objects of consciousness do not conform to conscious intentions (e.g., one is not epistemologically permitted to say that something is true simply because he believes it, wants it to be true, would feel better if it were true, dislikes all alternatives if it is false, etc.). Stemming from this two-fold recognition is the immediate understanding that there is a fundamental distinction between reality and imagination.

Smart tells us that

the arrogance of atheism is proven by atheists who "presuppose the truth of their system of belief and then tacitly insist their Christian opponent work within the framework of that system" while prohibiting by fiat any competing epistemic structure in the field of debate.

It seems that Smart requires atheists to adopt “neutrality” toward their own worldview presuppositions, or risk the charge of arrogance if they don’t. The atheist is implicitly required to adopt the theist’s standards (“presuppositions”) when evaluating the latter’s “evidences” for his god-belief claims, and if he doesn’t do this, he’s therefore condemned as “arrogant.” As far as curses go, that’s not much of a burden to live with.

As for allowing “any competing epistemic structure in the field of debate,” the only one I can think of is one which allows a thinker to confuse his imagination with reality, and no theist has persuaded me that this is ever rationally appropriate.

If I may make a few observations, let me state the following. I’ve often suspected that the real cause behind a theist’s choice to accuse an atheist of arrogance stems from a deep-seated resentment of the atheist’s certainty, whether the atheist really is certain or the theist simply imagines that he is. The atheist should bear in mind the fact that he is essentially a spoilsport for the theist, and that his mere existence as an atheist serves as a constant reminder to believers that not everyone on “God’s green earth” has obsequiously surrendered his mind to a frightening concoction of the imagination, and this spawns a sense of private envy in the mind of the believer: he wishes that he had the spiritual courage that it takes to distinguish between the real and the imaginary on a consistent basis and stand up to the arbitrary claims of religion, just as many non-believers do. But he lacks such courage and thus resents those who do.

As confirmation of this analysis, notice how often theists insist that there really are no atheists, that atheism is an impossible alternative to theism, and that, if anything, agnosticism is the rightful category of self-professing atheists. Many have misconstrued agnosticism as essentially equivalent to non-belief. But this is mistaken. Agnosticism is the view that certainty on a given matter is unachievable. It does not have to be in the context of theism, but in the context of theism agnosticism would be the view that no one can be sure whether or not a god exists. An agnostic can be a theist just as he could be an atheist; he could believe that there is a god, or he could disbelieve that there is a god. The agnostic is one who takes issue with a position of certainty on the matter. Such persons tend to be more inclined to succumbing to Pascal’s Wager than to acknowledging the imaginative nature of god-belief. Also, theists who have come to realize that their apologetic arguments intending to prove the existence of their god are faulty and consequently unpersuasive, are more inclined to object to an atheist’s certainty and insist that he’s really an agnostic on the subject.

Note also that the atheist is not someone who claims to have been “chosen” to be included in some group or another by an invisible magic being. A genuine atheist does not presume to be the recipient of favor distributed among men by some supernatural source; he typically understands that he needs to rely on his own wits in life, and seeks to develop them for that very purpose. Thus he values his own wits, and acts to protect them from subterfuge and deceit. Perhaps this is what the theist has in mind when he calls the atheist “arrogant.” The atheist is typically not the one who seeks to pass himself off as numbering among “the chosen” and preferring to characterize everyone else as numbering among “the damned.” Christianity, for instance, holds that there is no greater prize than “God’s grace,” and Christian believers style themselves as recipients of this prize and everyone else as lacking it. Given this aspect of god-belief, the charge of arrogance seems entirely misdirected when leveled against the atheist.

Since arrogance is a form of the unearned, the accusation of arrogance is the charge that one is claiming knowledge which he has not earned. But is the atheist really claiming such knowledge? Theists typically like to characterize atheism as the claim that there are no gods at all, a claim to knowledge which no man could, presumably, have “epistemic rights” (while a claim to knowledge of the supernatural is accepted uncritically and without anything approaching a rigorous epistemological account). Would the theist likewise say that the atheist is being arrogant when he says that there are no square circles? On the theist’s premises, it seems that one is in fact being arrogant when he denies the existence of square circles. For how could he know that there are no square circles residing somewhere in reality? What “epistemic rights” does anyone have to say that there are no square circles? Does the theist hold that there might possibly be square circles in existence somewhere? If not, isn’t he guilty of the same “arrogance” that he charges against the atheist?

