* These are my notes from my presentation at Glendale Community College's "God & Truth VI: Is There Meaning in the World? Religion or Secular Humanism: That is the Question" held on October 23, 2018.
Disenchantment’s Dead End: Why Secularism Fails
Richard Klaus
October 23, 2018
Glendale Community
College’s “God & Truth VI:
Is There Meaning in
the World? Religion or Secular Humanism: That is the Question?”
·
Thank you
to Glendale Community College for continuing to sponsor “God & Truth
1. “Disenchantment” and
Secularism
a. Science is usually seen as
the “engine” of secularism
b. As science advances religion
must retreat
2. The “Warfare Narrative” of
Science and Religion
a. John William Draper
(1811-1882): History of the Conflict
Between Religion and Science (1874)
b. Andrew Dickson White
(1832-1918): A History of the Warfare of
Science with Theology in Christendom (1896)
i. “In all modern history,
interference with science in the supposed interest of religion, no matter how
conscientious such interference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils
both to religion and to science.”
c. “Today historians of science
generally no longer favor a conflict model. Colin Russell, formerly the president of Christians in Science,
criticized the conflict model noting that, ‘Draper takes such liberty with
history, perpetuating legends as fact that he is rightly avoided today in
serious historical study. The same
is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific
footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship’
(Russell 2000, 15).”
3. Naturalism defined
a. “Naturalism
denies that there are any spiritual or supernatural realities transcendent to
the world or at least we have no good ground for believing that there could be
such realities… It is the view that anything that exists is ultimately composed
of physical components.”
--Kai
Nielson
b. Victor Reppert gives the
following elements as part of naturalism:
i. “The physical level is to be
understood mechanistically, such that purposive explanations must be further
explained in terms of a non-purposive substratum. This will be called the mechanism thesis.
ii. “The physical order is
causally closed. No nonphysical
causes operate on the physical level.
The physical level is a comprehensive system of events that is not
affected by anything that is not itself physical. This is called the causal closure thesis.
iii. “Other states, such as
mental states, (if they exist) supervene on physical states. Given the state of the physical, there
is only one way the mental, for example, can be. This is the supervenience thesis.”
4. Naturalism’s failures
a. Fails to account for moral
realism
b. Fails to account for meaning
in life
c. There are those who accept
these “failures” and embrace nihilism
i. “Naturalistic evolution has
clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no
life after death exist; 3)
no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists;
and 5) human free will is nonexistent.”
--William Provine (Cornell evolutionary
biologist)
ii. “Darwinism
thus puts the capstone on a process which since Newton’s time has driven
teleology to the explanatory sidelines. In short it has made Darwinians into metaphysical Nihilists
denying that there is any meaning or purpose to the universe its contents and
its cosmic history. But in making Darwinians into metaphysical nihilists, the
solvent algorithm [random variation acted
on by natural selection] should
have made them into ethical nihilists too. For intrinsic values and
obligations make sense only against the background of purposes, goals, and ends
which are not merely instrumental.”
--Tamler
Sommers & Alex Rosenberg
5. My goal today: examine the
alleged engine of naturalism à Science
a. Proverbs 21.22 “A wise man
scales the city of the mighty and brings down the stronghold in which they
trust.”
b. Naturalism cannot account
for science itself!
6. Two Theses regarding Scientism
and Science
a. Scientism is fundamentally
irrational
b. Science rests upon
philosophical commitments which do not comport well with naturalism but do
comport better with Christian theism
7. Scientism: Strong and Weak
a. Strong scientism:
i. “Strong scientism claims
that some proposition is true and/or rational to believe if and only if it is a
well-established scientific proposition—that is, if and only if it is a
well-established scientific proposition that, in turn depends on its having
been successfully formed, tested, and used according to appropriate scientific
methodology. There are no truths apart from
scientific truths, and even if there were, there would be no reason
whatever to believe them.”
b. Weak scientism:
i. “Advocates of weak scientism
allow for truths apart from science and even grant that they have some minimal,
positive rationality status without the support of science. But those advocates still hold that
science is the most authoritative sector of human learning. Every other intellectual activity is
inferior to science. Further,
there are virtually no limits to science.
There is no field into which scientific research cannot shed light. To the degree that some issue outside
science can be given scientific support or can be reduced to science, to that
degree the issue becomes rationally acceptable.”
