I have redefined them! Those limits, that is. This is the view of Father Robert Barron, in response to — well, something I said, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what. But I know it was me and not some other Sean Carroll, because there’s a video in which my picture appears a couple of times.
I think his remarks were spurred by Natalie Wolchover’s article about my piece on why the universe doesn’t need God. (Here is a related article, not quite a transcript of the above video but close, in which he mentions Natalie’s piece but not mine.) He may have read the original piece, although it’s unclear because he doesn’t link to anything specific, nor does he reference particular arguments from the essay itself. He also refers to a book I’ve written, but none of my books actually fit the bill. And he talks a lot about my arrogance and hubris. (I’ve finally figured out the definition of “arrogance,” from repeated exposure: “you are arrogant because you think that your methods are appropriate, when it fact it’s my methods that are appropriate.”)
In any event, the substance of Fr. Barron’s counter-argument is some version of the argument from contingency. You assert that certain kinds of things require causes, and that the universe is among those things, and that the kind of cause the universe requires is special (not itself requiring a cause), and that special cause is God. It fails at the first step, because causes and effects aren’t really fundamental. It’s the laws of nature that are fundamental, according to the best understanding we currently have, and those laws don’t take the form of causes leading to effects; they take the form of differential equations, or more generally to patterns relating parts of the universe. So the question really is, “Can we imagine laws/patterns which describe a universe without God?” And the answer is “sure,” and we get on with our lives.
As good scientists, of course, we are open to the possibility that a better understanding in the future might lead to a different notion of what is really fundamental. (It is indeed a peculiar form of arrogance we exhibit.) What we’re not open to is the possibility that you can sit in your study and arrive at deep truths about the nature of reality just by thinking hard about it. We have to write down all the possible ways we can think the world might be, and distinguish between them by actually going outside and looking at it. This is admittedly hard work, and it also frequently leads us to places we weren’t expecting to go and perhaps even don’t much care for. But we’re a flexible species, and generally we adapt to the new realities.
Which reminds me that I still owe you a couple of reports from the naturalism workshop. Coming soon!
(a) Differential equations etc. are abstract objects. You say they are fundamental. Does that make you a Platonist?Why so confident that the differential equations etc. don’t merely model reality? Why give them ontological import?
(b) What do you think a “law” is? [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laws-of-nature/]
(c) Are the fundamental “laws” themselves contingent?
(d) You seem really confident that we can’t “sit” in our studies and “arrive at deep truths about the nature of reality just by thinking hard about it.” If that’s true, few would deny that it’s a pretty deep truth about the universe! How did you arrive at it?
(e) Its our “rational intuition” that grounds the belief that cause/effect are fundamental. Rational intuition is all that grounds a number of beliefs that are required to do science (Notably, as you admit, the belief that ; our evidence so far for and are identical, so how do you discriminate between them if not “just by thinking hard about it”? In fact, science gets you out of no philosophical skepticisms, and these skepticisms have some pretty far-reaching implications about realities “deep truths” [if you’re a verificationist, then that has huge implications as well]).
Sorry, looks text bracketed with arrows doesn’t show up, here is (e) fixed:
(e) Its our “rational intuition” that grounds the belief that cause/effect are fundamental. Rational intuition is all that grounds a number of beliefs that are required to do science (Notably, as you admit, the belief that “Nature is simple/uniform”; our evidence so far for “masses attract up until 2013 and beyond” and “masses attract just until 2013” are identical, so how do you discriminate between them if not “just by thinking hard about it”? In fact, science gets you out of no philosophical skepticisms, and these skepticisms have some pretty far-reaching implications about realities “deep truths” [if you’re a verificationist, then that has huge implications as well]).
You have to marvel at the ability of people to claim that they are presenting logically consistent arguments while accusing others in committing logical fallacies, when not only are they committing logical fallacies themselves but they are not even actually presenting arguments in support of their own position.
The debate is not really about whether God exists, the debate is whether the God of the Bible exists, or at the very least, a God that created humans and cares about their actions. Because this is what matters to our lives and it is what Christians (and Muslims, Jews, etc.) believe in.
But none of the philosophical arguments about God’s existence has anything to do with the God of the Bible. Let’s say they’re valid – they’re not but let’s accept them for the sake of the arguments – all they support is the existence of a deistic God who created the Universe, but there is absolutely nothing in them that supports the Christian (or Muslim, or whatever other religion one believes in) narrative.
