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.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
Declaring it a sign of poor character, to engage in critical thinking when it comes to one's religion, — wonderer1
...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.
I agree. It is a straw man that Janus is arguing against (most of the time). — Bob Ross
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
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
This is an interesting thought. — Bob Ross
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
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
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
- 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? — wonderer1
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. — Leontiskos
(I won't "make it personal," no. That is a terrible approach in general, especially when it comes to contentious religious debates.) — Leontiskos
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. — Leontiskos
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
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
Plenty of other places seem plenty in favor of critical thinking. — Count Timothy von Icarus
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
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.
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."
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.
But from the perspective of ontological entities, I would agree that the argument holds in favor of naturalism.
"Does Gideon possess rational justification for his conclusion that he is dealing with God?" That's not rhetorical. You need to actually answer it.
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?
I think, perhaps, you hold a distinction between epistemic and ontological parsimony that I am not fully appreciating.
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.
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.
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.Interesting you mention universals, they are not spoken of much in most contemporary discourse about naturalism. What's your view of their role? — Wayfarer
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
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 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
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