8. Some examples of scientism
a. “The great questions—‘Who
are we?’ ‘Where did we come from?’ Why are we here?’—can be answered only, if ever, in the light of
scientifically based evolutionary thought.” —E. O. Wilson
b. “A Darwinian fundamentalist
is one who recognizes that either you shun Darwinian evolution altogether, or
you turn the traditional universe upside down and you accept that mind,
meaning, and purpose are not the cause but the fairly recent effects of the
mechanistic mill of Darwinian algorithms.
Many have tried to find a compromise position [but]… [i]t cannot be
done.” —Daniel Dennett
c. “We seem to be reaching a
point at which science can wrest morality from the hands of the philosophers.” —Frans de Waal
d. “’You,’ your
joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal
identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast
assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis
Carroll’s Alice might have phrased it: ‘You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.’” --Francis Crick
9. All these examples are
illustrations of metaphysical commitments masquerading as science
a. “Seemingly at work here are
distinctly metaphysical—over against strictly physical or material—assumptions,
which, nevertheless, are touted as science.”
b. “Science writer James Barham
describes this phenomenon as ‘theory creep,’ by which bold but unsubstantiated claims
are made of a philosophical nature that nevertheless are presented as
scientific fact.”
c. “[O]ne is justified, I
think, in questioning whether individuals in the hard sciences, where theories
and hypotheses are measured and tested on the basis of empirical evidence,
should be making moral-philosophical and metaethical claims. Is this really science? What is particularly questionable is to
extrapolate from the physical realm and make authoritative metaphysical
pronouncements about material and nonmaterial reality and to do so in the name
of science.”
10.
Problems with scientism
a. Problems with Hard (or
Strong) Scientism
i. “The irony is that strong
scientism is a philosophical statement expressing an epistemological viewpoint about science; it is not a statement of science, like ‘water is H2O’
or ‘cats are mammals.’ Strong
scientism is a philosophical assertion that claims that philosophical
assertions are neither true nor can be known; only scientific assertions can be
true and known.”
1. X = Only
scientific assertions can be true and known.
2. What scientific experiments
could be done to show the truthfulness of X?
a. None!
b. X is a philosophical claim;
not a scientific claim
ii. Hard/Strong Scientism is “self-referentially incoherent”
b. Problems with Weak Scientism
i. “In sum, the first problem
with weak (and strong) scientism is that it diminishes the intellectual
authority of other important fields, especially biblical studies and
theology. This is not because the
arguments are better, but simply because it is assumed that science by
definition has more plausibility and inherent authority.”
ii. Science rests up
philosophical assumptions and the conclusions of science can only be as certain
as those assumptions.
11.
Science rests upon philosophical presuppositions
----SCIENCE----
-----PHILOSOPICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS-----
a. (1) The existence of the
external world.
b. (2) The orderly nature of
the external world and its knowability.
c. (3) The uniformity of nature
and induction.
d. (4) The laws of logic,
epistemology, and truth.
e. (5) The reliability of the
senses and the mind.
f. (6) The adequacy of language
to describe the world.
g. (7) The applicability of
mathematics and the existence of numbers.
h. (8) The existence of values.
i. Moral values
·
One ought to record and report data honestly.
ii. Rational values
·
One ought to prefer a theory that is…
o
simpler
o
more empirically accurate
o
more predictively successful
o
has a wider scope of explanation
iii. Aesthetic values
·
One ought to prefer theories and equations that are more beautiful and elegant.
12.
A closer look at a few of these philosophical presuppositions
a. Which worldview—naturalism
or Christian theism—better makes sense of these presuppositions?
b. My argument: these
philosophical presuppositions which are necessary for science comport (fit)
better with Christian theism.
“The nature of the assumptions of science do not prove the existence of a God very much
like the God of the Bible, but in my view, they provide reasons for preferring
theism over scientistic naturalism.
The assumptions are
at home in a theistic worldview; they fit quite naturally. If God is himself a rational being,
then it stands to reason that he would create a rational, orderly
universe. If he created us, then
it naturally follows that he would give us the proper faculties to know and
appreciate the inner workings of his world by ‘thinking his thoughts after
him.’ The existence of objective
values makes far more sense if there is an objective Lawgiver than if there is
not.
“If we begin with ‘In the beginning there was the
Logos,’ then we have reasonable explanations for these assumptions. But if we begin with “In the beginning
were the particles (or plasma, strings, etc.),’ it is hard to see how these
assumptions could have obtained.”
13.
Number (2): “The orderly nature of the external world and its
knowability.”
a. Oxford philosopher Richard
Swinburne
“The orderliness
of the universe to which I draw attention here is its conformity to formula, to
simple formulable, scientific laws.
