Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Compelling Reason by C.S. Lewis


My interest in this piece aside from the fact that C.S. Lewis always writes interesting and extremely insightful work is the fact that I am gathering information from various sources in order to validate the work of Cornelius Van Til. Van Til is recognized as formulating a Christian Apologetic. 

The Transcendental argument for God, otherwise known as Presuppositional Apologetics recognizes that people come to various truth claims with a readymade worldview through which all truth claims are interpreted. Therefore a persons epistemological background is seen to play a crucial part in what is recognized as true or not true (or whether "truth" is even a valid category!). It is therefore the presuppositions a person holds that determine how those claims are judged. The high claim of Presuppositional Apologetics is that unless one presupposes the existence of God, no other presupposition can logically account for anything. To put it in a metaphor that Van Til himself observed: 
Van Til developed his own transcendental argument. He maintained that Christian theism is the presupposition of all meaning, all rational significance, all intelligible discourse. Even when someone argues against Christian theism, Van Til said, he presupposes it, for he presupposes that rational argument is possible and that truth can be conveyed through language. The non-Christian, then, in Van Til’s famous illustration, is like a child sitting on her father’s lap, slapping his face. She could not slap him unless he supported her. Similarly, the non-Christian cannot carry out his rebellion against God unless God makes that rebellion possible. Contradicting God assumes an intelligible universe and therefore a theistic one. (From "Transcendental Arguments," for IVP Dictionary of Apologetics.)
Consider this also, I find remarkable kinship to the above passage with the thought of another of Christendoms well known thinkers- C.S. Lewis:
"There is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on."- (C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity)
(I believe it is an important distinction to make clear- that a presupposition does not necessarily entail a conscious assumption of some truth, and in all cases as far as atheists are concerned it is necessarily not a conscious assumption otherwise they would give up immediately all hope of argument, or like the child, accept the fact of their immaturity and inconsistency. Therefore it is the job of the apologist to make the op-posers epistemologically self-aware, that is to say- aware of the fact that even in opening their mouth they are making these assumptions.)


This post and others like it is concerned to point out the validity of this extraordinary claim by pointing to other writers who have seen and logically laid claim to a) either show non-theistic accounts to be using faulty logic or b) where an expert in a particular field has come to admit that from their particular world-view (usually metaphysical naturalism) a certain phenomena is inexplicable.


In the February 2011 issue of New Statesman Raymond Tallis writes:

The republic of letters is in thrall to an unprecedented scientism. The word is out that human consciousness - from the most elementary tingle of sensation to the most sophisticated sense of self - is identical with neural activity in the human brain and that this extraordinary metaphysical discovery is underpinned by the latest findings in neuroscience. Given that the brain is an evolved organ, and, as the evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky said, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, the neural explanation of human consciousness demands a Darwinian interpretation of our behaviour. The differences between human life in the library or the operating theatre and animal life in the jungle or the savannah are more apparent than real: at the most, matters of degree rather than kind.
Indeed "thrall" would have to be an entirely appropriate expression. Thrall- according to Wikipedia- is enchantment, the state of being under a magical spell of obedience, and this indeed would have to describe the effect on individuals who are so enamored with the idea that science is the only source of knowledge that when this same "science" discovered that human consciousness, and intentionality is mere illusion it in fact destroys the rational basis of science. As Dr. William Lane Craig said recently in his notable debate with  Dr. Alex Rosenberg. Physical-ism,  the view that everything without exception can be explained completely in terms of matter, is self refuting. What else could characterize a view that- when taken to its limits- actually ends up not only destroying science but all thinking whatsoever?

I cannot help but feel that what C.S Lewis said (now over sixty years ago) still applies. The idea that human consciousness is completely and as Lewis would say: "without remainder" explicated by the view that it is all just so many neurons reacting to various stimulus caused by electro-chemical reactions is self defeating. If it is true to define consciousness as that which we can fairly reduce to Richard Dawkin's "illuminating" phrase of humanity merely "dancing to our DNA"  then that would equate to the same thing as saying that all of the words and symbols occurring on paper as I tap my typewriter keyboard are simply no more than paper and ink. Analogously, Neuroscience can explain things as far as the paper and ink but not the meaning behind them.


