naturalism assumes an order of nature, without which it wouldn't be able to get started. But it doesn't explain the order of nature - nor does it need to. — Wayfarer

The order in nature is observed, not merely assumed. Both metaphysical systems should explain it. Naturalism best explains it as law realism: there is order, because there are laws of nature that necessitate it; and laws of nature are relations between universals.

If theism explains order by assuming an omnipotent intelligence just happens to exist that chooses to establish order, that entails a rather enormous assumption.

Declaring it a sign of poor character, to engage in critical thinking when it comes to one's religion, — wonderer1

I actually don't think ' absolute prohibition on asking for signs is Biblically tenable. In the Bible asking for a sign is one of those things that can be done well or poorly, and the opposite error of religious credulity manifests in many stories as well.

Aquinas explicitly argues that miracles are the rational means for establishing the credibility of supernatural claims:

...Wherefore just as man led by his natural reason is able to arrive at some knowledge of God through His natural effects, so is he brought to a certain degree of supernatural knowledge of the objects of faith by certain supernatural effects which are called miracles. — Aquinas ST II-II.178.1

I actually don't think ↪Count Timothy von Icarus' absolute prohibition on asking for signs is Biblically tenable.

Yes, this is absolutely true, I did not mean to imply otherwise; there is nuance here. I was thinking of Gideon in particular and Jesus' words about the value of signs in John. The nature of the asking matters.

I agree. It is a straw man that Janus is arguing against (most of the time). — Bob Ross

Yes, and it is also a form of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Apparently Janus thinks that 98% of religious believers are hopelessly mistaken when they use the word "God," because on Janus' premise anyone who believes they know something about "God" is not actually talking about God. This is a word game, and obviously Oppy was not directing his argument to some invisible 2% of "true believers."

The problem I have with this example, and most like it, is that I don’t think it demonstrates, even if the events were all granted as having occurred, justification for believing in God’s existence (even if just for that particular subject in the example) because the tests are wholly incapable of verifying the claim. — Bob Ross

Pay more attention to the claim that is being verified. It is not that God exists. It is that God is with Gideon, and will be with him in battle. The OP is not fundamentally about God's existence; it is about any event that provides good reason to posit a supernatural cause. So Oppy would apparently say that, in Gideon's case, naturalism provides the more "parsimonious" account for what occurred.

So the question here is, "Does Gideon possess rational justification for his conclusion that he is dealing with God?" That's not rhetorical. You need to actually answer it.

Let me give you a much easier example of what I mean (that I believe we can both agree on): let’s say I am holding something in my hand, and you say “that’s a banana”. Now, let’s say I do not know if it is a banana or not, and so I respond “if what you say is true, then do five jumping jacks...if you can do five jumping jacks, then I know what you say is the truth”. Lo and behold, you drop down and do five jumping jacks: am I justified in believing that the object in my hand is a banana? Of course not! Why? — Bob Ross

Because your test/sign was incredibly stupid, that's why. The ability to do five jumping jacks has no power to justify the claim in question.

This is an interesting thought. — Bob Ross

Let me make this easier for you. If you were Ahaz in Isaiah 7 (or Gideon), is there some sign you could think of, some test, that would prove to you that you are dealing with something other than natural occurrences?

---

<- this post branches in too many directions. If you like, pick one of the many topics and I will reply.

Yes, this is absolutely true, I did not mean to imply otherwise; there is nuance here. I was thinking of Gideon in particular and Jesus' words about the value of signs in John. The nature of the asking matters. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, I agree with that. And what I am interested in is the basic rational idea—apart from moral considerations—that if someone claims to be supernatural or divine, then their ability to do supernatural things will tend to justify their claim.

That people might say they know something about God does not entail that they actually know anything about God. They would need to be able to explain how they came to know things about a purportedly immaterial, infinite entity. — Janus

The same way a child draws conclusions about the unfathomable abilities and acts of their parent:

Or has been told by the parents that they fixed the bike, this time and every other time that it needed repair. — Janus

And why wouldn't that method also apply to God? — Leontiskos

We've already been over this. Parents are observable entities, god is not. It's a weak analogy.