Let me be very clear here. I for one would not accept the theist’s god-belief claims if he could not substantiate them without first demonstrating that the god he claims exists can be reliably distinguished from what may merely be imaginary. It’s unclear how someone who is concerned about the preservation of the rationality of one’s beliefs could have any objection to such a standard. At the same time, it does not suffice for the theist to simply insist that his god is real and not imaginary, for in doing so he is acknowledging the fact that there is indeed a fundamental distinction between what is real and what is imaginary. But in insisting that his god is real and not imaginary, is the theist demonstrating that his god can be reliably distinguished from what he may merely be imagining? Clearly not. I would say that the theist has a very tall order to fill, and I’d also say that I’ve not encountered one theist who’s been able to meet it (and I’ve encountered many theists throughout my lifetime). And if the theist cannot meet this minimal standard, as rationally intact as it is, am I really being “arrogant” for disbelieving his god-belief claims? To borrow an expression attributed to Jesus, “I trow not.”

I certainly do not mean to “shove” my beliefs down David Smart’s throat. But if Smart is an adult, I would expect that he at least grasp the distinction between what is real and what he imagines. If he doesn’t, then what value could any worldview which he professes possibly have? That is something he must answer, for beyond mere entertainment, I do not see what value the theistic imagination could possibly have.

by Dawson Bethrick

TAG: Precariously Straddling the Horns of a Nasty Dilemma

Cross-posted at Choosing Hats with some minor edits:

The two examples of TAG which Chris Bolt has presented (see Bolt’s 17 May comment to this blog) are the following:

Argument A:

Premise 1A: “If knowledge then God”
Premise 2A: “knowledge”
Conclusion A: “therefore God”

Argument B:

Premise 1B: “Logic”
Premise 2B: “If not-Christianity then not-Logic”
Conclusion B: “therefore Christianity”

Chris stated that neither of these arguments appears to be circular, so far as he can see.

In my 18 May comment to this blog of Bolt’s (see also here), I gave reasons – reasons gleaned from relevant literature sympathetic to presuppositionalism – for suspecting that the circularity of the TAG argument is hidden from view, particularly when the focus is trained exclusively on the bare models which Chris has presented. The models which Chris has presented are carefully constructed to keep their inherent circularity (and other problems) safely out of view.

That is why I raised the issue of soundness versus validity of an argument as well as questions about how Premise 1A and Premise 2B are supported. To accept the conclusion of either argument, both premises of either argument must be demonstrably true.

So far as I have seen throughout this discussion, Chris has made no attempt to demonstrate the truth of his argument’s premises.

I suspect, strongly I might add, that as we examine the individual cases for the controversial premises of these arguments (namely Premise 1A and Premise 2B above), that circular logic will be uncovered. It is for this reason that I think Chris resists presenting support for the premises of his two argument models. I suspect this is the reason why he also resists interacting with my comments. If I’m wrong on this, it’s up to Chris to show us that I’m wrong and where I’m wrong.

It is in the interest of settling once and for all the question of whether or not TAG is *ultimately* circular that I asked Chris to state for the record whether or not he thinks knowledge and logic presuppose the existence of the Christian god.

It seems that the only alternatives here are

i) yes, knowledge and logic do presuppose the existence of the Christian god, and

ii) no, knowledge and logic do not presuppose the existence of the Christian god.

Since Chris is a student of Van Til and Bahnsen, I would think that he would insist that both knowledge and logic are not presuppositionally neutral phenomena, that they are underwritten by certain presuppositions, and that those presuppositions honor the grace and sovereignty which Christianity attributes to its god.

Neither alternative seems to bode well for the presuppositionalist position. Consider:

If on the one hand knowledge and logic presuppose the existence of the Christian god, then Premise 1A and Premise 2B contain elements which assume the truth of their respective Conclusions A and B (the existence of the Christian god, or the truth of Christian theism, which assumes the existence of the Christian god), and thus the two models of TAG which Chris has presented are by definition circular.

If on the other hand knowledge and logic turn out not to presuppose the existence of the Christian god, then knowledge and logic are at best presuppositionally neutral, perhaps even anti-theistic (as I have argued on my website - see for example here and here). Since presuppositionalism insists that neutrality is a form of self-deception, I’m guessing that Chris would not affirm this horn of the dilemma. But then he’s faced with affirming the ultimate circularity of TAG.

