Ben's first response

Thank you, Dan, for your opening statement. Here is my initial response.

 

Strong vs. weak atheism

I’ll ask readers to note that in Dan’s first paragraph he chooses to defend weak atheism, rather than assume any burden of proof for his answer to the question “Does God exist?” This seems appropriate, given the rather weak responses in his opening statement. He immediately lowered the bar for his side of the debate, then failed to even meet that standard.

 

He states, “I do not claim, nor is it necessary, to prove that the Christian God does not exist… demonstrating that Ben’s arguments for the Christian God are fatally flawed is sufficient to conclude that such beliefs are irrational.” Recall that we are debating about the existence of God, not the mere rational status of my beliefs. All of my beliefs in this regard could be “fatally flawed” and that would not prove anything with respect to the subject of the debate. I am arguing, “God exists,” while Dan is merely arguing, “Some of Ben’s beliefs are irrational.” Let’s investigate now whether or not he has satisfied the significantly reduced burden of proof which he has placed upon himself.

 

Defining the term “God”

Dan alleges that there are many contradictions in the definition of God which I referenced in my opening statement. He doesn’t show that there are any contradictions, he merely alleges as much. He chooses divine incomprehensibility as noteworthy, then demonstrates that he hasn’t been taking good notes.

 

Equivocation is the misleading use of terms which have multiple definitions. When Dan says of divine incomprehensibility, “It would be a simple matter for me to agree with this part of the definition and claim victory,” he equivocates (an informal fallacy). “Incomprehensible” is synonymous with “non-intelligibility” in most contexts; however, divine incomprehensibility refers to the doctrine that God cannot be fully comprehended and is unknowable apart from self-revelation. This standard definition is referred to as a “common retort” by Dan, which makes him seem less credible. It’s not a retort; it’s a standard definition in Christian theology which has been maintained across many cultures and centuries.

 

If he can demonstrate a contradiction in the doctrine of divine incomprehensibility (or the definition of God), then he should simply do so—rather than equivocating and obfuscating. When one desires to refute another’s position, it would behoove him to be familiar with the standard definitions associated with that position before attempting refutation. A bare familiarity with some standard work in systematic theology would prevent these sorts of unfortunate errors. Before one can effectively “undermine Christianity” one must correctly understand Christianity.

 

Actual vs. potential infinite

Dan also seems to be unfamiliar with the common distinction (tracing its roots all the way back to Aristotle) between actual and potential infinity. This is evidenced by the scare quotes around “actual” in statements such as, “We’ll see later how Ben attempts to make the concept of infinite ‘actual’, and then tie ‘God’ to the ‘actual’ infinite, and why this doesn’t work.” He also asserts twice that “infinite means without limits,” which is simply a reference to potential infinity (e.g. limits in calculus). Actual infinity is a set with infinite members, such as the set of all positive integers {1, 2, 3, 4,…}. These are non-controversial, introductory matters in set theory which are important to even understanding, much less refuting, the Transcendental Argument for God from Mathematics (TAG-M).

 

Axioms?

Dan has also made a couple of unsubstantiated assertions about what he calls “axioms,” e.g. Einstein’s work depends upon “deeper axioms” than a belief in space-time, I’m relying upon certain axioms to conclude that God exists, etc. I’m confused by Dan’s use of this term and I’d ask him to clarify what sense of “axiom” he is using, please. If he’s referring to, say, axioms in geometry used to derive theorems, then I fail to see the relevance of his statements. These axioms are simply stipulations used for mathematical modeling (as in Einstein’s physics). However, if he means the term in a more philosophical sense, as referring to necessary or self-evident truths, then he has again equivocated in explicitly referencing Einstein’s axioms in this other sense. Logic and math share many similarities but they are not mutually reducible to each other.

 

Using the term “axiom” to refer to a necessary truth is just a wishful assertion—“wishful” in the sense that most often when one refers to a philosophical principle as an “axiom” he is just attempting to convince an audience, without argument, that the principle is indeed a self-evident and necessary truth. This was a common conflation among the ancient Greeks, however, most today would grant that our math and philosophy have advanced some since then (terminologically, at the very least!). Unfortunately for Dan, in both math and philosophy you sometimes need to substantiate your axioms with proofs and arguments, respectively.

 

Ipse dixitism

Dan is quite fond of alleging his opponents have committed various logical fallacies. However, the mere allegation of fallacious reasoning is insufficient to establish that a fallacy has actually been committed. Ironically, merely asserting something is the case without substantiation is an informal fallacy known as ipse dixit or the “bare assertion fallacy.” Dan will need to get his hands dirty demonstrating that I’ve committed the various fallacies he’s alleged, rather than the mere hand-waving and just-so assertions he’s given thus far. Dan tells us, on his bare authority, that numbers, propositions, persons, etc. are all just what he says they are. No need for argument, that’s just the way it is. God just doesn’t exist. QED.

 

Calling something a fallacy and demonstrating it is a fallacy are two very different things; and bare assertions don’t rise to the level of reasoned argumentation, no matter how often they are repeated or rephrased.

