To Sleep, Perchance To Dream, Aye There's The Rub...

Watch this clip of Professor Dallas Willard at a Veritas Forum and listen carefully to a question he describes as one of the main worldview questions of critical importance. Then watch the next video clip as Professor Alvin Plantinga seeks a way of answering the question. If you are not convinced of the strength of his argument then look at my analogy and then review Professor Plantinga's interview with Robert Kuhn in the light of that analogy.

Here is Robert L. Kuhn interviewing Professor Plantinga in an episode of Closer to Truth:

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING MAY CAUSE BRAIN FIZZ- THE AUTHOR TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR OVERHEATING, STRESS OR ANY RELATED PROBLEMS FROM OVER EXERTION OF THIS ORGAN- ESPECIALLY IF IT HAS NOT BEEN IN REGULAR USE IN RECENT YEARS

The Analogy: The Principle of Possibility in Relation to Identity

What does a mathematics problem have to do with the immortality of the soul? 

Well- ordinarily probably not much, but the other day I was listening to Robert L. Kuhn of Closer to Truth interview Christian Philosopher Alvin Plantinga on the immortality of the soul, and I heard an argument that, first off- like Steven Kuhn- I didn’t really get, or understand. Then I thought again and… yes I understood it, but then… and screwed my nose up, thinking sheesh, that’s a pretty weak argument!

But I was thinking about it yet again and remembered that Robert L. Kuhn had expressed pretty much my own sentiments on hearing it- and Alvin Plantinga, in his own inimitable way, quietly affirmed that actually it’s a pretty solid argument. So I got to thinking about it once more and decided I wanted to try and do two things with it.

·         First I wanted to make it easier to understand, and
·         Second- with that goal in view,   I was looking for an analogous way of looking at it.  I wanted to find an analogy that would make more apparent its strength or lack of strength.

What surprised me was when I looked at it again, using an analogy, I was indeed happily surprised at just how solid a point Plantinga was making.

My first attempt was to use two identical looking pepper pots and about half an hour of my wife’s time and a great deal more of her patience.  My next attempt involved two forks. After some difficulty, mostly due to my impatience, she got the idea but remained fairly unimpressed.

Back to the drawing board.

Then I thought about an analogy using a math’s problem so here goes:

Imagine if you will, that we are about to solve a math’s problem. Inside someone’s head there exists two numbers and the problem we have to solve is: 

• Are both numbers identical? Are they both the same? We don’t have to find out what the actual numbers are, only if they are the same.

The difficulty is, we just can’t ask directly if they are, so we have to design some questions to ascertain if they’re identical. Well as with any problem, you have to have something to go on, what could we ask about these numbers?

·         The first question: Is it possible to multiply two whole numbers to arrive at one of those numbers? We get the answer: Yes.

An example of this might be 2 x 2=4

·         Second question: Is it possible for the other number to be a product of two whole numbers multiplied together? We get the answer: No

An example of this might be two times what equals five?  (2 x ? =5). There is no whole number that multiplied with another whole number will give the answer 5, or 7 or 11 etc.

So if it's possible for the first number to be arrived at by multiplying two whole numbers, but not possible that the second number be the product of two whole numbers then we deduct the numbers cannot be identical. Note that this follows deductively,  not by inference. For people who have studied the use of logic, deductive reasoning involves certainty, whereas conclusions drawn by inference involve probability.

It isn’t hard to see that the two questions are in fact identical and if you get two different answers to the same question then it’s impossible that the two numbers could be the same. If they were the same then they would have the same possibilities.

Therefore the numbers are not identical. We have solved the problem. The main point to take from our journey into mathematics is the truth about how even a possibility can be used to determine facts, and not merely a postulation, but a hard fact. By determining whether those two numbers had the same possibilities we have determined they are not the same numbers. We have also discovered a principle and it goes like this:

Any two entities which are claimed to be identical, cannot be so, if they do not possess the same potentiality. If they are indeed identical then it follows- of necessity- that they must share identical possibilities.

In other words, if one entity possesses a possibility that the other entity cannot- then it is evident that they cannot be identical to each other. To put it in its historical context the argument in question is called:

Leibniz's law
Logic Philosophy

1. (Philosophy / Logic) the principle that two expressions satisfy exactly the same predicates if and only if they both refer to the same subject
2. (Philosophy / Logic) the weaker principle that if a=b whatever is true of a is true of b
(courtesy The Free Dictionary)

Bearing this in mind we now use this principle to ask the question:

·         Can the mind be explained entirely and completely- without remainder- as a purely physical entity?

We must be quite clear here that this is the claim of people like outspoken atheist, Richard Dawkins, and a host of neuro-scientists and still more who ascribe to metaphysical naturalism. This is the view that all of reality can be comprehended in terms of matter alone. This sense of naturalism attests that spirits, deities, and the supernatural realm are not real and that there is no "purpose" in nature. And along with that is the attendant claim, that in light of the above there cannot exist a soul.

These people claim that the mind is simply and only an extension of the body and is- just as the body is- completely explained in material terms. To these people, the mind is no more than a computer which is a material object, very complicated- but still only a machine that performs amazing functions, but can be fully comprehended as a material object.

We all understand that a book can be completely comprehended as a product involving paper and ink, perhaps leather binding, stitching and glue, and to my mind it seems these people are saying that's all a book is. Well yes, in material terms- but that doesn't explain the book in complete terms at all, does it?And that's not hard to see. Most people agree that if what they claim is true, then consciousness, rationality, free will and many other implications are involved. The materialist view seems to lead inexorably to physical determinism. And this is a nehilistic view of human nature, it is reductionist and ultimately leads to dehumanization.

To sum up briefly then, it is the claim of the materialist that the mind is synonymous with the rest of the body and there is no difference, there are different functions but it is all explained by a materialist view. The mind, in this view is exhaustively explicated as strictly material.

In philosophical materialism the mind is completely explicable by, and has the identical material characteristics to the material characteristics of the rest of the body.

Now let’s apply our principle: Any two entities which are claimed to be identical, cannot be so, if they do not possess the same potentiality.

·         When the body ceases to exist, is there not the possibility that the mind- or some aspect of it- the soul could continue to exist? Yes.
·         Could it be conceded the body has this same potentiality? Does the body have any possibility of continuation once the life has left it. No.

Then according to our principle the mind and the body cannot be explained in equal terms, they are not the same, and the mind therefore is not completely explicable in material terms, and we are free to postulate an immortal soul.

Alvin Plantinga in the interview provides a succinct precise argument for the immortality of the soul but the principle he uses may not seem to be a very robust argument- for those not used to the strict dictates of logic- it does not at first seem such a strong argument. But this same argument when used in mathematics is actally watertight. As it is for maths so it is for the soul.