The orderliness of the universe in this respect is a very striking fact
about it. The universe might
naturally have been chaotic, but it is not—it is very orderly.”
b. A. S. U. astrophysicist Paul
Davies writes of this foundational order with a special focus on the
mathematical structure of reality…
“There exists a
deep and elegant underlying mathematical unity that links everything together
in an abstract conceptual scheme.
There is thus an underlying rational order of which the fall of an apple
is but one example. We could never
get at that type of deep mathematical unity other than by using science, and
it’s an astonishing thing that we can get at it at all because it seems to have no survival value.”
c. Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland asks, “So, how do we
explain the existence and nature of these laws? Where did they come from?”
“There are two
major options here: (1) take them as unexplainable, brute entities, or (2)
provide a theistic explanation.
For many thinkers, myself included, the ‘unexplainable-brute-entity’
option is not a good one. Since
the actual brute entity might not have existed, we naturally seek an
explanation as to why the contingent
entity exists instead of not existing.
And the fundamental laws of nature are contingent realities—after all,
it is easy to conceive of worlds that have different fundamental laws of
nature. So why does our world
contain certain fundamental laws instead of others.”
14.
Number (5): “The reliability of the senses and the mind.”
a. Leda Cosmides and John Tooby
“The brain is a
physical system whose operation is governed solely by the laws of chemistry and
physics. What does this mean? It means that all of your thoughts and
hopes and dreams and feelings are produced by chemical reactions going on in
your head.”
b. But if Cosmides and Tooby
are correct that all our thoughts are merely the result of chemical reactions…
i. Why should we trust these
thoughts to be true?
ii. What is it about these
chemical reactions that guarantees truth?
iii. Naturalistic evolutionary
theory states that the products of evolution are better able to reproduce over
time but there is no reason to think that this mindless process should fit
humans for the acquisition of truth.
iv. “If mind emerged from matter
without the direction of a superior Intelligence, two problems arise immediately. First, why should we trust the
deliverances of the mind as being rational or true, especially in the mind’s
more theoretical activities? … Second, if thinking involves having
abstract entities (propositions, laws of logic, and the like) instanced in
one’s mind, then it seems to be incredibly unlikely that a property which
emerged from matter in a struggle for survival would be the sort of thing that
could have thoughts in the first
place. Why this emergent property
would be such that it could contain abstract entities would be a mystery.”
15.
Number (8): “The existence of values.” (moral, rational, & aesthetic)
a. Paul Copan on the problem of
getting values from valueless matter
“How do we move
from a universe that originates from no prior matter into a universe of
valueless matter and energy, eventually arriving at moral values, including
human rights, human dignity, and moral obligation? It is hard to see how the naturalist could bridge this chasm. Matter just does not have moral
properties, let alone mental ones.”
b. Francis Beckwith and Greg
Koukl in Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted
in Mid-Air describe four observations about moral facts:
i. They are not physical—they
don’t have physical properties.
ii. They are a kind of
communication—a command. This only
makes sense when there are two minds involved.
iii. They produce in us a feel of
“oughtness”—we feel like we ought to do something (or refrain from something)
iv. When they are violated they
produce in us a discomfort—a sense of guilt
c. They argue we can explain
these moral realities in one of three ways…
i. Illusion
ii. Accident
iii. Product of intelligence
16.
Conclusion: Flow of the argument
a. Scientism fails
b. Science rests upon
philosophical presuppositions
c. These philosophical
presuppositions fit better with theism than naturalism
d. Therefore Science needs God
to function properly!
----SCIENCE----
-----PHILOSOPICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS-----
--------------------The Existence of
God--------------------
17.
Thus, ironically, the perceived engine of disenchantment—science itself—cannot
be sustained by naturalism.
18.
Rather, science itself needs God to make sense of itself!
Quoted
in Stewart Goetz and Charles
Taliaferro, Naturalism (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2008), 9. James Sire’s The Universe Next Door—5th ed.
(Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2009) has a chapter—chapter four:
“The Silence of Finite Space: Naturalism”—which contains a good discussion of
philosophical naturalism.
Quoted
in Casey Luskin, “Darwin’s Poisoned Tree: Atheistic Advocacy and the
Constitutionality of Teaching Evolution in Public Schools” Trinity Law Review 21.1 (Fall,
2015), 162. Luskin is
quoting Crick’s The Astonishing
Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (1988).
Paul Copan, “God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality” in
Robert Stewart (ed.), The Future of
Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue (Fortress,
2008), 155