- Someone who has interacted with God on a number of occasions is similarly situated to the child. Your objection here is that one cannot have knowledge of that which transcends them (), and the objection fails in a very strong way, as being logically invalid.

I would again invite you to present an actual argument for your claim, preferably with formal logic. If you try to flesh out your reasoning I believe the invalidity will become more apparent to you.

- Someone who has interacted with God on a number of occasions is similarly situated to the child. — Leontiskos

1. Do you believe yourself to be somone who has interacted with God on a number of occasions?

2. If so, are you willing to talk about how you came to that conclusion?

1. Do you believe yourself to be somone who has interacted with God on a number of occasions? — wonderer1

Sure.

2. If so, are you willing to talk about how you came to that conclusion? — wonderer1

A third-person example has already been provided: link. Feel free to address it.

(I won't "make it personal," no. That is a terrible approach in general, especially when it comes to contentious religious debates.)


But I'm glad you didn't say, "God doesn't exist," because that would have been begging the question, and it would have followed the sort of lack-of-reasoning that has characterized this thread. For example, <You can't interact with God, therefore you can't interact with God>. The pro-OP side is in need of some actual arguments and syllogisms to support their claims.

IIRC Maimonides puts forth a sort of radical negation of this sort, in that things simply cannot be predicated of God. However, Maimonides still allows that God can be known as cause, and of course God can be known via revelation. So, it's a somewhat similar idea, but I think it hangs together better because people experiencing miracles have warrant for their beliefs, it's just that their finite predicates have no grip on the infinite.

However, St. Denis and the tradition following him, particularly St. Aquinas believe they have a way out of this. Yes, all our predicates of God are equivocal, but they are ordered equivocal statements. It's not the same as "plane" and "plain," where the two terms just arbitrarily sound the same with no relation.

In The Meanings of Truth: Disputed Questions on the Truth, Thomas gives this example: take a the predicate of being "healthy." This applies to living things. A living being can be more or less healthy, and to talk of a man's health is a univocal predication. However, we also call certain foods, say lentils, "healthy." This is not an univocal predication. Lentils are healthy because they promote health. Likewise, taking medicine is "healthy." But the predication here is derivative of the healthiness of the organism, ordered equivocation.

Likewise, God's goodness, God's steadfast mercy, etc. are not the human versions of these predicates, but they are also not unrelated to them. So, for St. Denis and those following him, God can be known as cause, excess (above all predicates), and then negation (negating the human mode of the predicate). Maimonides is more dower on this.

So, this might not apply to all of your argument, which seems to be about knowing in general, but it gets at one horn (the one I find more serious), the ability to predicate things of God. I think the knowing can be addressed empirically, through religious experience, through how a thing is know through its causes, etc.

There is also metaphor, which St. Denis says is in many ways superior in most cases. When we do analogous predication, it is easy to mess up and confuse the mode of human wisdom with the wisdom being predicated of God. But when we say things like "God is an everflowing stream," or "God is a rock," we do not mistake God for these things.

A third-person example has already been provided: link. Feel free to address it. — Leontiskos

I'm afraid your third person example is hear say.

(I won't "make it personal," no. That is a terrible approach in general, especially when it comes to contentious religious debates.) — Leontiskos

The thing is, I used to be a believer and believed I had experiences of God. What I considered at that time to be good reasons for such beliefs didn't stand up to scrutiny. Furthermore, when I've asked people who claim to have had experiences of God, to explain what they interpreted as experiences of God, they tend to respond as you have.

I can relate to being uncomfortable sharing that sort of thing, because even when I believed I had had experiences of God, I knew in the back of my mind that I really couldn't justify those beliefs in the face of critical thinking being applied to them.

So I'll leave it to the back of your mind, to let you know whether your reasons for believing that you have had experiences of God really stand up to scrutiny.

- It seems to me that the simpler answer is to just note the fact that only the tiniest percentage of religious people have stressed an apophatic approach to such an extent that the cataphatic approach is entirely excluded. Therefore the claim that, "God can only be thought of as a wholly unknowable entity," is false on its face. Neither Maimonides, Aquinas, or even Eckhart believed such a thing. Such strange, contentious claims surely require justification.