In the following article Lewis attacks the idea of naturalism and its inability to logically account for rational thought:

Compelling Reason By C.S Lewis

An excerpt from: Religion Without Dogma (1946)

It would be impossible to accept naturalism itself if we really and consistently believed naturalism. For naturalism is a system of thought. But for naturalism all thoughts are mere events with irrational causes. It is, to me at any rate, impossible to regard the thoughts which make up naturalism in that way and, at the same time, to regard them as real insight into external reality. Bradley distinguished idea-event from idea-making, but naturalism seems to me committed to regarding ideas simply as events. For meaning is a relation of a wholly new kind, as remote, as mysterious, as opaque to empirical study, as soul itself.
Perhaps this may be even more simply put in another way. Every particular thought (whether it is a judgement of fact or a judgement of value) is always and by all men discounted the moment they believe that it can be explained, without remainder, as the result of irrational causes. Whenever you know what the other man is saying is wholly due to his complexes or to a bit of bone pressing on his brain, you cease to attach any importance to it. But if naturalism were true then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes. Therefore, all thoughts would be equally worthless. Therefore, naturalism is worthless. If it is true, then we can know no truths. It cuts its own throat.
“The validity of rational thought… is the necessary presupposition of all other theorizing.”
I remember once being shown a certain kind of knot which was such that if you added one extra complication to make assurance doubly sure you suddenly found that the whole thing had come undone in your hands and you had only a bit of string. It is like that with naturalism. It goes on claiming territory after territory: first the inorganic, then the lower organisms, then man’s body, then his emotions. But when it takes the final step and we attempt a naturalistic account of thought itself, suddenly the whole thing unravels. The last fatal step has invalidated all the preceding ones: for they were all reasoning and reason itself has been discredited. We must, therefore, either give up thinking altogether or else begin over again from the ground floor.
There is no reason, at this point, to bring in either Christianity or spiritualism. We do not need them to refute naturalism. It refutes itself. Whatever else we may come to believe about the universe, at least we cannot believe naturalism. The validity of rational thought, accepted in an utterly non-naturalistic, transcendental (if you will), supernatural sense, is the necessary presupposition of all other theorizing. There is simply no sense in beginning with a view of the universe and trying to fit the claims of thought in at a later stage. By thinking at all we have claimed that our thoughts are more than mere natural events. All other propositions must be fitted in as best they can round that primary claim.
Holding that science has not refuted the miraculous element in religion, much less that naturalism, rigorously taken, can refute anything except itself, I do not, of course, share Professor Price’s anxiety to find a religion which can do without what he calls the mythology.



Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941), is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008. (Wikipedia) Dawkins is an outspoken atheist, or more commonly "new atheist" whose world view could be described as philosophical naturalism.

Philosophical naturalism is characterized by the view that the observable universe is all there is, and that as the result of methodological naturalism the scientific method is the only way to arrive at truth, some however will concede that there are other ways of knowing. They reject the idea of the supernatural altogether and are also atheists.

In the light of the above by C.S. Lewis regarding the validity of rational thought as a basic presupposition for all thinking- consider the following which is a quote from Richard Dawkins' (River Out Of Eden, p.133):
 In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.
"DNA just is. And we dance to its music."  
 The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.
In John C. Lennox's book, "Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are missing the target" he quotes Alvin Plantinga, widely recognized as one of Christianity's foremost philosophical authorities. He is an American analytic philosopher and the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics.  Plantinga is a Christian and known for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend orthodox Christian beliefs (Wikipedia):
Plantinga: If Dawkins is right that we are the product of mindless unguided natural processes, then he has given us strong reason to doubt the reliability of human cognitive faculties and therefore inevitably to doubt the validity of any belief that they produce- including Dawkins' own science and his atheism.
"If Dawkins is right... he has given us strong reason to doubt...the validity of any belief...including [his] own..." 
 His biology and his belief in naturalism would therefore appear to be at war with each other in a conflict that has nothing at all to do with God.
It is evident then that Dawkins' statement above is self defeating. If  "human cognitive faculties" (ie. our ways of knowing, or rationality) are unreliable then he undermines his own theories, we must hold them also- as a natural consequence of his postulations- as not having any bearing or relationship to what is true. All by himself then he has managed to cut off the branch upon which he is sitting. But and just as important to notice is the necessary consequence of- as G.K. Chesterton would say- undermining his own mines, that is to say look at this post for his inconsistency, as Klaus Nurnberger points out in his book- Richard Dawkins' God Delusion: A Repentant Refutation.

