Further theological meanderings

[hawkwing_lb]

Theology continues to annoy and interest me in about equal measure. Our reading this week was a chapter of Keith Ward's God, Faith, and the New Millennium.

Ward's thesis is, in essence, that it is more reasonable to believe in a created, as opposed to a naturally arising, universe. (Ward is not a Biblical literalist: to him the creation myth in Genesis is simply that, a myth - albeit one that he says illustrates important spiritual truths.)

He argues for the reasonableness of this thesis through recourse to science: he argues that both science and religion have at their root the presupposition that the universe is both rational and intelligible to human minds. 'This belief that nothing happens without some explanation...has its roots in religion.' [pp 52] The whole of his argument rests, it would seem, on another statement on the same page: that 'Belief in the intelligibility of nature strongly suggests the existence of a cosmic mind that can construct nature in accordance with rational laws.'

This argument comes from several presuppositions with which I have issue:

First, that the universe is, at root, rational and intelligible;

Second, that inasmuch as nature is rational and intelligible to human minds, it is not because human minds have evolved in this matrix and hence are conditioned, by reason of their existence in a universe which conforms to certain rules to be able to understand at least some of those rules, but that the rationality of nature is external and imposed by a creator-being.

My understanding of science (as opposed to scientists) is that it is a descriptive rather than prescriptive discipline. It draws conclusions from observable evidence: it says what things are, insofar as they can be described.*

The founding principle of science is that all things which may be observed may be described.

Religion, however, is in my understanding a prescriptive rather than descriptive discipline. It says how things should be, rather than how they are. In a sense, it describes in advance of observation, and uses observation in service of its original prescription.

He argues that the idea of the universe coalescing by chance, by natural processes, is 'a rejection, at the last moment, of the quest for intelligibility that is the very foundation of science.' [pp56] 'Some physicists,' he says (with a disturbing lack of specificity) 'think that perhaps there is a necessary being,' which mandates that the universe must exist, '...some amazing mathematical equation.'[pp57] But Ward argues that 'God' is the necessary being, the originator and creator of all things. He argues that existence is an improbability out of an infinite number of improbabilities, and thus the simplest, and therefore the most probable, explanation for existence is that 'God' caused it to be.

But. I believe Ward misunderstands the nature of an infinite cosmos. If the cosmos is infinite - and not simply finite but beyond our ability to measure - then every possibility, no matter how remote, will exist not just once but an infinite number of times.

If the cosmos is, in fact, finite, then perhaps one day it will be measurable and intelligible and explainable. But not today.

I found, and find his argument for 'God' disturbing: 'Since we should always choose the hypothesis that raises the probability of the facts it is posited to explain' - that the hypothesis of a created universe raises the probability of the 'facts it is posited to explain'.

Oh, should we? Really? And here I thought that one should always choose the hypothesis that best explains the facts (the data) as one has observed them. As no one has observed the originating moment of the universe, but only the traces it has left us, it is therefore fallacious to suggest that we have anywhere near enough data to formulate a hypothesis that can adequately describe the cause of said originating moment. The existence of a necessary being is therefore no greater a possibility, scientifically speaking, than the non-existence of such a being.

So the question of 'God' and a created universe is ultimately a question of faith, not reason. Attempting to argue for 'God' or creation from any universal, objective, rational point of view is doomed to fail. The experience of 'God' is, ultimately, personal and subjective. Faith relies on lack of evidence. If there was evidence, there would be no need for faith.

I don't necessarily think that excessive faith in an otherworldly being is a good thing. I don't necessarily think it's not, either. But that's a discussion, I think, for another day.


* On the question of God, science is entirely neutral. 'God' is a phenomenon that resists measurement and description: in so much, science as a discipline is perhaps best characterised as agnostic.**

**Science is not neutral on the question of Biblical literalism. We have observed that the world is older than the Bible conceives; that speciation and evolution occurs, and other sundry contradictions inherent in a humanocentric, geocentric theology.

**

I'm not sure how many of the few people who read this blog I a)offend, b)interest, c)bore, or d)some combination of the above with these posts about my response to my theology course. I'd be interested to find out.

Comments

[ossuarian.livejournal.com]

The humanocentrism of the universe is the big thing that keeps me from being able to accept most flavors of Christianity. Again and again, it reinforces the idea that the universe exists for humanity. One truth I see reflected everywhere is that the universe, though kind and benevolent, is not particularly obsessed with this one species on this one planet. The idea that it's all about us seems very little about how the universe works and very much about how people are disposed to think.