In practical terms a deistic God who set the universe and motion but has no interest in whether humans would evolve and what humans are doing is indistinguishable from no God at all. So the whole discussion about contingency is absolutely pointless.
Of course he can’t support “scientism” because “scientistic” evidence would prove his extreme views on religion and life to be idiotic; he would have to admit to himself that he’s been both stupid and a purveyor of stupidity making the world a worse place.
Fr. Barron’s belief is that “scientistic formulations” are used to attack god. That immediately lets you know this is the stereotypical religious cultist who perverts a religion because of their own lack of faith in that religion. That’s all there is to it; dude’s an a-hole looking to put a quarter in the machine and receive his piece of candy. He’s trying to rally a very small and very ignorant group of christian extremists.
There’s a whole world out there of people “thinking really hard”. It first showed up for me when I couldn’t seem to get As in English composition. I call it “reasoning without data”.
What I don’t understand when theologians criticize these sorts of debates over (a)theism or (a)gnosticism by saying that science cannot adjudicate the existence or non-existence of a deity is that they are starting from a position where they profess to believe a large number of claims that are verifiable and can be evaluated. There is an enormous amount of material that these people hold to be truth which is in the scientific sense “debunked”. That is, claims to such things as resurrections, miraculous transmogrification of matter, faith healings, levitation, etc. are all subject to scientific scrutiny and have, on the balance, been shown to not be phenomenological in the sense that they don’t represent a phenomenon that can be repeated or observed in a controlled fashion. So their arguments that science can’t touch god seem fatuous. Scientific investigation disproves their notions of god on a pretty regular basis. Every time god doesn’t interfere with an observation or an experiment, the null hypothesis cannot be disconfirmed, after all.
So why the arrogance on the part of the Father Barrons of the world? They are adopting an argument that is essentially a glorified shell game where God is put into nebulous and undefinable categories that defy observation or inductive reasoning and instead rely on, they freely admit this, blind faith. From that, they have to develop an entire cosmology that ignores the observable universe in favor of some sort of social construct surrounding reading material they hold to some higher standard of plausibility than others as well as the personal testimony and emotional bias of the community of people who come to hold beliefs in these doctrine. I don’t see how they can be comfortable with this state of affairs at all.
Do the religious just think that the devil has somehow gotten most of the scientists to their side? They cannot deny that most scientists don’t take their claims seriously… so it seems that they must be stuck in some sort of state of either denial or must believe that they are truly the only ones gifted with the ultimate knowledge of the universe.
It’s actually quite startling to think.
@Brett, I wouldn’t say a “very small” group of Christian extremists. The US is full of them
Moah, I don’t know how science weigh in on the question of whether or not Jesus resurrected. Science can tell us that people don’t naturally resurrect from the dead, but that’s uninteresting because nobody says Jesus resurrected naturally from the dead. The hypothesis is “God resurrected Jesus from the dead”.
Miracles are considered extraordinary acts of providence which should not be conceived, properly speaking, as violations of the laws of nature, but as the production of events which are beyond the causal powers of the natural entities existing at the relevant time and place.
Tim McGrew has a nice article on it in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He writes “One way to get around all of these problems and still retain the Humean formulation is simply to redefine the laws of nature. J. L. Mackie [my insert: an atheist] sums up this perspective neatly: The laws of nature … describe the ways in which the world—including, of course, human beings—works when left to itself, when not interfered with. A miracle occurs when the world is not left to itself, when something distinct from the natural order as a whole intrudes into it. (Mackie 1982: 19–20) With the notion of “natural law” thus redefined, the “violation” definition becomes virtually equivalent to the earlier definition of a miracle as an event that exceeds the productive power of nature. And in Mackie’s formulation it has the desirable feature that it makes evident the connection between a miracle and supernatural agency.” [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/]
GM, I don’t think you’ve been following. The debate *is* over whether God (deistic or not) exists: That’s what Carroll is going after.
The problem with the argument from contingency is that God is never shown to be non-contingent–that is, a necessary being. Fr. Barron argues that matter/energy/anything physical cannot be a true explanation because all of those things have a specific state/configuration.[*] Matter is distributed one way instead of another. Well, God favors one people over another. He set down these laws instead of others. He communicated to these profits instead others. The only god that can be said to exist through the argument from contingency is Einstein’s God: “…Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”
[*] Apologies for all the slashes.
