My Favorite Apologetic Arguments

The following two arguments are currently my favorite apologetic arguments for the truth of theism, and by way of subsequent inference to the best explanation, Christianity. I have written about them many times, and enjoy both discussion and answering questions about them. I am going to discuss them both briefly and leave it for your consideration.

The first argument is the kalam cosmological argument (KCA). Cosmological arguments for God’s existence reason from the contingent facts of the universe to a transcendent cause of the universe. The kalam is a particular formulation of this idea. Thus, there is no one singular cosmological argument, only a family of arguments that share the basic foundation in common. There are two versions of the KCA that have been presented by its most prominent defender, William Lane Craig. I will give what I call Craig’s classical presentation, then his current presentation, and then discuss them both. Here is the classical presentation of the KCA:

1.      Whatever begins to exist had a cause.

2.      The universe began to exist.

3.      Therefore, the universe had a cause.

And here is the current presentation:

1*. If the universe began to exist, then the universe had a transcendent cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3*. Therefore, the universe had a transcendent cause.

The first thing to notice is that (2) appears in both arguments. This is a great premise because it enjoys both philosophical and scientific support. On the philosophical side, of the several arguments given, I like the argument against traversing an actually infinite amount of time. It doesn’t appear possible. Think about it this way: if you pick an infinitely distant “starting point” (any arbitrary point will do) in the past, an infinite number of moments would have to pass for you to arrive at the present moment. But before the present moment could arrive, the moment prior would have to arrive; and before that moment, the one prior to it would have to arrive, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. But then the present moment could not arrive, since the infinite series could never be traversed! It’s like encountering a man who claims he has just finished counting all the negative numbers from infinity down to zero; it doesn’t make any sense!

Further, there are scientific reasons to think the universe began to exist. In pop culture, even today, it is not uncommon to hear things like, “The universe is eternal and infinite.” But this is just scientifically outdated (by about a hundred years!). Scientists have discovered the universe is expanding. Extrapolating the rate of expansion backward into the past, they have postulated there is a point in the past where all matter is condensed into a single miniscule point. They further postulate that this point “burst” to spread out and form the universe over a long period of time. They call this the Big Bang Theory, and it implies a beginning to space. Regardless of what one thinks of this theory, you cannot have both the old model of endless, eternal space and the Big Bang. You must have one or the other, or neither. The point is just that current scientific models suggest one cannot avoid an absolute beginning to the universe.

(1)   is good, in that it is both intuitive and constantly confirmed by our experience. Some people have thought that a counterexample to (1) would be quantum events. However, this is confused. (1) does not say, “whatever event transpires has a cause,” but whatever begins to exist had a cause. The difference means that in order for quantum events to be a counterexample, the virtual particles would have to come from nothing. But they do not come from nothing; they come from a sea of energy.

However, Craig reformulated (1) into (1*) perhaps in part to avoid this whole confusion in the first place. (1*) seems eminently plausible; the alternative is to think that the universe both came into existence and had no cause whatsoever, which seems very, very counterintuitive, to say the least! But then it follows that the universe had a transcendent cause. This transcendent cause, then, must be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, extremely powerful, personal, beginningless, changeless, and uncaused! That sure sounds a lot like God—specifically, the God of the Abrahamic tradition.

Now here is the version of the moral argument that I prefer:

1.      If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2.      Evil exists.

3.      Therefore, objective moral values and duties do exist.

4.      Therefore, God exists.

I prefer the extra step (3) provides for reasons I shall explain in a moment. (1), I think, should be placed in probabilistic terms: probably, God is the best explanation for objective morality. Think about it this way: in the absence of God, why should we be good? To whom do we owe that obligation? It cannot be merely other humans, for humans did not always exist, and there could be other sentient moral agents that exist or could possibly have existed, and presumably morality could apply to them. So, without such a ground, it looks like moral obligations wouldn’t be around at all.

Now, as it turns out, all you need at this point is for someone to agree that objective moral values and duties do exist. However, some people resist this point initially. It is here I like to remind the objector of what his favorite (likely) argument against God is: the problem of evil. The problem of evil works only in cases where, in fact, there is evil. Beheading people for the faith, calculated genocide as ethnic cleansing, imprisonment for thought crimes—these people take to be evil deeds, not just deeds we happen not to like. You can provide myriad examples, and usually people grant that at least some things are objectively evil. If they do not, however, do not lose heart: you have shown a cost—a very, very great cost—of accepting their view: you must stand firm in the counterintuition that nothing is really wrong, deep down: it’s all preference.

