CADRE Comments

I've been meaning to gin up some further contemplations on the ENCODE results, as a followup to my previous article , and in reply to my friend the thoughtful and sober atheistic commenter "Blue Devil Knight" who commented on my article starting here in the comments. But I've been distracted by other projects. BDK asks, "What is it specifically that the naturalists are having so much trouble handling?" If you're referring to my opening paragraph, I meant that "proponents of completely non-intentional biological development" were "scrambling defensively in various ways" in relation to "ID and creationist proponents hopping up and down"--which combined with how I closed that sentence ("...and frankly, at first I didn't see what the big deal was."), plus my next large paragraph, means I didn't understand why the ID and creationist proponents were hopping up and down. But such activity would naturall...

Scientists have been chewing over the mass release results of the ENCODE experiments for the past several days, and will doubtless continue to do so; while ID and creationist proponents hop up and down and proponents of completely non-intentional biological development scramble defensively in various ways and... ...and, frankly, at first I didn't see what the big deal was. At first. I'm going to assume for sake of relative brevity that anyone who is reading this page on the internet knows how to search the internet for pages to read, so if you don't know what I'm talking about, search around for "ENCODE", or click on our sidebar links for Proslogion (which tends to slant young earth creation) and/or Evolution News and Views (which tends to slant old earth creation)--you won't have to page around far to search them for discussion on it. Very shortly, and somewhat oversimply, the project involved mapping genomes (I honestly don't recall if it wa...

(Note: my original article title was inaccurate as to the position discussed, so I've changed it. The original title was "Is Trinitarian Theism Necessarily More Improbable Than Basic Theism?" The gist of the article was always disputing the notion that trinitarian theism must necessarily be no more probable than basic theism, however, i.e. necessarily as-or-less probable.) Our friend David Marshall, author of several books on Christian cultural apologetics, writing at his blog Christ The Tao , has recently been responding to the "20+ Questions For Theists" asked by naturalistic atheist Jeffery Jay Lowder (another longtime correspondent of mine, from back in the days before weblogs) as part of Jeff's "Evidential Arguments For Naturalism" series at the Secular Outpost (i.e. Internet Infidels) blog. (Whew, that was kind of a long provenance trail. Sorry.) Since I don't already have enough large projects I'm working on, naturally I'm thi...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, starting chapter 30, can be found here. ] [This entry continues chapter 30, "The Doctrine of Derivative Spirit".] (Repeating from the end of the previous part.) I will begin dealing with ethics soon in Section Four, after this chapter. But for now, let me go back and retell my story again; from a different historical perspective but with (I think) the same principles. God creates Nature, and allows it to go through a quasi-independent historical process; "quasi-independent", for Nature does not exist on its own resources, but upon God, and is meanwhile guided subtly by God. One purpose of God in making this Nature, has been to create derivative sentiences like (but merely 'like') Himself. Billions of what we call years pass, as God slowly edges things into place, letting Nature be Nature. God is patient, because all time and space are in His hand. He is concerned with the final ...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, the second for chapter 19, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes chapter 19, "The Theistic Argument from Active Reasoning".] 19.) I could sheerly assert, that the proposition 'actions can be produced by an ultimately reactive reality' is not self-contradictory. But what use is it to assert this? I can assert 'the moon is made of green cheese' or 'there is a God' just as easily. Why make that assertion? 20.) My mere say-so doesn't make the assertion true; it is not a necessary presumption for logical disputation, either. The vast bulk of evidence I find in Nature seems to lead to the conclusion that a reactively or non-rationally produced behavior is at least usually non-rational or reactive; further leading to the question of why my behaviors should be (or even can be ) considered rational or active instead; and this question cannot in principle be answered w...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, the first for chapter 19, can be found here. ] [This entry continues chapter 19, "The Theistic Argument from Active Reasoning".] 15.) This leaves, on the atheism side, the proposition that a fully automatic system can produce behaviors which are themselves non-automatic. 16.) This proposition entails, that even though true action capability (such as what I must presume you and I have) exists now, it did not always exist. The reactive process has brought into existence (eventually, having gotten into the correct configurations) active abilities. Against a primary sceptical threat, which necessarily calls into formal question the presumption we make in favor of (at least) the possibility of our own rational competency, can this proposition be a defense? 17.) The attempt to justify the proposition breaks down on the same problem as proposing that no active ability whatsoever exists. To explain how r...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, the last for chapter 18, can be found here. ] [This entry starts chapter 19, "The Theistic Argument from Active Reasoning".] My previous two chapters not only continued my line of argumentation, but also (in their own way) summarized, and illustrated through practical applications, the points of my argument, in an imaginary informal debate. Dialogues, however, although useful in some ways, are not formal arguments; and as these second-section chapters are perhaps the most critical in my entire book, I will take one more chapter to summarize and re-present the argument yet again, before continuing with my inferences. My argument can be developed from several directions, although the final result is the same in each case. As even now I am still not sure which 'beginning point' is best, I have presented slightly different variations for each run-through; and I will do this again here. I find...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, the fifth for chapter 18, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes chapter 18, "Atheism and the Justification of Non-Justification Ability". It also concludes the fictional dialogue started in chp 17.] (Picking up from the end of the previous part...) Chase (the atheist): ... That doesn't mean I am active! Reed (the theist): No, not necessarily. But by denying it per hypothesis, you leave yourself no possible way to reach even merely probably reliable "perceptions of reality". Your perceptions of probability end up trapped in a formal limbo where no judgments of their relative worth--compared to other estimates of probability for instance--can be legitimately made. Those judgments which might possibly ratify the probability estimates, require active ability to exist on our part. If that ability is proposed not to exist, neither can those judgments effectively exist. Something lik...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, the fourth for chapter 18, can be found here. ] [This entry continues chapter 18, "Atheism and the Justification of Non-Justification Ability". It also continues the fictional dialogue started in chp 17.] (Picking up from the end of the previous part...) Reed (the theist): Let me rephrase the question. Do you perceive yourself to be an alien who has lived a million centuries? Chase (the atheist): Your pitiful sense of humor seems to be reasserting itself... R: I am entirely serious; and I will continue asking the question until I get an answer. C: Fine. No, I do not perceive that I am any such thing. R: Do you have any inclination whatsoever to consider yourself anything other than a human like myself? C: No; and I have never said anything to that effect! I specifically said that this was a fictional example--! R: So mutation and natural selection have also equipped your brain with a consciousn...