John Lennox: That is atheism undermines the very rationality that is needed to construct or understand  or believe in any kind of argument whatsoever- let alone a scientific one. Atheism is ultimately but one great self-contradictory delusion. (Gunning for God p.54)



Michael H. Warren Jr. :“Human irrationalism and evil are the difficult things to explain in the Christian worldview, but the Christian can live with such mysteries because the only alternative is to renounce all meaning, [and] to begin with atheism’s ultimate irrationalism. “Good,” “evil,” “reality,” “illusion,” and every other human word would be meaningless if atheism were true and the world were ultimately meaningless."
"error and imperfection in the world require a perfect, absolute God...mathematics, ethics, logic or science, would be meaningless without a perfect, absolutely rational standard by which to identify occurrences of imperfection"
"The atheist believes that error and imperfection in the world imply the non-existence of a perfect, absolute God. Rather, error and imperfection in the world require a perfect, absolute God, because such concepts as “error” and “imperfection,” whether in the fields of mathematics, ethics, logic or science, would be meaningless without a perfect, absolutely rational standard by which to identify occurrences of imperfection, and without an ultimately rational structure to the world which allows concepts, whether positive or negative, to be applied, whether rightly or wrongly, to the changing realm of human experience. If God did not exist, it is not merely personal, psychological feelings of having a meaningful life that would suffer, but rational meaning would suffer.”

In the following link to another post, the irony of "intellectual progress" rather than setting us free through the truth, has, if we are to follow the likes of Dawkin's, narrowed down what it means to be human through successive layers of determinism. For further thoughts of Lewis and Richard Tarnas go to the post "The Irony of Modern Intellectual Progress"

In the following short video clip we see the result of the assumption that we are no more than our brains, if all that we are, that is- our consciousness- can be fully explained in material terms, then, like all matter, we are determined, but note- it all depends on whether we are indeed just so much matter. The gentleman chewing M&M's certainly assumed we are.

Are we strictly and absolutely material beings? Or, is it as C. S. Lewis said, (well he probably got it from George McDonald): "You are a soul with a body". If he meant anything by this surely he (they) meant that we were more than matter. Note too the assumption of the thing called "chance".

Notice that this video clip is based on two overarching assumptions about reality:

i) That all there is, can be fully explained in material terms, (therefore God, does not exist), this view of reality is called philosophical naturalism.

ii) That we live in a Universe of Chance (despite the glaring fact that he admits all effects are preceded by causes and therefore are determined at least up until the sub-atomic level) This assumption is in direct contrast to a Universe of intelligent design.

How are those assumptions proved? They are not, they are simply assumed.




Monday, April 26, 2010

The Dirty Little Secret of Scientism - The Problem of Induction




How confident are you that science has the overall best handle on reality? Truly today’s technologically advanced world is a testament to the astounding success of the scientific method. Would it surprise you to know that the scientific method cannot logically account for its success? Would it be even more surprising that in all its abilities to formulate the Laws of Nature, faith is involved at every step?

“Proof” is for mathematical theorems and alcoholic beverages, not for science. Michael Mann

The scientist Michael Mann was severely criticized by a disillusioned scientist who was led to believe: 

"When I was going to school to earn my degree in chemistry, we were taught that science was indeed all about absolute truth and proofs at the end of the day.” If they really taught him that then he should ask for his money back, because this is an appalling misrepresentation of science. In fact it’s one of the horrible, but commonplace, misconceptions that real scientists have to work hard to correct. (quoted from Open Mind: Science, Politics, Life, the Universe, and Everything)

In the ongoing ideological battle to win minds the strident new atheists (or perhaps more properly the new anti-theists) continually push the supposed divide between faith and science. Science is reality, faith is the fairy tale, so we are told. Science deals with facts and logic, faith deals with fancy and feeling at best and is irrational at worst or unscientific. People of faith do not justify their beliefs they just blindly believe the script. This is how faith is caricatured. Science is the salvation of our time so we are asked to believe, religion is what holds us back, and religion is a disease. Science is the way to find truth and reality and whatever science doesn’t prove, isn’t real. Faith is a leap in the dark. Religion argues in circles and science takes one logical step at a time to build a watertight case- apparently!