In any case, once one accept (2), it entails (3), and (1) and (3) entail (4), that God exists. Now this God is plausibly a necessary being, since it looks like moral truths are necessary, and God grounds these.

So take these two arguments alone and combine their conclusions: there exists a being who is plausibly necessary, transcends the universe, brought it into existence, grounds objective morality, is omnibenevolent, beginningless, changeless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, enormously powerful, and personal. For a variety of reasons, I think this is best represented by the Christian God. What do you think?

A Refutation of Support for Molinism?

Here is an interesting article by a self-described former Molinist; he takes the tactic of granting that God has middle knowledge of libertarian actions, but as a matter of fact, there is no good reason to think we have libertarian freedom (I am summarizing quite a bit, but this appears to be the chain of reasoning). As such, he does not want to be a Molinist. I think the article is worth responding to in a few key points.

First, while he pits Molinism vs. determinism as contenders of explanation for data, this isn’t a symmetrical comparison. Interestingly, this is recognized when he locates the issue of contention as one of freedom of the will (specifically, libertarian freedom). Whether or not libertarian freedom is present (as it is in Molinism and is not on determinism) just dictates which data set is under consideration. If it is present, then determinism is manifestly false. If it is not present, then Molinism is false.

Now he recognizes that there is another option: compatibilist freedom. So it actually comes down to whether or not there are any good reasons to think that we have libertarian freedom. He says no. Why would he do that?

Well, he says, the argument for libertarian freedom is one’s intuitions, and these are properly basic. But, he claims, sometimes “our immediate desires override what we want.” While I don’t really know for sure what this means, it turns out it’s irrelevant. Libertarianism is not the thesis that “all of my decisions are libertarianly free,” but rather “at least some of my decisions are libertarianly free,” so that this consideration does not lower the plausibility of libertarianism by one iota: any plausibility that is gained from intuitive considerations should remain.

The second reason he gives is as follows: “The fact that we chose A when B was a valid option does not necessarily mean that we could have chosen B.” Once again, I frankly do not know what this means. What does he mean here, then, that B was a valid option? If he means we could have chosen B, then, yes, we necessarily could have chosen B. The world-indexed proposition “Randy could choose B in circumstances C in world W” would be true in all worlds, even deterministic ones. But regardless, he goes on to say that advocates for intuitive support for libertarianism have to argue that agents in a deterministic world would not have the intuition that they are free, which we (supposedly) do not know. I think the point here is supposed to be that this renders the intuitive support for libertarianism equivalent with support for determinism.

But I don’t see that we have to argue that, “In all deterministic worlds, no determined creature has the intuition that he is indeterministically free.” First, it may be that we do have reason to think creatures in such a world would not have such an intuition: namely, God is not a deceiver. Most people would be overwhelmingly deceived about their everyday actions. But let that pass (it is not essential to the response). Second, the mere possibility that we are mistaken in our intuitions is not enough to render these intuitions just as likely as not to be false. Why think that our intuitions need to be incorrigible in order to provide sufficient source for particular beliefs? Finally, he may be undermining his own later responses to other, relevant issues. If he thinks the possibility of intuitions going wrong is enough to nullify their use, and if he thinks that it’s just as likely (by implication) as not that we have determined, massively false beliefs about our everyday experiences and our roles in choosing them, then he has a 50-50 shot at thinking that any given belief he holds is false. But no one should hold any 50-50 belief as true. Therefore, he has acquired a defeater for literally any belief he holds, including his belief that libertarian intuitions are undermined.

Additionally, he seems unaware of the fact that there are indeed positive arguments for incompatibilism, and by a slight extension, libertarianism. This extension involves both intuition and moral reasoning. For example, certain versions of the consequence argument entail that incompatibilism is true, and that entails that one of two options is true: hard determinism and libertarianism. Most determinists do not accept hard determinism; the overwhelming number accepts soft determinism, also called compatibilism. But compatibilism is ruled out by the consequence argument. But what if he decides he will in fact be a hard determinist? Well, aside from ruling out biblical discussions of freedom, we can suggest: God would be acting against his character in forcing unfree creatures to do actions that are evil; in other words, God would be performing these evil actions alone, as the agents involved would be no more free than a child’s GI Joe action figures are. The intuition is that we are not so determined, and God is not of such poor character. The moral argument is that “if we are not free, we are not responsible; we are responsible; therefore, we are free.” If this is so, this leaves us with libertarianism. He will have to address both the consequence argument and its implications in order to move forward, unless he does embrace hard determinism.