 

Reification

Everywhere Dan looks he seems to see somebody fallaciously reifying something. He sees it in the first three of my four arguments. I’m sure if he looks long enough, he could find it in the fourth as well. He may need to check his sources on this one, however. First, reification is not always fallacious; it is particularly common in rhetoric and literature, through the use of metaphor. Second, and more importantly, fallacious reification attributes concrete characteristics to abstractions. Referring to numbers as mental objects simply does not attribute any concrete characteristics to them at all. At the risk of stating the obvious, an abstraction is a mental object—an idea. If arguing that a number is an idea commits the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, then anything goes. Up so floating many bells down. I argued that numbers are mental objects; Dan says, no, they are metaphors. But what is a metaphor, if not (at least) a mental object as well? I’d suggest Dan may want to holster this fallacy until he figures out which end fires the bullets (*note the non-fallacious reification*).

 

Numbers and Logic

Dan says, “Numbers do not exist, as Ben asserts, independent of our brains that conceive of them.” So, if everything with a brain woke up dead tomorrow, how much would 2+2 equal? If you answered 4, according to Dan, you’d be wrong. All the numbers would have died with our brains. If you were riding in a car with me when all the brains in the world died, then there wouldn’t be two of us there afterward. We can project right now that there would be two of us in the car after the sudden global brain death (because we still have working brains), but after it happens there will not be two dead bodies in the car anymore. The dead bodies would be there and there would be two of them, but there couldn’t actually be two of them because there aren’t any numbers anymore. The clocks will keep running, but there won’t be any numbers to correspond with the passage of time. The billions of stars will still be there, but there won’t be billions of them anymore. Dan’s view is an absurd groupthink-meets-metaphysical-solipsism. Meanwhile, it remains painfully obvious that numbers and mathematics transcend our brains as demonstrated by the existence of actual infinite sets of mental objects, as I argued.

 

The same problem exists for Dan’s response to Anderson/Welty’s argument from logic. Does the principle of non-contradiction cease to apply the moment after global brain death? Did it apply during the timeline of evolution, before brains existed? Of course it did, but that means it transcends our brains. And if laws of logic are absolute mental entities, they must inhere in an absolute mind, i.e. the mind of God. Denying this principle produces the sorts of absurdities already discussed. Further, to say that the laws of logic are merely descriptive while repeatedly accusing me of committing logical fallacies is problematic. This is just Hume’s classic “is-ought problem;” but you can’t derive a prescription from a description without committing a category error.

 

Question-begging assertions

Many of Dan’s criticisms are simply question-begging. He believes one thing, and I believe something different. On the basis of the fact of this difference, Dan declares me wrong. He assumes his own position to be correct, without argument, then declares mine incorrect for not matching his. This is viciously circular.

 

An example: “Ben’s minimalist definition of personal, ‘rational, self-conscious entity’ is an equivocation. Ben wants the attribute of a person without the physical baggage that comes with it.” To assert that a “person” can only be physical begs the question against immaterialism. He’ll need to refute immaterialism on its own terms, rather than by direct appeal to physicalism. More examples could be adduced in this regard.

 

Subjectivism incompatible with realism

Dan has asserted that “numbers are metaphors,” “propositions are symbolic representations,” and “theories of truth… are simply our subjective understanding of what the word truth means.”

He has also stated that math “model[s] reality, but is not reality itself,” numbers and propositions  “are symbolic representations of some aspect of reality,” that “we perceive some aspect of reality,” etc.

 

On the one hand, Dan wishes to say that all these things are subjective, reducible to our perceptions—to the point that if our collective consciousness dies, math and logic and truth die with it.

 

On the other hand he wishes to say that there is an objective reality which corresponds with those perceptions. (Unless he’s using the term “reality” as synonymous with “our perceptions,” which would make his statements consistent with subjectivism, but uselessly tautological.)

 

But one can’t be a subjectivist-realist any more than he can be an atheist-polytheist. So how does Dan propose to bridge the gap between subject and object? I’ll predict that whatever answer he proposes will be self-refuting apart from acknowledging the role of divine self-revelation in epistemology.

 

A Minor Point of Clarification

In Dan’s closing statement he quotes Dr. James Anderson’s article “Calvinism and the First Sin.” I think Dan has misunderstood James, for when he states “sin is intrinsically irrational” James means that the act of disobeying God (i.e. sinning) is irrational, not that the Christian doctrine of sin per se is irrational. I think if Dan re-reads this section of the paper he’ll see his mistake.

 

…speaking of sin

Finally, I’ll point out that these intellectual discussions connect directly with flesh-and-bone in that, if my position is correct then Dan’s position is not merely mistaken, it is sinful. One of the noetic effects of sin is turning rational creatures made in God’s image into irrational God-haters. I ask Dan to repent of using the intellect which God has given him in order to argue against the truth, and I ask him to become a thinker free from sin, embracing reason in Jesus Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:3)

 

I look forward to reading Dan’s next response, assuming no global brain death occurs before then.