The word "intelligible" here is very dangerous. It means understand, but when someone says they understand something, they understand it in the sense that they understand it. When I say I understand omeletes, I'm not saying that I know their chemical composition, how the atoms are bonded, or the fundamental nature that allows omelets to persist until eaten. I'm just saying I know that they have eggs and other stuff and I know how they're made.

So, sure, we're aware of the universe to the extent that we're aware of it. What you can derive about the universe about that, I wouldn't want to say.

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how many of the few people who read this blog I a)offend, b)interest, c)bore, or d)some combination of the above with these posts about my response to my theology course. I'd be interested to find out.

Um, honest answer? I'm mostly A. I realize you don't mean it to offend, which is why I've mostly begun skimming these posts for things I *can* read about without getting defensive. (Such as this last bit.)

Which isn't to say I don't think you should make these posts. It's your journal. They're simply not something I can read and walk away after without feeling more irked than I prefer. :)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Okay. I can put them behind a cut tag in future.

I'd be interested, if you want to tell me, why this makes you get defensive. Perhaps it should be obvious, but I'd kind of like to understand.

I don't want to offend anybody with my ongoing argument with my upbringing. So, cut tag, yes? :)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think the current interpretation of the place of humanity in most flavours of Christianity is, well, at the very least a little arrogant.

So, sure, we're aware of the universe to the extent that we're aware of it. What you can derive about the universe about that, I wouldn't want to say.

I'm personally convinced that claiming that human minds can completely understand the totallity of the cosmos is, well, excessively arrogant. :)

[razorsmile.livejournal.com]

I'm a strange combination of b) and c); it's a topic I'm interested in but also one I'm completely tired of, largely because there's no fucking end in sight.

Re: no fucking end in sight

[razorsmile.livejournal.com]

In general, I mean! Not from you of course. Your particular take on it is worth reading when I feel like digging back 100 posts or more into my flist :)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

My issue with most of the arguments based on it being more "reasonable" to believe in a Creator value of $deity is that they seem to come from deeply skewed values of "reasonable", such as asserting that the odds against the spontaneous assembly of all the atoms in a protein are 10^VAST to one when nobody is claiming proteins originated ex nihilo and there are an understandable chain of steps by which simple replicators can evolve into complex ones without any such implausiblity needed; or the "what use is half an eye ?" argument, which makes me want to drop its perpetrators into a dark room with a pit viper so that they can discover first-hand what use its infrared-sensitive pits, which are the very beginnings of the evolution of an eye, are to it.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I'm on your side of the argument. But it sometimes seems useful to deconstruct the logic involved.

Which most of the time doesn't really look much like logic, from where I'm standing.

I think it's quite unfortunate that theologians aren't caught young and given a strict grounding in the sciences, since their logic in most cases seems to rely on a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation of whichever science they are appealing to. (Physics, in this guy's case, and even I, who have only Leaving Cert physics, can see that there are holes in his argument.)

Re: no fucking end in sight

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Well, I elected to study theology, so this is my own bloody fault.

Glad I'm not boring. :)

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

I think it's... I believe the bible is true and that my faith is actually rational (and that evolution is irrational), and every time someone says the bible is full of inconcistencies, I have to wonder if they've actually read and investigated, or are repeating something they heard somewhere else.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I may be about to irk you, because I'd like to respond to you here. But I don't want to lose your goodwill, so unless you tell me it's okay, I won't engage your premises here.

The thing is, when I talk about something like this, it's not because I think I'm more right than anyone else. I do it because I have this enduring desire to discuss things, to talk them to death, to find out what other people think. To debate, in the best sense of that word, all angles of the question.

So I really really want to ask you to expand on what you mean, and engage it. But I like you, so I won't do it without your go-ahead :).

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I think it's quite unfortunate that theologians aren't caught young and given a strict grounding in the sciences

Not just theologians, more's the pity.

An amazing amount of crank "science" - the honestly intended end of it, at least, seems to come from people who were taught a perfectly reasonable approximation for whatever level they were at when they left being taught science - be that "I'm finishing school at sixteen to run away to sea" or "I'm getting this engineering degree so the physics I care about is enough to make sure I can build bridges that don't fall down" - who later on start to become aware of the limitations of that approximation, and then go off at the deep end to come up with explanations for it rather than thinking to check whether human knowledge has advanced beyond whatever it was they were last taught. Particularly people who don't seem to grasp that all science is a process of increasingly better approximations, and the way it's taught will continue to recapitulate that because five-year-olds can't legitimately be expected to do differential calculus, in general.