I can relate to being uncomfortable sharing that sort of thing, because even when I believed I had had experiences of God, I knew in the back of my mind that I really couldn't justify those beliefs in the face of critical thinking being applied to them.

So I'll leave it to the back of your mind, to let you know whether your reasons for believing that you have had experiences of God really stand up to scrutiny. — wonderer1

...but just read this back to yourself. You're a troll, and what you're doing here is trolling, and we know you're a troll, and we know that there is no good reason to throw pearls before trolls. ...but apparently to your mind the religious are simply afraid of subjecting their personal inferences to your superior rational skills, lol.

I would suggest retiring from trolling, at least on a philosophy website. Instead you could take up the practice of philosophical argument and addressing things from a third person perspective.

...but just read this back to yourself. You're a troll, and what you're doing here is trolling, and we know you're a troll, and we know that there is no good reason to throw pearls before trolls. ...but apparently to your mind the religious are simply afraid of subjecting their personal inferences to your superior rational skills, lol. — Leontiskos

Yeah, hostile reactions like that are pretty typical.

While Hick is far and away more coherent than anything that is occurring in this thread, I would still argue that he represents little more than an academic fad in philosophy of religion. A little over a decade ago I took a graduate seminar on interreligious dialogue, and even at that time Hick was already but a footnote in the history of that field. When we did the historical overview each student was assigned one or two figures to research and present on, and I was assigned Hick along with Paul Knitter.

Thomas Nagel's The Last Word includes no chapter on religion proper, but if it did Hick would be the subject of that chapter. — Leontiskos

Well, glad to have come across someone who actually knows who John Hick is. (And Paul Knitter.) But I don't necessarily agree that he's guilty of the kind of relativism that Nagel critiques. I would have thought in our pluralistic world that a philosophical framework which allows for many divergent perspectives would be something of value. Many here regularly say that, as all religions claim to have the absolute truth, and they all disagree with one another, then in effect that cancels out the entire subject matter (not in those exact words, but it's a frequently-expressed sentiment.) I rather like the expansive view of John Hick (and Huston Smith and Karen Armstrong, to mention a couple of other names.)

That's not to say I subscribe to the kind of 'many paths up the mountain' approach, either. I think there are genuine and profound distinctions to be made between different religious philosophies. But then, there are also genuine and profound distinctions between different cultures, but they're still human cultures. But, we're called upon at some point to make a decision as to which we belong in, I guess.

Naturalism best explains it as law realism: there is order, because there are laws of nature that necessitate it; and laws of nature are relations between universals. — Relativist

Interesting you mention universals, they are not spoken of much in most contemporary discourse about naturalism. What's your view of their role?

Plenty of other places seem plenty in favor of critical thinking. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One of the characteristic views of today's atheism is that all faith is blind faith, that faith can only ever amount to 'belief without evidence'. There might be a recognition as faith is important to some, then respect is accorded to it on the basis of freedom of conscience, but that is implicitly relativising, reducing its grounds to the purely personal or subjective. And furthermore that secular culture has no criteria for discriminating between the truth value of, say, Scientology, and the Orthodox Church.

But many great figures in religious history wrestle mightily with doubt. I remember reading that Mother Teresa, a favourite target of Christopher Hitchens, was tormented by the possibility that her faith might be in vain. There are many other examples to be found. Not every religious believer is a complacent fundamentalist.

Don't worry about it, have it you own way...I think you are simply wrong and I've given reasons why I think so...but I have no confidence that you will admit it, so I don't want to expend any more time and effort.

I agree. Like I said, there would seem to be two horns here, the evidential and the ability to apply predicates to God. I do not see the evidential as much of a problem. We can have only grasped a finite number of natural numbers in with our intellect and yet we still have evidence that they are infinite. We don't have to have ever seen an uncomputable number to believe in such a thing, etc. The finite points to the infinite.

There is a problem of plurality here too. Many people claim to have knowledge of the divine, but they often disagree, so there is a question as to what is truly known. But of course, they often agree on many points.

