Comment on A “Christian Agnostic”? by Sean Pitman.
@ken:
That depends on one’s definition of God. But regarding the biblical iteration of God, I’d say science demonstrates such deity is a human construct without empirical validity.
There you go. If I understand you correctly, you seem to believe that the Biblical God is nothing more than a human construct and that the real God, if he does exist, is no more empirically detectable than any other human construct or view of God – or garden fairies for that matter.
Pardon me for saying so, but when it comes to a belief in the existence of a God that is rationally detectable, you seem to be much more atheistic than agnostic.
In a lot of ways that’s a better position to be in compared to the position of “having no idea.” You have what seem to be very clearly defined ideas regarding the detectable existence of a God or God-like being. You simply don’t believe in such a being at this point in time. Yet, if you one day see evidence for such a being, that you are actually able to understand and appreciate, you seem to be open to changing your mind. That’s good!
Query: why couldn’t God be everything, a matrix of all matter, energy, time manifesting itself in innumerable forms over infinity? That broader, albeit theistic definition, would be more in line with current science than the Hebrew/Christian definition of same. As an agnostic I consider this as a possibility, even without empirical validity.
Something that can be anything and everything is not testable or falsifiable and is therefore not more in line with current science than is the Judeo Christian view of God – a view which is far more subject to testing with the potential of falsification.
If God is ever to be rationally/empirically detectable by us humans, he must present himself in a way that we can recognize as requiring the existence of intelligence and power that cannot readily be distinguished by us from an entity with access to what we would term God-like powers and abilities.
“In other words, your view of God seems to place God in the same category as Santa Claus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.” – Sean Pitman
Nope, because seemingly by their definition they don’t proclaim to be the be the alpha and omega. But I would say that my view of the biblical God would place Him in the same category as the Greek gods, the Hindu gods, the Muslim God, etc. I don’t think there is any empirical basis for any of them based on the defrocking of mythology by science.
We are talking about detectable existence here. What I hear you saying is that you recognize no empirical evidence to support the existence of any entity that you would classify as a God of any kind. In fact, you argue that you recognize no empirical support for any non-human intelligence of any kind – God-like or otherwise. So, when it comes to detectable existence, you do in fact place God in the same category as garden fairies or the Flying Spaghetti Monster – i.e., you see no positive empirical evidence for their existence even though you cannot absolutely prove their non-existence.
I therefore ask you the same question again: Are you agnostic with respect to garden fairies, Santa Claus, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? I’m quite curious to see your response to this classic Dawkins’ retort.
Now, as a man of science think what an empirical stretch it is for you to validate your view of God based on Adventist theology. On what empirical basis can you say that EGW had visions of the truth? The investigative judgment comes to mind. As a scientist, if you can take off your faith hat for just a moment, can there be any empirical basis for such a belief?
It’s the same empirical basis for establishing Biblical credibility – i.e., do those elements that can be tested in a potentially falsifiable manner stand up to testing? Are they consistent with apparent empirical reality? If so, the metaphysical claims of the Bible gain credibility as well. If not, they lose rational/scientific credibility or “predictive value”.
It’s very much in line with establishing the credibility of a witness in a court case. The predictive value of the non-testable or non-verifiable claims of a witness increase or decrease based on if certain testable elements of the testimony of the witness can be shown to be true or false.
So Sean, I put it to you non pejoratively: is your understanding of God more guided by your faith than your science and can you objectively separate the two?
As I’ve tried to explain to you before, it is impossible for anyone, including you, to completely remove personal bias from one’s understanding or interpretation of the available empirical evidence. In fact the very process of science itself requires one to make leaps of faith beyond what can be absolutely or definitively proven. One cannot separate faith from science or give one supremacy over the other since they are intimately intertwined and dependent upon each other – as Dr. Kime has explained much more eloquently than I.
I know you like to fancy yourself as much more objective, not so much blinded by leaps of faith, compared to those who claim to believe in God or those who claim that God doesn’t exist, but you are just fooling yourself. You are no more inherently objective about these things than are the rest of us. Your opinions are just as colored by your past history and experience and mental capabilities as mine are. For me, the best I can do is to admit that I have my own biases and at least be aware of the fact that I am biased as is everyone else.
That’s why everyone needs to make up his or her own mind with regard to the meaning of the evidence as he/she understands it before God. This is also the reason why only God can accurately judge the heart of a person because only God knows what a particular individual really knows and understands.
As far as I can tell though, you’re a good soul. I hope you don’t mind my questions as they are sincere and are not intended to be pejorative or personal in any way. I very much like and even envy your style and hope one day to get together. If you’re ever up in the Redding area, do look me up.
Your friend,
Sean
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Effective atheist, closet creationist, close to classic IDist or creationist?
Are you sure it is my agnosticism that is changing rather than your opinion of what I am?
I didn’t say that you were effectively an atheist. What I said was that your arguments for agnosticism were effectively atheistic. There’s a difference. Your arguments for God’s likely existence are obviously the opposite of atheistic – certainly not agnostic either.
After all, someone who claims to believe that the existence of God is “likely”, because of ultimate origin arguments, doesn’t match most people’s concept of an “agnostic”.
So, please do forgive me if I am still way off base regarding your true position…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
You have transported me from an atheist to a closet creationist in the width of a thread my friend. 🙂 I wonder what you will create me as next?