It is because of this dilemma, and Van Til’s adamant rejection of presuppositional neutrality, that the apologetic master rejected the latter alternative and stated explicitly that he would “prefer to reason in a circle to not reasoning at all” (A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 12).

So, Chris, how do you untangle this mess?

I’m glad these aren’t my problems.

by Dawson Bethrick

My Suppressed Comment Regarding TAG on Choosing Hats

In the wee hours of 18 May, I submitted a comment to one of Chris Bolt's blogs over on Choosing Hats. The comment which I submitted was the last in a series of entries I had made in a discussion I was having with Chris Bolt over how to untangle his confusion about two common objections against TAG. My comment was relevant to the post's topic, cordial, free of abusive and offensive language, well within standard commenting protocols, and yet Chris Bolt has so far not approved it. It remains in a never-ending orbit of "awaiting moderation," which has to date taken the form of complete supppression.

Meanwhile, Bolt is continuing the discussion with another commenter who has not been allowed to see my comment.

I have not been given any explanation why my comment has not earned Chris Bolt's approval, or why he has not allowed it to post publicly like all my previous comments. At any rate, since I still have my comment in my files, I will post it here for my readers to enjoy. In it I spell out a few of my reasons why I reject TAG - the "transcendental argument for the existence of God." So without further ado, here is my comment as it was originally submitted:

*   *   *

Chris wrote: “I’ve seen a significant number of people state TAG and do not know that they have a hard time stating it.”

That’s good. Perhaps you could introduce me. I’ve not found very many who have a) stated TAG in its fullness and b) have been willing to discuss my concerns with it. I have, however, run into a huge number of internet apologists who have no problem stating the conclusion of TAG, but have a very difficult time explaining how it is supposed to follow from any premises which are offered in support of it. Quite frankly, I often get the impression that apologists think I’m dysfunctional in some sense for not simply accepting the conclusion on their say so.

Certainly you know that a sound argument is a valid argument with true premises. The models you cited are clearly valid, but to be accepted as sound arguments, one would need to establish the truth of their premises. Of course, the controversial premise in the argument “If knowledge, then God/Knowledge/Therefore God” is the first premise. To show that the argument is sound, you would have to produce an argument defending the first premise, for its truth is certainly not self-evident, and an inability to defend it would render the whole argument dismissable.

So what would be the argument for the first premise? Or should I ask: is there one? And here’s the clincher: would any argument proposed in support of the premise “if knowledge, therefore God,” presuppose the truth of the conclusion of the argument which this premise is used in the argument to support?

One reason why I would reject TAG right off the bat is the fact that it takes the notion of “a priori knowledge” seriously (see for instance Butler, “The Transcendental Argument for God,” The Standard Bearer, p. 91). I’m persuaded that there is no such thing.

Also, the point which Collett brings to light about the basic model of TAG is that the conclusion seems to have no clear inferential relationship to the premises, since it is said to follow whether or not the minor premise is affirmed or denied. Given this, it appears to be an assertion that there exists some fundamental relationship between some principle or idea and the Christian god, dressed up in the form of an argument without any actual inferential connection between the two. Collett says as much when he write:

the truth value of the conclusion is not a function of the truth value of the antecedent minor premise (i.e., premise 2), since the conclusion remains true whether C or ~C obtains… In the nature of the case, the truth of a ‘transcendental conclusion’ does not depend upon the truth value of its antecedent premise, regardless of whether this premise affirms causality or any other principle. (“Van Til and Transcendental Argument,” Reason and Revelation, pp. 270-271).

Collett says this is the case because “a transcendental conclusion constitutes the very ground for the proof of that premise” (Ibid.).

Thus if the “transcendental conclusion” is something akin to “therefore God exists,” it is claimed via “transcendental argument” that this conclusion “constitutes the very ground for the proof” of the premises which are given in the argument to support that premise. (And round and round we go.) What justifies the supposition, affirmed in the initial premise, that there’s any relationship at all between knowledge and the Christian god in the first place? What justifies the assumption, inherent in the transcendental methodology which Collett elucidates, that the existence of the Christian god “constitutes the very ground” of the argument’s minor premise?