I am following and I know very well what has been written and said. It’s irrelevant to the point I was making – Sean Carroll would not be going after God in general if it wasn’t for the fact that such a large fraction of the population believes in a personal God. In the absence of that gigantic cultural influence on everyone’s thinking, he would be doing his research and developing various cosmological models and we would be discussing those but we would not be arguing about contingency and God.
And Christian apologetics would not be full of arguments that only support a desitic God is it wasn’t for the fact that Christians needed to somehow justify their belief in a personal God and most of them are more than willing to take those arguments as supporting it even if they aren’t.
If anything, it is somewhat of a mistake to spend so much time refuting those arguments – it is much better to point out how much of a non-sequitur it is to go from that kind of reasoning to “Therefore Jesus Christ is you lord savior and the Bible is his word”.
This is all well and good, well intentioned discourse on both sides. The real issue here is that one CANNOT prove or disprove the existence of god or God. I am not a believer, but know many sincere folks who are. Belief in a supreme being or a God is a matter of faith, if you have faith, you need no proof. Good for you if you do have faith, good for me if I don’t. Whatever floats one’s boat is a good thing. Arguing about the existence or not…..of god ,or a supreme being or first cause is futile, because people’s beliefs and faith are not a rational thing. All the awesome science will not change a faith filled person’s mind, Similarly, all the Father Baron’s of the world and their philosophical and religious beliefs are not going to change the mind of, or give faith to people who who do not have it. As much as I admire and respect Dr. Carroll and all of his colleagues, i am certain the counter parties will never be dissuaded or change their minds. Dr Sean will never be influenced by Fr Baron, and Fr Baron will never be influenced by Dr Caroll. That’s just the way it is.
Whenever a theologian talks somehow it always ends up sounding like this to me.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/jt50q6
Nurbling courtesy of http://shipbrook.net/nurble
Paul Benoit,
You say one can’t prove or disprove theism. Do you realize that you’ve single-handedly dismissed the entire academic field of “philosophy of religion”, which is virtually devoted to that topic? Am I right to assume you haven’t done any work on the subject or read even one relevant peer-reviewed article or book? I’m not trying to be mean/arrogant or anything (if you’re a science-buff too, I call you friend), I’m just trying to make a point: Why isn’t this like someone dismissing any other academic field, like all of geology, by saying “you can’t prove or disprove that the earth is billions of years old; its a matter of faith”? Or “you can’t prove or disprove evo-devo; it’s a matter of faith”?
As atheist Quentin Smith noted in 2001, “there are now over five philosophy journals devoted to theism or the philosophy of religion… in philosophy, it became, almost overnight, ‘academically respectable’ to argue for theism,… A count would show that in Oxford University Press’ 2000–2001 catalogue, there are 96 recently published books on the philosophy of religion (94 advancing theism and 2 presenting ‘both sides’). By contrast, there are 28 books in this catalogue on the philosophy of language, 23 on epistemology…, 14 on metaphysics, 61 books on the philosophy of mind, and 51 books on the philosophy of science.”
For what it’s worth, I’ve been personally involved in the mind-changing (not all in the same direction) of four other college students who have changed their minds directly as a result of considering some of these advanced arguments. Consider googling for the academic websites of various philosophers of religion and taking a peak at some of their papers. If you enjoy Carroll’s work and cosmology in general, and would like a taste, consider looking over this (unedited) chapter recently published Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology: http://home.messiah.edu/%7Ercollins/Fine-tuning/Abridged%20Version%20of%20Fine-tuning%20book.doc
You might be surprised.
Wow, that guy sure was good at putting giant auditory quote marks around “science”.
Whenever I encounter arguments for God as something like “the unconditioned ground of contingency”, I point them to Sean Carroll’s earlier blog post The God Conundrum, which says basically that sure, such metaphysical abstractions might make sense, but they have little to do with the personal God of the Bible, and even less to do with “existence”.
I am waiting to view the reports from your Naturalism workshop. Hope it’ll come out soon. Great work as always, Sean.
But he has Latin phrases! “Ens summum” and “ipsum esse”! That trumps science, surely. No arrogance there!
Why am I commenting on this? I’m not, which is probably for the best.
Best video 2012 in horror category sofar.
i could not sit through that.
I thought the argument was that God is not required to exist, that there is no need for the super natural to explain our universe and the laws that govern it.