What have I done? – besides point out that someone who claims that God’s existence is “likely”, based on arguments for ultimate causation requiring a God-like intelligence and creative power, isn’t what most people would call an “agnostic”?
In short, your “agnostic” arguments are the very same ones used by atheists like Dawkins and Hawking and your “God likely exists” arguments are essentially the same ones used by IDists and creationists. How then can I be faulted for suggesting that you’re not really an agnostic or an atheist? While you’re not a classic creationist or IDist by any means, you seem to me to be, at least for now, far closer to such than to pure agnosticism… which is a very hard position to hold, in its pure form, for very long I would think. Certainly Hawking couldn’t do it for long. Eventually one decides, like you, to try to figure out which way the turtles seem to be going…
Of course, you could end up falsifying my hypothesis… 😉
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Now I think Hawkings thinking about our universe has evolved since he wrote Brief History of Time, because he is looking at turtles ( metaverses) a level or two upwards. However Grand Design implies grand designer doesn’t it. Can design ever be mindless?
Yes, Hawking has apparently evolved, or devolved if you prefer, from the position of agnosticism to atheism since he wrote A Brief History of Time.
As far as your question as to if a “design” can be “mindless”, the answer to that question is yes – depending upon what you mean by the term “design”. As far as we can tell, anyway, what appears to be “mindless nature” does in fact have certain creative powers (discussed further below).
Who or what created the matter for the first turtle? Ever seen a turtle appear out of nothing, ex nihilo?
This is exactly the reason why many scientists and philosophers have come to the conclusion that the “first cause”, whatever it may be, had to itself have been eternal. Of course there are those, like Hawking for instance, who argue that something can indeed come from nothing… but that belief certainly isn’t scientific in that it is not testable in a falsifiable manner and has no useful predictive power.
I told you I was intrigued by Intelligent Design and Deism didn’t I? And I still say that creation of the original matter for the original universe out of nothing is not a rational proposition. Why? Because science and mathematics can not explain infinity, first cause or infinite regress. And philosophy doesn’t seem to do much better (Munchhausen Trilemma).
Now you’re sounding like a creationist 😉
Can turlles read? For their sake I’ ll state it again: when the atheists, sceintists or philosphers rationally explain to me how ‘original’ matter and energy, that ultimately led to intelligent life, arose out of the mindless void, then I’ll become an atheist.
Me too! The only difference between you and I is that you are impressed with the unlikely appearance of original matter/energy out of nothing without a pre-existent eternal intelligence, while I am also impressed by the origin of the informational complexity needed to get otherwise random non-directed energy/matter to produce useful stuff. Consider that the origin of useful information is just as problematic for the atheistic mindset as is the origin of basic energy/matter itself (By the way, atoms and basic atomic particles are informationally rich, as are the fined-tuned fundamental constants of the universe).
If a faith construct ever satistifactority answers my questions then I’ll join that religion. (All come up relativistically short so far).
Science itself is a faith construct. You cannot make any conclusions as to the likely nature of empirical reality without taking a leap of faith, to one degree or another, beyond that which can be absolutely known.
This was Wesley Kime’s point in arguing that faith and science are forced to walk hand-in-hand. This is also the point of well-known philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn. You simply cannot avoid taking on a “faith construct” of some kind – no one can. The only choice any of us really has is which faith construct to take on…
Part of the problem is what we mean by mindless. Can a human mind know the mind of God?
Not in totality of course since we are finite and God, by definition, is infinite. However, we can known what God has given us to know about himself. In other words, we are capable of comprehending certain limited aspects of God.
What may appear as mindless nature may not be mindless at all if we figure out the Grand Design. I think both Einstein and Hawkings understood and understand this dilemma. In fairness and with great respect I think in what you and Dr. Kime in your own way are trying to do as well: marry faith to science for a more fuller and optimistic view of reality. Please note, especially my friend Wes, that I have stated that this is laudable. Not toying around here, I mean what I say.
Faith and science are already married since one cannot exist without the other. It is just that some fail to recognize when they are in fact taking leaps of faith.
Beyond this, you seem to be making the same point that the founders of modern chaos theory made. In short, randomness cannot be proven. What appears to be a random sequence from one perspective may actually be determined by a simple formula from another perspective. The same thing is true about what appears to be the result of a mindless mechanism. Ultimately, from a different perspective, the same phenomenon may have been known or produced by some deliberate purpose.
The problem, of course, is that our perspective is limited. We can only deal with the limited information that we currently understand. So, the best we can say is that certain phenomenon appear to be the result of apparently mindless mechanisms while other phenomena (like highly symmetrical polished granite cubes, or your automobile) much more clearly require the input of deliberate intelligence.
Might I be stretching the boundaries of agnosticim in saying that even though I cannot prove it – because ultimate creation ex nihilo and infinite regress makes no sense to me – the case for an ultimate grand designer/ force makes more rational, ‘likely’ sense?
You are definitely stretching the boundaries of agnosticism to argue for God’s “likely” existence. This is why I have been saying for some time now that you are not a true agnostic. You are a closet creationist to at least some degree. You present some of the very same arguments used by intelligent design advocates and even creationists in favor of the very likely existence of a God or God-like intelligence behind it all.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
After the Flood
Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!
The Flood
Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…
The Flood
Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…
Pacific Union College Encouraging Homosexual Marriage?
Where did I “gloss over it”?
Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