It seems to me that TAG starts midstream, without presenting any real reason for supposing that there is any such relationship between knowledge and the Christian god. It seems to be nothing more than an assertion of such a relationship camouflaged in the form of an argument which has no genuine substance to begin with at all.

So it isn’t any wonder to me that Collett does not deny the circular nature of this type of argument. Again, I’ve written about this at length on my blog here: http://bahnsenburner.blogspot.com/2009/12/argument-from-predication.html

To be sure, there are other very good reasons to reject claims like “if knowledge, then God,” such as those which I have raised on my blog. I don’t find that presuppositionalists are able to raise any satisfactory responses to the counterpoints which I have articulated against such claims. In fact, I’ve presented my own argument – If knowledge, then non-theism – see here: http://bahnsenburner.blogspot.com/2010/04/if-knowledge-then-non-theism.html

So far, I’ve seen only a very weak attempt to interact with this.

As for the version of TAG which seeks to prove the Christian god’s existence by way of citing logic, I’ve yet to see any attempts to defend this version from the many issues which I have raised against it (see here: http://www.katholon.com/Logic.htm). Because of their failure to examine the kinds of issues that I raise, I often get the impression that presuppositionalists are bluffing. But I don’t expect them to admit this.

Regards,
Dawson

* * *

I've suspected for quite a while now that Chris Bolt and the rest of the Choosing Hats gang are at a loss as how to respond or interact with my criticisms of presuppositionalism. In the past, Chris has left comments to the effect that he will read what I've written and thus be in a better position to discuss my objections and counter-arguments, but that never happens.

For instance, when I posted a link to my response to Chris Bolt's post Knapp's "Induction and the Unbeliever," Bolt replied in a comment of his own, "Thanks. Will take a look at it when I can." (See his comment datestamped 24 March 2010 at 8:46 am.)

Or, consider his February 11 comment to my blog How Theism Violates the Primacy of Existence wherein, after several exchanges between Chris and myself in which I answered a series of questions he raised, I suggested that Chris read an exchange between myself and Christian apologist Drew Lewis in order to broaden his understanding of my argument. In that comment, Chris stated "I will have to read the exchange between you and Drew Lewis."

One would think that Chris would follow through with his announced intentions, and if he had any more questions, or perhaps objections against what I have written on the topics which he and I have discussed, he would have posted them on his own blog. But this has not happened. This is both a disappiontment as well as confirmation of my own prediction: presuppositional apologists typically posture themselves as having this devastating argument for their worldview and against all alternatives, but any critical examination of their claims and what they propose as their "argument" beyond the superficial level, tends to send them running. I would prefer that they stand and fight, which is what they scold non-believers for failing to do as they pound their chests in feigned victory. But if you examine the battlefield, you just might find that their victories are usually had over one-liners and in the form of one-liners, and thus nothing to write home about. When it gets to the real meat and potatoes of philosophy, they show up empty-handed and without a defense. Meanwhile, they continue claiming things like logic presupposes their god (which I have answered here), that their god is needed for man to have knowledge (which I have answered here), that Christianity is the only worldview to "account for" the uniformity of nature (which I have answered here), that Greg Bahnsen was a thorough and reliable scholar (a myth which I've put to rest here), etc. Just as they pretend their god exists, they pretend that their claims are beyond criticism. It's all part of an elaborate fantasy which turns out to be a most delicate construct of human imagination.

by Dawson Bethrick

The Imaginative Nature of Christian Theism

"A religious person is someone who finds reality too difficult to deal with on its own terms, and has assembled in his imagination a fantasy world ruled by a fantasy consciousness which serendipitously has chosen him as a receptacle of favor." – a former Christian

In the final installment of my five-part series Bolt’s Pile of Knapp, we saw Chris Bolt complaining about my verdict that his god is imaginary.

Specifically, Bolt wrote:

Unfortunately Bethrick seems to be more concerned here with his subsequent rant about God being imaginary (something he constantly asserts but does not prove; he admits that he does not even think that it needs to be proven) then he is with actual answers to the questions he supposedly has (after having interacted with presuppositionalists for many years including Paul Manata, James Anderson, and others).

In the final post of my comprehensive interaction with his error-laden and evasion-saturated response to my post on the uniformity of nature, I listed no less than 10 pertinent facts, each of which strongly indicates the inherently imaginary nature of god-belief, including Christian god-belief. Taken together, these 10 facts serve as insurmountable evidence that the Christian god is indeed imaginary.