The question then is if a plurality of exclusive viewpoints entails the impossibility of knowledge. I would say it clearly doesn't. At one point people had a great many theories about the shape of the Earth, the nature of the sun, the origins of species, etc. Plurality here did not entail unknowability. And knowledge can exist in the context of plurality. It would be silly to say we know nothing about quantum foundations just because there are like 9 major competing theories in this area. It is also possible that one among these theories is true, or more true than all the others, even if this can't be demonstrated. Otherwise, we'd have to say that truth doesn't exist before demonstration and consensus.

I am assuming you mean objective purpose, and I think a naturalist could just say there is a purpose embedded into the evolution of nature: a law, or set of laws, that provides Telos overtime. No need to add God into the equation. — Bob Ross

I am confused when you use the term "embedded" in this context. Is the law you refer to a part of nature or is it outside of nature? If it is a part of nature, how does it order nature?

Relativist, same question.

It depends on how you define parsimony. How many "brute facts," does naturalism require? The jury is out on that. Seemingly, it might be quite a lot.

I think it would be both epistemically and ontologically parsimonious to posit naturalism than supernaturalism, if there is no need to posit supernatural entities because we start out with nature.

I am not sure that I see the real difference between ontological and epistemic parsimony; because the explanation is what posits the ontology.

So you end up with a lot of things that have no reason for being, they just are, irreducibly. Just from the Fine Tuning Problem, you would seem to have quite a few.

An explanation where God creates the world to have life only has to posit one such fact that "is its own reason."

The idea is that one who posits God to explain life, has to posit all the same conceptual entities as a naturalist and add in an extra conceptual entity of God. So unless there is some need to posit God, it is less parsimonious.

If parsimony is considered from the point of view of explanation, it doesn't seem possible to beat theism. The answer "from whence comes..." always has one ultimate answer.

An explanation is not more parsimonious when it posits monism over pluralism IF it posits extraneous entities to get to monism.

But from the perspective of ontological entities, I would agree that the argument holds in favor of naturalism.

I think, perhaps, you hold a distinction between epistemic and ontological parsimony that I am not fully appreciating.

I think I may be being a bit too liberal in my assessment of naturalism: I am starting off, conceptually, too entrenched in naturalism to fully appreciate supernaturalism.

I think that if there were phenomena which reasonably could not be explained with our knowledge of the natural order, in the sense that it was consistently violating the laws of nature and there was no good naturalistic explanation, then that would, prima facie, all else being equal, count in favor of supernaturalism. I think I have to concede that, in order not to beg the question.

However, I think that the reason I am so inclined to view phenomena in the light of naturalistic events, and thusly say things like "violations of the laws of nature are really violations of our understanding of the laws of nature", is because there is (at least to me) overwhelming evidence that everything is a part of nature; and so I am inclined to stick with that hypothesis.

Take miracles, for example. I think most people, even theists, agree that the vast majority of them are nonsense: it is usually only a small minority of purported miracles that a theist believes are legit. That minority of miracles, I think are better explained like the rest: fallacious/misunderstandings. This seems more parsimonious, because I can not only fit the data nicely into the theory but I do not have to posit an extra entity (or entities) that are above nature.

Another noteworthy point on miracles, is that, given our understanding of nature (and how mystical it really is--e.g., quantum physics, general/special relativity, etc.), it isn't implausible that an extradimensional being (or one with representative faculties capable of representing not in time or space) may exist and still be a part of the natural processes of nature. It seems like one could still, even if one does not want to posit that minority of miracles as misunderstandings, more parsimoniously posit a natural, extra-dimensional being over a supernatural one. Making is supernatural just seems very extraneous.

@Leontiskos:

"Does Gideon possess rational justification for his conclusion that he is dealing with God?" That's not rhetorical. You need to actually answer it.

I already answered this in depth in my response: you just ignored it. No, I don't think Gideon possessed rational justification for believing God was helping him.

If you were Ahaz in Isaiah 7 (or Gideon), is there some sign you could think of, some test, that would prove to you that you are dealing with something other than natural occurrences?