But is that the reality?

The influential atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell went as far as to say: 'what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.'  But the problem with that is- it is not a scientific statement!  It is in fact a bald statement of faith in favour of science as the only authoritative source of knowledge.

Speaking on this public perception of the cultural divide between faith and science Oxford Professor of Mathematics, John Lennox asks the question:


'What about science? [Does faith have any part in science? ] Well science proceeds on the basis of the belief [faith] that the Universe is rationally intelligible....Paul Davis, a brilliant physicist at ASU says "that the right scientific attitude" now listen to this, Paul Davis is not a theist- "the right scientific attitude is essentially theological, science can only proceed if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith the existence of a law-like order in nature that is, at least in part, comprehensible to us." Einstein, no less, said: "I cannot imagine a scientist without that profound faith" note the word ' Professor John Lennox. For further exploration of this subject watch the video John Lennox at University of California, Berkeley.
What follows is an explanation that moves from a generality (that science involves faith) to a particular instance of it- The famous problem of Induction. In short that science everywhere proceeds on the basis of faith in the uniformity of nature.

In a more recent lecture on the implications of worldview on such questions of God, Medicine, Ebola and Islam, Dr Nabeel Qureshi quotes Samir Okasha lecturer of philosophy at the University of York in England on the issue of induction with regard to the idea of proof in the scientific method:

“The word “proof” should strictly only be used when we’re dealing with deductive inferences, in this strict sense of the word, scientific hypotheses can rarely- if ever- be proven true by the data.’Samir Okasha

We see then that this so-called huge gap between the claims of science and the claims of Christianity are immediately diminished at the realization that essentially the claims that science represents reality in absolute terms whereas the truths of Christianity are subjective leaps in the dark are unfounded at least, and downright deceptive at worst.  This perception is in fact the result of a lot of public relations on behalf of science to keep the scientific community in the pole position, to keep them as the Big Apple in the public eye. This also serves the purpose of the bulk of scientists whose prior commitment is invested in the faith of philosophical naturalism, and have an axe to grind. Namely to keep religion out of the public square and relegated to popular urban mythology rather than a real voice for truth. The reality is that science itself, (or rather scientists, since science makes no such claims) ought not to claim the "proof" word as its exclusive proprietary right. But rather should humbly acknowledge that scientists too are compelled to stand in awe of the verity that all human endeavours to know reality are (by design) limited to statements of faith to some degree. No one has ever claimed to have "proof" of the non existence of God and yet the bulk of scientists believe that the material Universe is all there is. That is a faith based philosophical position.

 Laurence Carlin, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA, writes the following work. He has written a book tracing the history and philosophies of the leading early empiricists, from which our scientific method has derived.

But first: What is epiricism? Why do we need to understand this in relation to the so called science/faith conflict?


Empiricism is the theory that the origin of all knowledge is sense experience. It emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, and argues that the only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori (i.e. based on experience). www.philosophybasics.com/branch_empiricism.html
Right off- notice that the word theory is used. This means that- to at least some extent- faith is involved. It means that at least to some degree the actual evidence for belief in empiricism has been extrapolated, and interpreted in a certain way. Faith is involved. No matter what the raw factual data gives- it always involves an interpretation- a reading into the data.

It is from the work of the early empiricists philosophers that the modern scientific method has been distilled. But what follows is a summary of the critique that people like atheists Bertrand Russell and David Hume (neither of whom were sympathetic to the religious world view) recognized very early on  which were inherent weaknesses in the empiricists faith.



In this particular place Carlin documents the circular reasoning in the famous “Problem of Induction” that David Hume discovered in the development of a philosophy of science some two hundred or so years ago.