BTW, I'm probably going to mail you in a bit, once I'm well again and somewhat over the current crop of crises to the extent that I expect to be in a cople of weeks max, because there were a number of points in your earlier theological posts that I noted as wanting to go back to and then did not have time to. [ plus, what is it that's not working for you about Storm Front ? ]

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Particularly people who don't seem to grasp that all science is a process of increasingly better approximations, and the way it's taught will continue to recapitulate that because five-year-olds can't legitimately be expected to do differential calculus, in general.

Yes. I was lucky enough to have excellent teachers who impressed on me that what they were teaching me was what I needed to pass the exams (and a little more, but not much), and that therefore this was the simplified version and there are more complex explanations out there.

I had excellent teachers all around, really.

I'm probably going to mail you in a bit

Feel free. I may be a little behind getting back to you, though: deadlines approach with unnatural speed. :)

what is it that's not working for you about Storm Front ?

You really want to know? :)

It just isn't working, really. I've read a good bit of urban fantasy over the last while, and though I know that Butcher probably predates most of it, the similarities in voice and tone across the subgenre are ...annoying. It's not new-and-interesting, and otherwise simply isn't hitting enough of my kinks, I suppose. I'm about a third of the way in and pretty much 'meh' on it: it's the kind of book I'd be perfectly happy to read if I had a lot of time on my hands, but right now, that's not really where I'm at.

I like Butcher's Codex Alera books quite well, though, so I'll probably try picking up Harry Dresden somewhere closer to the middle of the series to see whether what's irritating me is a feature rather than a bug, at some point.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Bah. I really thought I'd closed the html tags.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I've read a good bit of urban fantasy over the last while, and though I know that Butcher probably predates most of it, the similarities in voice and tone across the subgenre are ...annoying. It's not new-and-interesting, and otherwise simply isn't hitting enough of my kinks, I suppose.

Entirely fair enough. Most of what makes the series stand out for me is a combination of the long-wavelength arc things, which are sort of a sweet tooth of mine but which don't really get going until the third book, and the ways in which the narrative repeatedly bites its first-person narrator on the backside with the consequences of his worldview, particularly its annoying gender politics; I have no idea whether picking up a later volume would be any more likely to help you connect. The climax of the third volume brings about some fairly major universe-shifting stuff without which I suspect much of what comes later would be weakened, anyway.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I haven't given up on it yet. A lot of other people seem to like it, so I might just put it down for now and try again later. Strangely enough, this has sometimes been known to work.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

I think it's fascinating, and some of what you say resonates with ideas that I've pondered. Of course, as an existentialist and scientist, I'm not at all offended by your take on the bible. It's an interesting collection of stories, written for propaganda purposes, written in a language without vowels and then translated through many languages by people with agendas...of course there are mistranslations and errors and outright revisions. ;-)

I've been non-religious for thirty years now. I don't need an otherworldly being to define my morality, nor set the rules for my life. Faith does indeed rely on lack of evidence; it's part of the human need to fill in the gaps. (This same need seems to drive fan fic..) When we have a coherent story -- no matter if it fails to match reality -- then we feel more comfortable. Just watch people with failing memory ability, such as early Alzheimers; you'll see them make up stories to fit what they perceive and remember, and realize that it doesn't match reality. However, they need that story to make life more solid, more understandable in their skewed perspective. Naming things, too, is a human drive; without a name, we cannot manage the thing, the fear, the item. Names become very powerful, so we need names that can be handled safely as well. Combine all this, along with an all-too understandable fear of the unknown, and you get some form of religion offering the answers, the panacea, the soothing of names and rituals and a Deity to protect us.

Hm.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm inclined to go with religion as projection of human desires and human fears - wishful thinking, if you will. It's ever so much more comforting to believe that there's something out there that actually cares about us as individuals; that this life isn't the only one we get.

Whatever gets you through the night, I suppose. Though I think it's self-deception, I'm not going to call anyone out for believing. F**k knows, I've often wished I could share the nice comforting lies. :)

(Denying observed reality, now, that might be a different matter.)

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I think much of Christianity is the projection of desires and fears -- if I recall correctly, the main reason it became so popular is because it offered a better life after death (a better afterlife, if you will) than the other existing religions of the day. I think that other religions don't share that particular benefit, though, but I'd have to rely on fading memory for supporting that. ;-)

Denying observed reality, sadly, occurs every day.

Self-deception is one of those things you do as a child, until you learn not to do it. About thirty years ago I learned that lesson, and learned to face the Truth, no matter how painful. Nice comforting lies last only until Reality can smack you hard, and then it hurts even more when you realize you did this to yourself.

One of the driving forces of all religions is fear, and the need for protection. From the infinite universe, I suppose. I like infinity -- the possibilities are endless. ;-)