Comment on La Sierra and Battle Creek College by Sean Pitman.
Empirical Evidence and the Holy Spirit
(Okay…I’m having fun here…please tell me, Sean, that you do believe the Comforter can convict without the believer also having falsifiable scientific evidence.)
You seem to be appealing, yet again, to faith in your internal feelings of conviction without any regard to the weight of empirical evidence. This argument is identical to the argument of many of my LDS friends who also claim to be convinced of the Truth of the LDS religion and the historical credibility of the Book of Mormon directly by the Holy Spirit who speaks to their soul and tells them what is and is not true without any need of empirical evidence. Several of them have then told me, “How can I question the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit would never lie to me!”. What can one say to that? My only response is to ask, “Why then hasn’t the Holy Spirit told me?” They usually suggest that I must not be listening carefully enough to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
At this point there really is no reason for further discussion since nothing more can be said or presented that could possibly compete with this line of reasoning. There is simply no point in discussing the empirical evidence, for example, because what is empirical evidence compared to the direct instruction of the Holy Spirit?
This appeal to an internal feeling of conviction without any regard for empirical evidence is my definition for “blind faith”. Such faith is only useful to the one who has it. Since there is no other shared basis for belief or discussion, the conversion usually ends there. The Christian Gospel is, in my opinion, based on more than internal feelings of conviction alone. It is based on evidence that also appeals to the intelligent rational mind and can therefore be shared via an appeal to logical arguments and empirical evidences that can be appreciated by more than just one’s own self.
The job of the Holy Spirit is to convict a person of what that person already knows is true but is having difficulties living up to because of the weakness of personal motivations that struggle against the truth.
For example, the Holy Spirit doesn’t tell you that the Bible is more credible than the Book of Mormon or visa versa without any appeal to empirical evidence. The empirical evidence has a part to play that the Holy Spirit simply backs up with power to follow the conviction supported by the empirical evidence…
If all we needed was the Holy Spirit to tell us what was and wasn’t true, as many of my LDS friends have told me, why did God give us intelligent brains of our own and appeal over and over again to empirical evidences of His existence and care for us? – evidences tailored to appeal to the logical rational mind? Why even give us the written Word at all or the ability to study the natural world? After all, the Holy Spirit could just tell us all about it without us having to actually investigate anything for ourselves.
So, again, this isn’t science vs. faith but science vs. science where scientific leaps of faith are compared with other scientific leaps of faith. It isn’t like faith isn’t involved in science. It is. Contrary to your suggestion, science is all about coming up with reasonable or statistically useful “interpretations” of the evidence that have predictive value. There is, therefore, no science without interpretation. And, this interpretation always ends up taking leaps of faith beyond what the evidence can definitively support. Again, taking these leaps of faith is also what science is all about – the taking of educated leaps of faith with higher predictive value than taking completely blind leaps of faith…
Also, determining the credibility of a witness can be done scientifically – to include “randomization, controls, and reproducibility.” This sort of scientific investigation can and should be done when evaluating the credibility of the Biblical witnesses. Your yourself have appealed to such empirical evidence in the form of historically fulfilled prophecies. Does this empirical evidence and scientific reasoning remove the need for taking a leap of faith? Of course not. Again, that is the whole point of science…
But, a leap of faith without any scientific reasoning or use of the available empirical evidence is blind and therefore worthless as a solid basis for hope in a bright future. God does not appeal to blind faith or the conviction of the Holy Spirit apart from the weight of empirical evidence. God wishes to have intelligent thoughtful worship, not worship based on emotions alone…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
La Sierra and Battle Creek College
@Professor Kent:
And, you’re still not answering the question as to how you determine where to place your faith among many competing options? – if your faith does in fact trump all other evidence (as you’ve claimed in this forum: Link)? – since no evidence is actually needed to support faith? – scientific or otherwise? – Sean Pitman
I’ve already done so. – Prof. Kent
What you’ve done is given some empirical reasons for your own faith, such as your own appeal to the evidence of fulfilled prophecy (a use of abductive reasoning by the way).
What you haven’t done is explain your argument that such appeals to empirical evidence are really not needed for faith to be valid. You’ve argued that even if all scientific and other forms of evidence where completely against your faith, that you would still believe as you do regardless of any and all opposing evidence.