With respect to having rational justification for believing in a supernatural entity in general, I would say no. Back then, we had very limited understanding of nature. Any test I would have been able to, plausibly, come up with, just like Gideon, would most likely be in vain: this is the same reasoning that every civilization has had for believing in their own gods (e.g., if <this-god> exists, then it will rain tomorrow and, what do you know, it rained!) and it is by-at-large very faulty reasoning indeed. However, iin principle, if there was some phenomena that could not be adequately explained naturalistically and has much positive support for it (viz., it is not enough to just posit, as a gap-like explanation, that it is supernatural because we have not explained it naturalistically; instead, the positing of something supernatural must be supported by sufficient evidence of the laws of nature and how the phenomena seemed to have truly violated those laws), then yes.

With respect to God, I already mentioned, which you ignored, the fact that there is absolutely no test that can demonstrate "God exists": not even in a non-scientific sense of the term "test". There is always a lesser being to God that would be more parsimonious for explanation of something else.

A part of nature: in the case of naturalism, it would have to be. The telos would have be a part of how nature functions, as a whole.

A part of nature indeed - however, if these laws are just nature or a part of nature, it is difficult to see how they could order nature. See what I mean?

For instance, if there is a shovel buried in the ground, and I was like, "I need that shovel to dig a hole here" and you said to me "well just use that shovel to dig it out" then I would be puzzled, it cannot be used for the task that we have appointed to it because it is embedded in that which we are trying to apply it to.

I think, perhaps, you hold a distinction between epistemic and ontological parsimony that I am not fully appreciating.

I think I might be able to clarify:

Consider that naturalism still has to explain gods, angels, djinn, genies, etc. Clearly, people think these exist, and so there needs to be a naturalist explanation for these entities, it will just be a different explanation.

Would we then say naturalism cannot be more parsimonious because it still needs to posit every supernatural entity that people conceive of? I don't think so. Naturalism accepts that people think these entities exist, but it will tend to claim that their apparent existence is reducible to something else. If some thing in the world can be fully explained in terms of some other things, then we are able to remove that thing as a sort of ontologically basic entity (making the system more parsimonious).

E.g., people used to think heat was a substance, phlogiston. Now we understand it through a process view rather than as its own entity — one less irreducible substance in our naturalism.

So, you could consider a very parsimonious naturalism where there are just atoms that come in five flavors. Each flavor has its own properties, and they relate to one another differently in different combinations. But here, it seems possible that we might be able to explain everything in terms of just these five things and maybe their relations, leaving us with very few ontologically basic entities.

But current forms of naturalism have a great many "brute facts." The more brute facts you have, the more ontologically basic things you have.

Someone like St. Maximus by contrast has a very parsimonious system because all the multiplicity of the many (logoi for him) are reducible to the Logos. There is an infinite ground (the Father), and the Logos (Son) that divides and incarnates it, and there is the subjectivity of the Spirit. Three things, but begotten and proceeding from a single source (without being reducible to them). Creation just is Logos incarnated, and doesn't have to be a separate thing.

Shankara gets even more parsimonious by having just one thing, although it's questionable if he falls into the excluded middle by having Maya (i.e.,the illusion of multiplicity) be as sort of "actual illusion." Ultimately, all things are reducible to Brahman (maybe requiring dialtheism).

A naturalist might say, "well there is one thing, Nature," but then they have a plausibility problem because "from whence the apparent multiplicity?" remains an open question. Parmenides bites the bullet and avoids the excluded middle by having just one changeless, divisionless thing, ultimate parsimony, at the cost of making implausible statements about the lack of diversity in the world. Naturalism, without recourse to a sort of "higher level" of being to which to reduce things, tends to get stuck with all the brute facts that science leaves it with (less some for some hopeful thoughts about their reduction). But if supernatural explanations are less parsimonious, they may have more evidential problems.

In PI, Wittgenstein talks about how people are convinced to adopt totally different starting positions due to their symmetry and parsimony. We might include beauty here too. If you look at theistic thinkers, this is often part of their explanation. Whether we accept the thought of someone like St. Maximus or Plotinus as plausible or not, they certainly do create very beautiful systems, which seem to lead to their enduring appeal.

Another noteworthy point on miracles, is that, given our understanding of nature (and how mystical it really is--e.g., quantum physics, general/special relativity, etc.), it isn't implausible that an extradimensional being (or one with representative faculties capable of representing not in time or space) may exist and still be a part of the natural processes of nature. It seems like one could still, even if one does not want to posit that minority of miracles as misunderstandings, more parsimoniously posit a natural, extra-dimensional being over a supernatural one. Making is supernatural just seems very extraneous.