THE EMPIRICISTS: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED by Professor Laurence Carlin


DAVID HUME (1711-1776)


When we draw conclusions about the future on the basis of the past, we do so, Hume argued, on the basis of the causal relations we have experienced in the past. We believe that fire will continue to cause heat in the future, and billiard balls in motion will continue to be causally effective in the future, because such causal connections have been found to obtain in the past. That is, we reason using induction, the very sort of reasoning recommended by Bacon (cf. Chapter 2, Section 2.2.2) and adopted by subsequent natural philosophers. Recall that in an inductive argument one draws a conclusion about something unobserved on the basis of things observed in the past. So, according to Hume, when we reason that future causal regularities will be like past causal regularities, we reason thus:


(1) I have found that such an object (e.g. impact of billiard ball in motion; fire) has always been attended with such an effect (e.g. impacted billiard ball in motion; heat).


(2) Hence, similar objects (e.g. future impacts of billiard in motion; future fires) will be attended with similar effects (e.g. impacted billiard ball in motion; heat).


But clearly the argument is not logically valid. That is, the conclusion (2) does not follow from the premise (1); it does not logically follow that just because these things occurred in the past that they will occur in the future. Premise (1) does not provide support for conclusion (2).


To see this, note that the conclusion follows only if we add another premise (1.5):


(1) I have found that such an object (e.g. impact of billiard in motion; fire) has always been attended with such an effect (e.g. impacted billiard ball in motion; heat).


(1.5) The future will be like the past.


(2) Hence similar objects (e.g. future impacts of billiard ball in motion; future fires) will be attended with similar effects.


If we add (1.5) to our argument, then the argument is sound, and we get the conclusion (2). that these things will occur in the future. Indeed, the person who reasons about the future on the basis of the past must be tacitly assuming the future will be like the past. Let us call the proposition that the future will be like the past (expressed in (1.5)) the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature, or PUN.


But the problem is that adding PUN to our reasoning is no solution at all, for the only argument available for PUN is of the same form as the argument above; it too is an inductive argument. In other words, the only argument available for PUN is the following inductive argument:


(1)I have experienced many pairs of events (causes and effect) that have been constantly conjoined in the past.


(2)Each time I found that similar pairs of events (causes and effects) were constantly conjoined in the future.


(3) Therefore, the future will be like the past. (i.e. PUN is true.)


This argument also is an inductive argument, for it too draws a conclusion about the future on the basis of past experience. But any argument that proceeds inductively suffers from the same problem: it tacitly assumes PUN. Indeed, it is unsound unless we add PUN as a premise. In this case, adding PUN as a premise yields the following:


(1)I have experienced many pairs of events (causes and effect) that have been constantly conjoined in the past.


(2) Each time I found that similar pairs of events (cause effect) were constantly conjoined in the future.


(2.5) The future will be like the past.


(3) Therefore, the future will be like the past. (i.e. PUN is true.)


Clearly, this is a viciously circular argument, for the conclusion appears as one of the premises, and it violates logic for the conclusion to be identical to one of the premises. But only if we add the stipulation that the future will be like the past can we ever justify a belief about the future on the basis of past experience. Thus, we are caught in a circle, and Hume was the first to see it:


'We have said, that all arguments concerning existence [i.e. matters of fact] are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and that all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition, that the future will be conformable to the past [i.e.PUN]. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of this last supposition… must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question.' (Enquiryc §4,part 2)


This is the famous problem of induction.


Two points must be emphasized before moving on. First, one might think that as long as we believe the laws of nature are fixed for the future, we are justified in believing that future causal relations will be like past ones. But this will not work, because we can simply ask the question: what is the justification for believing that the laws of nature will obtain in the future? The only answer is to appeal to past experience. But if we do that, we are again caught up in the problem of induction since we are drawing a conclusion about the future on the basis of past experience. In short, the problem of induction applies to the laws of nature as well.

Hume’s analysis of induction has shown that induction is not rational, that our knowledge and expectations about the future are not based on the use of reason or logical argument.




It is astounding when one considers that the entire legacy of science, including all of its interpretations of the laws of nature upon which it hinges and is built- and upon which it relies trusting implicitly in the relations of cause and effect, the uniformity of nature- has at its basic premise an assumption more wedded to faith than it is divorced from logic and reason.



"Einstein once said, 'The scientist is possessed of a sense of infinite causation.' If there is a religion in science, this statement can be regarded as its principal article of faith." Robert Jastrow, NASA scientist.