You’ve not explained how, if “all” evidence is against you, you can make a meaningful leap of faith and pick one among many competing options as true using “faith” alone? – since, according to you, “faith trumps science and evidence.”
How is that done in a meaningful way? How is this type of faith reasonable? – more reasonable than believing or having faith in the Qur’an, the Book of Mormon, or even garden fairies or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Again, this is a serious question which I do not see that you’ve serious discussed much less answered…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
La Sierra and Battle Creek College
@Professor Kent:
I’m all for abductive reasoning. I just don’t think it’s always science. But I’ll admit this: it can be fun to read and think and write about…
I suppose then that the mainstream evolutionary theory really isn’t “scientific” when it comes to its historical statements? – and neither is any other hypothesis about the nature of history? – such as anthropology or forensics? After all, you can’t make conclusions about the true nature of the past origin of anything without abductive reasoning – right?
Remember now, not all abductive reasoning is valid – just as not all inductive or deductive reasoning is valid. This does not, however, make all such reasoning non-scientific. You simply can’t do science without such reasoning…
Here is an interesting summary of the concept of abductive reasoning as it applies to various uses in science:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning
And, you’re still not answering the question as to how you determine where to place your faith among many competing options? – if your faith does in fact trump all other evidence (as you’ve claimed in this forum: Link)? – since no evidence is actually needed to support faith? – scientific or otherwise?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
La Sierra and Battle Creek College
Why Share Your Faith? – If you don’t have something better to offer?
Is it not arrogant of you to simply assert that your faith in the Bible is superior to all other faiths? – even in a situation where all other evidence, besides your faith, is admittedly against you? – Sean Pitman
Here is my sincere answer. I have not claimed that my faith in the Bible is superior to the faith of anyone else. Others may have done so; I think you basically have. – Prof. Kent
You believe, via faith, that the Bible is superior to other claimed sources of authority. How can you make this determination without believing that your position is in fact the better decision? – compared to that of someone else who has chosen to believe in the superiority of the Book of Mormon?
I know you don’t actually like to say so, and I know it may not sound politically correct to you, but if you didn’t actually believe that you had something better to offer to someone else, why would you even want to share your “faith”? – if you didn’t really think you had something better than they already had?
I personally believe the Bible has more credibility than the Book of Mormon, which I have browsed extensively.
Indeed. So, how is this not a statement that your faith or belief in the Bible is somehow better than faith or belief in the superior credibility of the Book of Mormon? Do you or do you not think that you have something important to share with your LDS friends which would be of some benefit to them beyond what they already have? – if they were to accept what you have to offer?
It isn’t arrogant to think that you have something worthwhile to share that someone else doesn’t have. What would be arrogant is if you kept something good to yourself and were unwilling to share it.
I think history supports the Bible much better than the Book of Mormon, and I have read extensively from Joseph Smith’s Doctrines and Covenants and I see lots of problems there. Most people do not consider history to be “science,†but if you want to make it that, go right ahead. Still, I don’t compare my faith to those who believe in the Book of Mormon.
Most scientists do in fact consider history to be based on a form of “science”. After all, the Theory of Evolution is a theory of history… as is anthropology and forensic science. Such historical sciences are based on various forms of scientific reasoning, such as abductive reasoning.
Using such reasoning, you have come to the conclusion that the Bible is in fact more credible than the Book of Mormon. In other words, you really do think that your LDS friends are mistaken in their beliefs or faith in the greater credibility of the Book of Mormon. You can say that you don’t compare your beliefs or faith with theirs, but I don’t see how you can really believe this when you say, in the same breath, that you consider the Book of Mormon to be clearly untrustworthy. Tell that to your LDS friends and see if they don’t understand such statements as a claimed superiority of your beliefs vs. theirs…
What is also interesting here is that you claim that even if you did not have the favorable historical evidence that “faith would still trump all contrary evidence” – historical or otherwise. In otherwords, it sounds like you are arguing for faith even if there were no evidence to support that faith at all (i.e., blind faith). If faith does in fact trump both science and other forms of evidence as you say, how does one determine the reasonableness of one’s own faith if faith trumps everything else?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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