Below I have expanded my original list, both by developing its original points and by tacking on a few additional points which only help seal my case. Notice that since the posting of my original points (on March 23 of this year), Chris Bolt has not engaged any of them, even though he’s had plenty of opportunity to do so.

Consider the following:

1. Anyone can imagine a supernatural being, including the god described by Christianity or any other religion. Just as one can imagine werewolves, leprechauns, the Tooth Fairy, Godzilla, Star Trek adventures, or any other known work of fiction or fantasy, one can easily imagine a god residing in some supernatural realm calling the shots over humanity and pleasuring itself in creating worlds, causing mischief in men’s lives, issuing condemning judgments on souls which have passed to the beyond, etc. Even a child can imagine such things, if he so chooses.

2. Religious philosophy provides no epistemological alternative to the imagination as a means of “knowing” its god. Religious apologists are quick to stipulate which means of knowledge will not provide the human mind with “knowledge” of “the supernatural,” whether it be sense perception, science, etc., thus purportedly identifying at the same time those methods which cannot disprove the existence of their god. However, when it comes to identifying the means by which one can allegedly acquire knowledge of “the supernatural,” they provide at best highly vague statements which never indicate any testable method, but under scrutiny appear to be masking the imaginative foundations of the belief in question. Notions such as “divine revelation,” “a priori knowledge,” the “sensus divinitatus,” or the claim to possess some surefire argument whose premises remain mysterious, are typically what they issue for general consumption. In fact, it is often difficult to see the difference between what they appear to be claiming as a method of securing knowledge of “the supernatural,” and the insistence that we accept their claims merely on their own say so. Meanwhile, by what means does anyone “know” the god they’re talking about, if not by means of imagination? Blank out.

3. Adherents learn details about their god from written stories (which puts the Christian god, for example, in the same camp as characters in texts which are known to be fictional). Written stories give the human mind an opportunity to develop vivid imaginations and fantasies. The dominant function of allegory in religious literature is to provide the imagination with the fundamental material to work with in developing lifelike as well as larger-than-life psychological replicas of heroes, villains, events, and cosmic personalities portrayed in religious literature while allowing for a strong element of personal relevance. The Christian believer, for instance, reads about his god in the Old and New Testaments. In these sources, which are dubbed revelatory communication directly from the god he reads about in their pages, the believer finds stories which provide often vivid narratives which the believer personalizes in his imagination of them and accepts as truthful, historical accounts. To quell any nagging doubts about the historical authenticity of the content of these accounts, believers may absorb himself in extra-biblical literature which presumes their truthfulness, or at any rate seeks in one way or another to establish it. Such efforts overlook the fact that what has actually happened is that the believer has read a set of stories and has installed them in his imagination as if they were in fact true before the question of their truth has been critically examined.

4. Religious philosophy squelches reason as man’s only means of knowledge, crippling the mind’s ability to distinguish the rational from the irrational (thus allowing the adherent to believe that concepts like ‘omniscience’ and ‘omnipotence’ are valid). The question then becomes: if one rejects reason, whether outright or as a result of adopting views which are incompatible with a rationally integrated worldview, what is the alternative? The problem is that, once reason has been compromised, the believer has no alternative but to retreat into his imagination, and to do so under some other name, such as “divine revelation,” the “sensus divinitatus,” faith, etc.

5. The failure of religious philosophy to provide the mind with a sound metaphysical theory which securely and reliably allows the adherent to distinguish between reality and imagination. Since religion stands philosophically on the primacy of consciousness (see here and here), the believer in the religious worldview has no objective compass in determining what is true and what is not true. The net affect is that, because religion itself blurs reality and imagination into a monstrous package-deal, the believer has been conned into sacrificing his ability to distinguish reliably between reality and imagination. He most likely does not realize this, and of course will resist admitting this to non-believers.

6. In Christianity, the bible requires adherents to have child-like faith, and a prominent feature of child psychology is an active imagination. I have already pointed this out in my blog With Minds of Children, which I published in December 2005. In that posting I quoted several relevant statements from the bible and from Christian apologist John Frame.