Professor Carlin finishes his book with these comments: Hume's empiricism is at once revolutionary and a natural result of what came before him. Newton struggled to give an explanation of gravity... and Berkeley pointed out that our perceptions give us no idea of power or force...While Newton seems to have remained agnostic to the status of force, Berkeley was committed to God being the only causally active agent in the world.


Hume's work naturally follows this development. His commitment to empiricism led him to refrain from all discussion of whether there was an external world of bodies as Newton believed, and it also led him to agree with Berkeley that the contents of our perceptions reveal no impression of power, force, or necessary connection. But Hume was also a religious sceptic, and so was not prepared to posit God as the source of worldly power.


But even though Hume's work is in some ways a natural development of the empiricist movement, it is also revolutionary. His analysis of the notions of causation and necessary connection and their relation to the problem of induction was an unprecedented insight of perennial importance and a testimony to his genius. It had a tremendous impact on subsequent philosophy and discussions of causation and the rational grounds of induction continue to this day. Strict classical empiricism is usually seen as ending with Hume precisely because he took classical empiricism to its logical conclusion, a conclusion that forced subsequent thinkers to reconsider some of their most basic beliefs about the natural world.



In concert with Hume, the renowned atheist Bertrand Russell's work in logic (upon which science prides itself), led to this remark- 
“Past observation cannot lay a rational foundation for future expectation” 
Bertrand Russell on the uniformity of nature.

There is no doubt these thinkers paved the way for modern science, removing the stagnation that was the cumulative result of the stranglehold Aristotelianism had held on the world till then. The positive results are all around us, and yet...The problem of induction has not gone away. On the one hand there is all the success of science, but on the other is its inability to overcome the problem of induction and therefore account for its success in an unbroken chain of logic. It is patently clear that the empirical scientific method- relying as it does on rigorous observation, measurement and record-keeping- cannot come up with an explanation of the laws of logic which are tacitly assumed by it. 

In a recent popular documentary entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, narrator Ben Stein exposes a very unscientific bias against intelligent design proponents. In a lead-up to the post above I have gone to the trouble of bringing another perspective in Part One- Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed where we can listen to Christian philosopher Willard Price challenge students about the danger of an authoritarian grip on academia which refuses to even allow free inquiry and discourages a healthy skepticism of the status quo, for example unguided evolution. Why is this? What are they afraid of?

In the documentary Ben Stein, among many others, interviewed Dr. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education and asked:
"...what was so bad about intelligent design?"
She issued this challenge:
"If they have a way of understanding nature that's superior to the one that we all are making lots of discoveries using- Great, bring it on."  

We appear then to have world views which are indubitably engaged in circular reasoning, both Christianity (which assumes the existence of God from the Bible which is not only His Word but also is a collection of documents from history)- and Scientism (the view that science alone is the only valid ground for reality) or Philosophical Naturalism ( the view which says nature is all there is) are suffering from a lapse in logical argument. While at first glance this may seem to be a mutual standoff this is not the case. For the naturalist exemplified today in Richard Dawkins there is no way out of this dilemma. No way out, that is, unless he concedes the Christian position.

For a fascinating interview of David Berlinski that I have included in a review of his book- The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions follow this link. The secret is out, this world, under the scrutiny of different disciplines- is more and more looking like it's a setup!


For the Christian theist his world-view answers the circular dilemma because his world-view encompasses and can account for the circular argument of both views in a reasonable way. Science (from the perspective of one who holds the view of philosophical naturalism) does not only fail to provide a rational account for the laws of nature but is unable even to give a cogent reason for its singular success in the material world in its inability to explain logically why the laws of non-contradiction exist. On the contrary the Christian world-view provides cogent answers for both the origin of the material universe and the abstract principles and concepts of natural laws, laws of reason and  mathematics along with ethical precepts.


Hume's theistic scepticism is well known, what is perhaps surprising is that his elucidation of the problem of induction would become something of an ally to the cause of theism!

The following video is a precis of the Induction Problem as outlined by Jerry Johnson of Against the World.






In the following discussion Stephen Meyer speaks with R. C. Sproul about the mistaken notion of Christianity being at odds with science.