A few other notes: first, he writes that, “The argument from the explanatory power of Molinism requires that determinism cannot account for human freedom.” Strictly speaking, this is not correct. Explanatory power is typically used to refer to the idea that the best explanations make the evidence we do see more probable than if the explanation was not correct.

Suppose determinism could account for human freedom. Why would it follow that Molinism’s explanatory power falls below that of determinism? Just run the (admittedly made up) “numbers” in your head: if Molinism were true, would we expect to see the evidence we do see or infer (human freedom, God’s omniscience, the seeming truth about counterfactuals, our intuitions that we are libertarianly free)? Sure. What about if Molinism were false? Is it just as probable? Well, pretty plainly, no. Now what about determinism? Without begging the question as to which type of freedom is true, would we expect to see the data we do see (human freedom, God’s omniscience, the seeming truth about counterfactuals, our intuitions that we are libertarianly free) on determinism? Surely not; even if possible, I doubt it’s even 50-50. But let’s say it is. In this case, then, Molinism emerges the clear winner in this category.

He offers Frankfurtian compatibilism as an alternative, but there are two issues worth addressing. First, as to this contention—“if God were to determine you to do precisely what you would have freely chosen, then perhaps freedom can be preserved”—this is what is called “overdetermination,” and counts against explanations when all else is equal (a permutation of Ockham’s razor). Second, his Frankfurtian example doesn’t actually show that freedom is preserved in this scenario. Indeed, Frankfurt examples just are examples of the lack of determination in a case where some agent chooses a particular way, and the other way is not actually open to him after all; they are not examples where a causally determined action is itself deemed free.

While there is much more that can be said, the point of my article is to suggest that the original author has not shown that there is no good reason to think we have libertarian free will, and has not shown philosophically that libertarianism and compatibilism are equally plausible.

Objections to Knowing the History behind the Resurrection

Occasionally, I will hear some pretty weak a priori objections to Jesus’ Resurrection. Unless these objections are particularly good or appropriate, I call these “lazy man objections.” The reason is that it allows the objector to disbelieve the Resurrection without examining any evidence whatsoever. What is this particular objection?

Well, it is this: World War II historical documents vary, have personal biases, and overall skew the data. This event was only 70 years ago, and look how corrupted reports can be. Just imagine how much worse it must be for stories that have been repeated for the past 2,000 years!

This is a very weak objection, and there are a variety of reasons why. First, it’s a puzzling example. So what are we supposed to conclude from this? That World War II didn’t happen? That biases of historians make what really happened in World War II unknowable? Surely no one questions whether or not World War II, or the major events surrounding them, happened.[1] Perhaps it’s supposed to mean that particular events are questionable, and may even be influenced by biases or fabricated as a method of propaganda. No doubt this is true; however, what should we conclude from that? That historical data cannot tell us what really happened?

I think what this objection is happens to be more or less a dressed-up version of the Telephone Game objection. This objection states that when something is repeated long enough, under whispered conditions (I suppose the “bias”), then ultimately the message will be too mangled to know. This leads to our next objection.

If this were true, then no conclusions should be made on any historical event that has had both time and persons involved in its reporting. But why should we think we have no way of saying whether or not Caesar crossed the Rubicon, or Alexander the Great lived, etc.? It won’t do merely to bite the bullet on the issue and say that we cannot have historical knowledge after all. They must also give good reasons why the evidence given in those cases is not sufficient to establish a historical claim. In fact, they must do this for every case.

Next, it’s just not true that we do not know what the main sources said about Jesus of Nazareth. Most NT scholars, believers and unbelievers, are quite happy to grant that a majority of the New Testament text, as we have it across all manuscripts, is what was originally written. Even Bart Ehrman grants this. Basically, only seven passages are really in dispute, none of them affecting doctrine or the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. So it’s just not true that the historical data cannot indicate what the earliest sources actually said about Jesus Christ. That is, this a priori claim flies in the face of the evidence, and that’s why it’s a lazy-man objection.

So what will you do with Jesus? The evidence suggests he was raised from the dead, by God, and if that is so, it most plausibly was a vindication of his message—that he was God! John 14:6 says that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes unto the Father but by him.