For instance, Matthew 18:3-4 states:

Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Similarly, Mark 10:15 states:

Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

In such passages the New Testament clearly and explicitly makes it a defining requirement for the believer to be “as a little child.” A child is a person who is only beginning to learn about reality, and has no self-consciously understood worldview per se. His time is not spent tending to life’s needs, for these are typically taken care of by parents. Instead, he spends a great deal of his time in play, where fantasy is often the dominant mental counterpart to physical activity, whether it is role playing, playing with dolls, toy automobiles, arts and crafts, etc. In this way a child can be distinguished from an adult in the role his imagination plays in his mental life. As is clear from the statements quoted above, the New Testament makes it clear that this childlike mentality is the ideal persona demanded of the believer.

Touching on this, presuppositional apologist John Frame tells us that

Scripture never rebukes childlike faith; indeed, Jesus makes such faith a model to be followed by adults (Luke 18:16). One who requires proof may be doing it out of ungodly arrogance, or he may thereby be admitting that he has not lived in a godly environment and has taken counsel from fools. God’s norm for us is that we live and raise our children in such a way that proof will be unnecessary. (Apologetics to the Glory of God, p. 66)

The passage which Frame cites, Luke 18:16, puts the following words into Jesus’ mouth:

"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."

To say that the bible “never rebukes childlike faith,” or that “Jesus makes such faith a model to be followed by adults,” actually understates the position clearly expressed in the bible. The bible requires childlike faith; it is not simply a “model” to which adults are expected to conform. But Frame does make a good point: the bible requires that believers “just believe” what it tells them, and not to require proof. Also, the believer is to surround himself with other believers, all of whom are to be encouraging each other to sustain their belief in a shared fantasy, which is the essence of the “godly environment” Frame has in mind here. Proof is the stuff of reason, but since the biblical worldview is incompatible with reason, it is not surprising to see Christian authorities urging believers to “raise… children in such a way that proof will be unnecessary.” The active mind of a rational thinker is to be discouraged through shame and guilt; believers are expected to believe on the power of authoritative say so, period. This simply opens the door to the imagination as the only alternative to reason available to the believer, for in the final analysis there is no other alternative to reason. Notions like “divine revelation,” the “sensus divinitatus,” “faith,” etc., are merely euphemisms for what is in reality merely a reliance on the imagination.

7. Intentional subordination of the world which the believer perceives and in which he lives, to alleged personal forces which he cannot perceive and which are indistinguishable from what is only imaginary. This is how the religious program allows the believer to sustain belief in the imaginary while continuing to exist in reality. He secretly abides by reality’s terms in most affairs in life, all the while pretending that there is some invisible personality working the controls of what he senses and perceives lurking behind what he senses and perceives. One will always be able to imagine some conscious being “back of” anything he sees and touches, construing that imaginary being as the agent responsible for what he sees and touches, whether benevolent or malevolent, or some monstrous combination of both. “God’s thought,” says Van Til, “is placed back of every fact” (Christian Theistic-Evidences, p. 88; quoted in Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 378). The question is: who places “God’s thought… back of every fact”? The obvious answer is: the believer, in the context of his imagination. Wouldn’t it be just as easy to suppose that “Blarko’s thought is placed back of every thought,” where Blarko is an immaterial conscious being which has no only begotten son? If we can imagine the Christian god “back of” every fact, what stops us from imagining some other invisible magic being “back of” every fact? Blank out.

8. Personification of imaginary beings (they “hear” the believer’s prayers, “see” his actions, “know” his thoughts, etc.) amplifies their impact on one’s emotional life. Personifying an imaginary being, of course, is not difficult to do. All you need to do is imagine that the imaginary being is personal, that it is aware of what you say, do, think, feel, understand, etc., and presto: you have an imaginary friend! And just by constructing such imaginations, and pretending to oneself that they are real (a nasty habit enabled by a philosophy which underplays or blurs the distinction between reality and imagination – see point 5 above), one has done all he needs to put himself in the position to be ruled by such things. He does not know that his fantasies are real, but he believes they are, and fears the imaginary consequences of questioning their reality. That is the purpose of divine judgment and eternal hell in Christianity: to compel the believer to take his fantasies of the Christian god seriously by means of supernatural threats to his well-being. The impact of such fantasies on one’s emotional life is, as Plantinga might put it, inscrutable. Much destruction has been accomplished in the name of a god, Christian and otherwise, and the primary engine behind this is the believer’s allowance of an imaginary being to become larger than his own will and trump his better judgment, thus compelling him to take those actions which put into motion policies which result in life-threatening conditions. Until people start to understand this principally and fully, we can expect more devastation of the human population on an institutional scale.