It’s a whole other massively convoluted ballgame to get from a supernatural beginning to a personal god that answers prayers and gives a damn about one particular species on one particular planet in one particular solar system that is in one particular galaxy that is part of one particular local group that is part of a particular supercluster in just the observable part of the universe that we know of.
Father Barron would have us all in the dark and the church in power if he could. He doesnt care about real knowledge, only his own agenda. Father Baron is anti-human.
I’ve never understood how people can think of the very idea of a self-creating universe as absurd, but think that a self-creating deity is inherently obvious.
I’m not Sean, but I’d answer BlakeG’s points as follows:
(a) Carroll’s not saying he’s a Platonist. He writes that our best understanding is a model in which causes and effects don’t feature.
(b) Carroll doesn’t spell this out (and I’m not quite sure why it matters).
(c) How would you tell either way?
(d) We learn that sitting in our studies doesn’t work by comparing the results of sitting in our studies to the results of going and looking at the world. (Nice try, though, I always love that form of argument.)
(e) This mistakes science for some sort of religion, where there’s an official doctrinal basis (OK, so maybe a Protestant, evangelical sort of religion) from which the rest of the system follows. But the uniformity of nature is not a foundational belief of science, it is a provisional result of it (and perhaps a necessary condition for science to work at all, but are you then claiming that science only works if you believe in the uniformity of nature?) I think this is put best by Konrad Talmont-Kaminski, a philosopher of science: “The fundamental problem with the Plantinga distinction [between ontological and methodological naturalism] is that it effectively assumes the primacy of ontology over epistemology. By this I mean that it assumes that to understand science one must begin with the ontology of science. This is very much understandable from the point of view of someone who was brought up on a christian religion that is presented as having its basis in a number of ontological claims that must be taken as true. It is also a profound misunderstanding of what science is. It would be better to think of science in terms of various methods that are used to investigate the world. The scientific ontology is an a posteriori result of the application of those methods to the world. To put it in other terms again, ontological naturalism is the a posteriori result of accepting epistemic naturalism. Yet, even that is not quite right as it suggests that science can be identified in terms of some set of methods. This is quite incorrect because, just as the contents of scientific ontology, the contents of scientific methodology undergoes under constant change. The reason it does that is that scientists allow their results to shape their methods and beliefs. In effect, it is best to think of science in terms of an attitude – that attitude being of actively seeking to alter one’s beliefs and methods on the basis of what knowledge one does possess in order to better understand the world. The contents of scientifc ontology and the nature of scientific methods follows from this, again, only a posteriori.”
(Also, are you really claiming that appealing to God will solve the problem of induction?)
> The hypothesis is “God resurrected Jesus from the dead”.
I detect a graduate from the William Lane Craig school of advanced apologetics.
What might it mean to say that science cannot weigh in on the Resurrection? Surely not that we shouldn’t do an empirical investigation of some sort: even the Christians do that (when faced with miracle claims from other denominations, or other religions, at least).
Perhaps the claim is that there is a category of things (the supernatural) that science (rather than other forms of empirical investigation) can’t investigate. I think we’d want to know why not, though. I mean, either “God did it” is a claim we can tag on to other unlikely claims as we please (“Pigs obviously don’t fly naturally, but my claim is that God made Porkie fly” and so on ad infinitum), or we must suppose that there is some regularity in this parallel supernatural realm. That seems fertile ground for some sort of science, doesn’t it? Surely what the religious seek is actually an extension of science.
To return to the specific case, Craig’s problem with his usual 5 arguments is that he hasn’t shown that the gods of the Kalam (as Hume says, why assume there’s only one?) are interested in resurrecting Jesus. But if a god didn’t do it, the resurrection is, as Craig says, fantastically improbable, which I think means the New Testament evidence alone shouldn’t convince us unless we assume there’s at least one god who would be really likely to raise Jesus from the dead. So why should we assume that? Remember, we need that assumption to bolster the NT evidence sufficiently for us to believe it, but the main “evidence” for that sort of god is the resurrection itself, the very thing he’s seeking to prove. Craig has some waffle about “religio-historical context”, but AFAICT what that means is that he’s asking you to believe that the Old Testament is really true as well. I mean, seriously?
His ‘rehearsal’ makes the most sense to me if you listen to it as a response to the question: “Is your job obsolete?”
‘Fire me and you’ll be guilty of SCIENtistic arrogance’. Oh, ok. We don’t want that, do we?