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[1] Well, virtually no one. There are a handful who deny the Holocaust, but these scholars have poor arguments, more akin to conspiracy theories than actual scholarly work.

Presuppositionalism and the Method Wars

I rarely get involved in the so-called “method wars” of Christian apologetics. I think it’s largely unproductive to insist that our fellow brothers and sisters use a particular way of sharing the Gospel while we could be doing just that ourselves. I also think that, so long as the argument is valid and sound, that any Christian argument for God that brings someone to think about and consider Christianity is worthwhile. This is why I find value in the basic reasoning of presuppositional apologetic arguments. However, most of my readers will note that I tend to use a lot of evidential and classical arguments here. I’ve heard, more than one time, presuppositionalists insist that evidential arguments are detrimental to Christianity. The mission of this post is to suggest this is mistaken.

The argument goes like this: if presuppositional arguments are true, then evidential arguments for God are false. Why should we think a thing like that? Because, the reasoning goes, evidential/classical arguments only establish that the conclusion (namely, God exists) is only probable with respect to the evidence, not necessarily existent. Yet presuppositional arguments entail a necessarily existent God. Therefore, we have two fundamental types of claims that differ from one another in a major way. If God is necessary, it’s impossible for him to be contingent, and vice versa.

The problem in the reasoning in the above paragraph is one that runs rampant in the presuppositional community. I say what I am about to say not to attack, but to help. If we can help each other think clearer, it will be all the better for Christian apologetics! So what are the problems? I’ll try to tackle them from least important to most important.

First, in deductive arguments (and even some abductive ones), the conclusion is entailed by the premises. This means that if the premises are true, it is impossible that the conclusion is false. It’s somewhat of a category error to say the conclusion is “only probable.” However, this is considered the least important objection because we can still say that we are uncertain of the conclusion because we are not wholly (in a Cartesian way or something) certain of the premises’ truth. Second, in some cases (at least one) classical arguments do require that God be necessarily existent. The ontological family of arguments entails this, and some conceptions of the moral argument family do as well.[1] Of course, the claim would still remain for all other types of arguments of whose premises we are not entirely certain.

Finally, the most important problem, and the one that runs rampant, is the confusion between ontology and epistemology. I attended an apologetics conference last year where a panel discussion took place on this idea, and the presuppositionalists were plagued with this issue. Ontology refers to being, or something’s existence. Epistemology refers to knowing, or knowledge/truth.

When the presuppositionalist complains that the conclusion of evidential/classical arguments is only probable, this is an epistemic category. It’s about knowledge, and degrees of certainty (in this case, not very certain). Necessary existence, which is established through presuppositional (and some classical) arguments, is an ontological category. The two are not exclusive. What is necessarily true is so independently of anyone’s even knowing it, much less anyone knowing it for certain. In fact, there are examples where we know that some proposition is actually necessarily true or necessarily false, but no one has any idea which. The point is that something can be necessarily true ontologically, but only probably true (or probably false, or even inscrutable) epistemologically. These evidential and classical arguments say nothing (most of the time) about the modality of the existence of God (contingent or necessary), and so it is an error to presume that they do.

Again, I’m still not interested in the method wars, where I insist that presuppositional reasoning be abandoned and only evidential/classical arguments used. I’m not interested in having a huge argument with my brothers. I’m just trying to sharpen our thinking, so that Christ’s Kingdom can be built, and he might have the preeminence.

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[1] I speak of argument families here in recognition of the fact that there is no one, singular ontological or moral argument. The same goes for virtually every other type of theistic argument.

What is the Reason You Believe?

“The argument is that, if your belief depends only on geography and family history, then it has no more chances of being true than the god of the muslim guy, or the hindu guy, or the christian guy who lives right across the border.”

         I would like to analyze this statement, and see if it comports with reality. First, we have to ask what is meant by “depends.” I think that perhaps the most charitable meaning we can give this is to say it is being used as “reason.” So, the claim can be interpreted to mean, “If the only reason you have for your belief is geography and family history. . . .” But then “reason” becomes ambiguous, for surely we cannot mean reason as in “rational justification.” This is because most people don’t formulate an argument to the effect of, “I have my geographical and familial situation such that I am pre-disposed to believe in Christianity, therefore, I believe Christianity.” Instead, “reason” tends to mean “explanation” in these cases. So, the claim can be clearly reformulated to read: “If the only explanation of your belief is geographical and familial history. . . .” If this is not a correct understanding of what is being said by this part of the statement above, I welcome a correction. I believe that alternative understandings of this part of the claim will be shown either to be completely or usually false, so that the claim will only affect a minimal amount of Christians (if any). This is why I felt it charitable to read it in the stronger way.