Right, the boundaries of nature can stretch quite a bit. Eriugena's conception of "nature" includes God. Or we might place the boundary at the truly infinite and transcedent, in which case such a thing is in a way inaccessible, only known through finite causes.

I think that if there were phenomena which reasonably could not be explained with our knowledge of the natural order, in the sense that it was consistently violating the laws of nature and there was no good naturalistic explanation, then that would, prima facie, all else being equal, count in favor of supernaturalism. I think I have to concede that, in order not to beg the question.

If something routinely violated the laws of nature in a uniform way, we would just posit a new law. If it did so in a random way, we could just conclude that nature is random in some respects. Miracles then seem to be more than simple violations of what we assume to be "natural law" (i.e., Hume's view, which I think is ultimately question begging).

I think what makes a miracle evidence for the supernatural would be that it displays a certain type of intentionality. If a new, bright star appeared in the sky out of nowhere, defying all our theories of star formation, we would not tend to think of this as necessarily miraculous. It would be a confusing new natural phenomena.

If several new stars appeared in the sky spelling out "Allah is the Greatest," we would almost certainly take this as miraculous. To me, the difference seems to be the intentionality and the fact that it seems directed towards us for some purpose.

An argument against such supernaturalism is often that if God could do this, God would want to because then we would believe. I am not so sure about this. Certainly, very many people would initially convert to Islam if those stars appeared, but in the long term I don't think it would make people that much more pious or loving — it would get old, and so less miraculous. Plus, if one God reveals themselves to be real, it is now more plausible that others exist, and so the miracles boost the warrant for seeking alternative aid as well, which a major theme in the Old Testament. Seeing the works of God, the people, not happy with what God says, have more warrant to seek after the help of Baal, Moloch, and co., turn to walking in the ways of Jeroboam, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Interesting you mention universals, they are not spoken of much in most contemporary discourse about naturalism. What's your view of their role? — Wayfarer

David Armstrong's physicalist metaphysics utilizes universals (existing immanently, not in a "third realm") and they're accepted by all law realists. I'm not aware of a more plausible alternative, so I accept them.

Their "role" is ontological. Single properties (and sets of properties) can be instantiated in multiple particulars. e.g. -1 electric charge is a universal, with multiple instantiations. Electron is a universal (a set of properties) instantiated in each individual electron.

I'm aware of Armstrong, that he is author of Materialist Theory of Mind, which has always been anathema to me.

Another noteworthy point on miracles, is that, given our understanding of nature (and how mystical it really is--e.g., quantum physics, general/special relativity, etc.), it isn't implausible that an extradimensional being (or one with representative faculties capable of representing not in time or space) may exist and still be a part of the natural processes of nature. — Bob Ross

'Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only what we know of nature' ~ Augustine.

IIRC Maimonides puts forth a sort of radical negation of this sort, in that things simply cannot be predicated of God. However, Maimonides still allows that God can be known as cause, and of course God can be known via revelation. So, it's a somewhat similar idea, but I think it hangs together better because people experiencing miracles have warrant for their beliefs, it's just that their finite predicates have no grip on the infinite. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would say that all warrants for propositional beliefs (beliefs based on observation or reason) consist in "finite predicates". As I already said, I think individuals' faith-based beliefs, beliefs based on some feelings or experiences, are not rationally justifiable, if 'rationality' here is understood as being in a kind of Kantian sense, "pure reason". On the other hand, in Kantian, and other senses, people may well have practical reasons to hold faith-based beliefs, so I'm not arguing against that.

I would again invite you to present an actual argument for your claim, preferably with formal logic. If you try to flesh out your reasoning I believe the invalidity will become more apparent to you. — Leontiskos

↪Leontiskos Don't worry about it, have it you own way...I think you are simply wrong and I've given reasons why I think so...but I have no confidence that you will admit it, so I don't want to expend any more time and effort. — Janus

I mean, you are making implausible claims and then refusing to provide arguments or reasons for those claims. This is a philosophy forum, last I checked.