9. Repetition is used in order to reinforce artificially a self-imposed obsession with the supernatural in a never-ending effort to convince oneself of something which in the end he can never truly believe. The believer can never be fully satisfied in quelling his doubts about the supernatural, especially when it comes to the Christian notion of salvation. As long as the believer is alive, he hasn’t made it to heaven, so the potential for even a modicum of salvation doubt is unquenchable, and a modicum of doubt can go a long way in motivating a believer to try to convince himself and rid himself of such doubts. As the bible itself says, “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (Gal. 5:9). In essence, a little doubt can contaminate an entire set of confessional doctrines. This is the primary reason why apologetics is a popular avocation among believers today, especially when it comes to choice of internet activity. The demand for repetition in reinforcing the believer’s obsession with the imaginary beings he is supposed to worship, is the root cause behind developing a church community. As the statement from John Frame quoted in point 6 above suggests, the believer is to seek out and install himself in “a godly environment,” i.e., among fellow believers, such as in the formal congregation of a church, in which a shared fiction can be positively reinforced communally. The goal is for each individual to sustain belief in the shared fantasy, and associating with others who likewise indulge in a similar fantasy is one of the more direct ways of meeting this goal. A congregation not only provides opportunity for the elements of the shared fantasy to be repeated and emphasized through instruction and personal edification, but also allows for the development of a community of surveillance which effectively keeps each member in check and discourages defection from the shared fantasy. Fear of an invisible magic being lurking “back of” everything one perceives is thus reinforced through community involvement, thus exploiting the believer’s unquestioned fear of other consciousnesses; if others believe it so strongly (a pretense which each believer must do his best to sustain), then it must be true.

10. We learn about “the supernatural” only from other human beings, never from “the supernatural” itself. This is the case even in stories in which a human being is said to have come in direct contact with “the supernatural,” such as Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. This is a story which comes to us from other human beings. We do not learn about the Christian god, for instance, from the Christian god itself materializing before us and telling us about itself. We have no alternative but to learn about it from sources which are indistinguishable from sources which humans are known to have produced. Of course, believers are tacitly encouraged to profess personal encounters with the supernatural, which is what we find in cases like that of Canon Michael Cole, who claimed that Jesus was standing in his immediate presence (though apparently no one else present noticed even Jesus standing there beside him!). Human beings are the primary source of our “knowledge” of “the supernatural,” and when they point to other sources as testimony or evidence of “the supernatural,” they are never direct contacts with the supernatural which we can ourselves enjoy, but rather claims of religious experience and therefore secondhand or further removed from our own experience, and we are expected to accept these claims as if they were true, on another human being’s say so. How does one reliably distinguish what we are being asked to believe from a concoction of someone else’s imagination? Sadly, believers give us no objective compass on such questions.

11. Conflicting versions of “the supernatural” among those professing the same religious confession strongly indicate a subjective nature to god-belief, especially given the failure of those who clash with each other due to such conflicts to reach consensus. Within Christianity alone, believers differ on the topic of salvation, the nature of faith, the importance of the resurrection, the nature of the atonement, the role of free will, predestination, hell, heaven, the “end times,” the trinity, God’s love, God’s wrath, God’s judgment, prayer, apologetic methodology, the continuation or cessation of miracles, etc., etc. Where believers find themselves in conflict is in their conception of “the supernatural.” In mundane matters, they find themselves in agreement: mountains are composed of dirt and rock, rivers carry water, trees have roots, cars go on streets, supermarkets sell milk, elected officials can be corrupt, pens have ink, radios receive radio waves, etc. In areas concerning actually existing things which can be perceived directly by means of the senses, there is nearly universal agreement. But in areas which vary from one imagination to another, there is a predominance of conflict and contradiction. The ages-long bitter disputes on church doctrine between Catholics and Protestants, Calvinists and Arminians, pre-tribulationists and post-tribulationists, etc., all have their origin in the various imaginative understandings of the biblical text or other church writings.

12. Apologetic appeals to psychological phenomena as evidence of their god – e.g., the laws of logic, universals, knowledge, “abstract entities,” and the like – intimating that their god shares a similar ontological status, owe their attractiveness to the religious mind to the imaginative nature of god-belief.