            “Then it has no more chances of being true. . . .” In interpreting this part of the claim, we must be careful. Chance is not ontological; it is epistemological. Since someone who has an explanation for their belief in Christianity other than the above (like Christians in Muslim contexts, or ones who come from atheistic backgrounds, etc.) will have many things open to their epistemology, we should locate these epistemological challenges to be relevant to those whom the first part of the statement addressed. If we do not, then the second part becomes patently false (at least, it would be a non-sequitur). This part of the claim states that for those whose only explanation for their belief is geographical and familial concerns, they do not have any more justification for holding their belief as true over and against other beliefs contrary to their religious beliefs.

            So, the entire statement would read (in condensed form): “If the only explanation of your belief is geographical and familial history, then it has no more chances of being true over and against other religions, and one is not justified in holding his religious belief.” So is this true? Not at all. For explanations don’t preclude there being rational reasons to believe! So suppose there is the Christian whose only explanation for belief is that he was born in a Christian country to a Christian family.[1] Why can he not have arguments for Christian belief? One can argue that these arguments or reasons are all false or unjustifiable, but it will have to be because the skeptic has examined all of these reasons and concluded they are false, which is a completely different project than the one outlined before. It also doesn’t help to say that many people don’t have these reasons, since many do, and hence it will not work as a principle. It also won’t work to go back to “reason” as rational instead of explanatory. This is because a relative very few take their family history and geography to be rational arguments supporting their belief (much less do they make it the only such argumentative basis). Even if we find some who do, most do not (this is true even if they have no such arguments: most do not retreat to arguing from family history). So perhaps the skeptic can make a synthesis: “If the only explanation of your belief is geographical and familial history, and you have no rational justification (whether by lack or by defeat) for your belief, then it has no more chances of being true over and against other religions, and one is not justified in holding his religious belief.”

            Is this modified statement, which affects only those who, a) have no rational arguments or evidence to support their beliefs, or b) those whose every argument and line of evidence has been at least significantly undercut so as not to count as justification, actually true? I think not. This is going to be the point of Alvin Plantinga’s reformed epistemology. Basically, the idea is that even if “regular people” don’t have any rational arguments to support their belief that God exists, they can still be justified in doing so. How? Well, if God exists, it is reasonable to think he accounts for belief in God by placing a sense of the divine into every man. Indeed, something very much like this is the testimony of Scripture (cf. Romans 1).

            “Wait a minute!” you exclaim. “You can’t just suppose God exists to show that they are rational!” I’m not quite supposing God exists. What I (and Plantinga) am doing is attempting to show that theists are rationally justified, in the absence of defeaters, in believing God exists. If belief in God is a properly basic belief, which I think it is, then the “man on the street” is perfectly justified in holding them.

            Well, why can’t the adherents of other religions say the same thing? Well, they certainly can! However, we must keep two things in mind. First, there is a major difference between knowing something is true and showing something is true. You don’t have to do the latter in order to enjoy the former. Suppose you believe 2+2=4, and you encounter a person who insists, via a complicated and complex formula and set of reasoning, that 2+2=941.6, on one day per millennium. As it so happens, you need not refute this person in order to know that 2+2=4, and therefore, whatever is contrary to it is false. Now, you would certainly need to interact with that man if you wanted to show that his view was false. So you do not need to refute every other religion before saying you know your religious beliefs are true. Second, properly basic beliefs are subject to defeaters. This is how you can show someone their beliefs are false (or, conversely, be shown that your beliefs are false).

            In either case, it seems this claim will not work against anyone—unless God does not exist. That may be so (though I don’t think it’s even possibly so, but that’s another argument), but it will be those considerations that do the work. Even then, since epistemology is person relative, if the subject does not know those defeaters, then she can still be rationally justified in holding her religious beliefs (until such time as she has a defeater, of course).

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[1] It’s seriously doubtful whether this is ever the only explanation in that this explanation is neither necessary nor sufficient for Christian belief. It’s not a necessary condition in that someone can become a Christian without ever hearing about a “Christian nation” or being in a “Christian family.” It’s also not sufficient in that there are individuals for whom conversion never takes place, despite being born into a Christian family and in a Christian nation.