Consider the point I made in my 28 July 2009 comment of this response to Chris Bolt:

The real reason why apologists will associate mental or psychological phenomena with the supernatural, is because “the supernatural” is in fact imaginary. So the association with other aspects of mental activity is immediate. That is why the conceptual realm will always be treated as a doorway to the supernaturalist’s object of veneration. Look at Michael Butler’s comments:

“That the Christian worldview can account for the principles of logic is readily demonstrable. Christianity allows for abstract and universal laws. Abstract because the Christian worldview teaches that more things exist than material objects. Thus it makes sense for there to be abstractions.” (TAG vs. TANG)

For Butler, providing an “account for the principles of logic” is so easy: Just “allow… for abstract and universal laws” and “teach… that more things exist than material objects.” Of course, it’s not clear why other worldviews cannot do this (though we’re told that only Christianity can). But is this really an “account for the principles of logic”? Does this move our understanding any closer to the nature of logic as it applies in human thought? I don’t think so. The underlying reasoning is: “logic is immaterial, and so is God. If you use logic, then you grant the existence of the immaterial. Therefore, you cannot deny God’s existence.” But logic is not just “immaterial,” it is conceptual. Is “God” too a concept? I thought it was supposed to be an independently existing entity. Presup resists delving into a deeper understanding of logic, because the alleged kinship between “God” and logic will dissolve. Logical principles, for instance, are not conscious entities, nor do they create existence. Etc.

The phenomena to which such apologetic appeals are made, are not mind-independent phenomena. But the Christian god is supposed to be a mind-independent entity.

13. Apologists often inadvertently admit that their god-belief is in fact imaginative in nature. For instance, when defending belief in “the immaterial,” a category to which the Christian god purportedly belongs, Christian apologist Peter Pike writes:

When something “exists” it is. Note that this does not mean that we are dealing with physical or material existence. Indeed, immaterial existence also exists. (For evidence of this, imagine a red ball. The red ball you have imagined does not have any physical existence; it exists immaterially. Granted, one can argue that the immaterial existence is based on a material brain, but the ball that is imagined is not material. It does not exist physically anywhere.)

(This statement can be found in my blog Is the “Immaterial Actually” Imaginary? which I published in June 2009. It is quoted from an internet paper which Pike has since removed from his website under the philosophy index. The paper containing the offending statement (the original link is here) has been removed from public viewing, but to my knowledge the position he affirmed in that paper has not been recanted.)

Notice what Pike presents as an example of “the immaterial”: to consider an example of “the immaterial” he asks his readers to “imagine a red ball.” Then he says that the red ball you imagine “does not have any physical existence.” But, says Pike, this red ball “exists immaterially.” Like the Christian god, the red ball we imagined “does not exist physically anywhere,” since neither the red ball nor the Christian god is physical. But just as we can imagine a red ball and Pike holds that “it exists immaterially,” presumably the Christian god is supposed to “exist immaterially,” since we can imagine it, too. It is interesting to note, however, that theists cannot produce any examples of things which “exist immaterially” which are not psychological in nature, whether it be a red ball which we are asked to imagine, or cognitive phenomena such as logic, universals, moral principles, etc. In arguments for their god’s existence theists apologetically liken their god to any of these things, which are not examples of independently existing entities, and yet their god is supposed to be an independently existing entity. Can apologists produce one example of an independently existing entity whose existence is indisputable and yet which “exists immaterially”? Not that I have seen.

As a final thought, while Christians tacitly reserve the right to imagine their god as they determine, they resent anyone who comes along and points out that their god is imaginary. An imaginary god is not a god to be feared, and fear is the primary motivator of religion. It is, primarily, because an imaginary god is not a fearsome god that Christians resist admitting that their god is imaginary. It is not that they would lose affection for their god, for a believer could still have affections for something that is imaginary, as is shown to be the nature of the case in the religious imagination of a god. What they don’t want is that others fail to fear their god. They want everyone to “bow” to the god which they construct and enshrine in their imaginations, and they want people to bow to it because they fear it. If a man does not fear another man’s god, he is a free man, enjoying the liberty to govern his life according to his own judgment, according to terms which he defines according to his own judgments. And this is what the religionist both fears and envies, and consequently resents.

This is why non-believers are scorned so much: not because they supposedly deny some cosmic truth, but because they retain their own free spirit.

by Dawson Bethrick