Via 3quarksdaily, here is Richard Skinner (“poet, writer, qualified therapist and performer”) elaborating on Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously. I would argue that they should take him seriously because much of what he says is true, but that’s not Skinner’s take.
Skinner suggests that Dawkins is arguing against a straw-man notion of God (stop me if you’ve heard this before). According to the straw man, God is some thing, or some person, or some something, of an essentially supernatural character, with a lot of influence over what happens in the universe, and in particular the ability to sidestep the laws of nature to which the rest of us are beholden. That’s a hopelessly simplistic and unsophisticated notion, apparently; not at all what careful theologians actually have in mind.
Nevertheless, Dawkins and his defenders typically reply, it’s precisely the notion of God that nearly all non-theologians — that is to say, the overwhelming majority of religious believers, at least in the Western world — actually believe in. Not just the most fanatic fundamentalists; that’s the God that the average person is worshipping in Church on Sunday. And, to his credit, Skinner grants this point. That, apparently, is why Christians should take Dawkins seriously — because all too often even thoughtful Christians take the easy way out, and conceptualize God as something much more tangible than He really is.
At this point, an optimist would hope to be informed, in precise language, exactly what “God” really does mean to the sophisticated believer. Something better than Terry Eagleton’s “the condition of possibility.” But no! We more or less get exactly that:
Philosophers and theologians over the centuries, grappling with what is meant by ‘God’, have resorted to a different type of language, making statements such as “God is ultimate reality”; or “God is the ground of our being”, or “God is the precondition that anything at all could exist”, and so forth. In theological discourse, they can be very helpful concepts, but the trouble with them is that if you’re not a philosopher or theologian, you feel your eyes glazing over – God has become a philosophical concept rather than a living presence.
The trouble is not that such sophisticated formulations make our eyes glaze over; the trouble is that they don’t mean anything. And I will tell you precisely what I mean by that. Consider two possible views of reality. One view, “atheism,” is completely materialistic — it describes reality as just a bunch of stuff obeying some equations, for as long as the universe exists, and that’s absolutely all there is. In the other view, God exists. What I would like to know is: what is the difference? What is the meaningful, operational, this-is-why-I-should-care difference between being a sophisticated believer and just being an atheist?
I can imagine two possibilities. One is that you sincerely can’t imagine a universe without the existence of God; that God is a logical necessity. But I have no trouble imagining a universe that exists all by itself, just obeying the laws of nature. So I would have to conclude, in that case, that you were simply attaching the meaningless label “God” to some other aspect of the universe, such as the fact that it exists. The other possibility is that there is actually some difference between the universe-with-God and the materialist universe. So what is it? How could I tell? What is it about the existence of God that has some effect on the universe? I’m not trying to spring some sort of logical trap; I sincerely want to know. Phrases like “God is ultimate reality” are either tautological or meaningless; I would like to have a specific, clear understanding of what it means to believe in God in the sophisticated non-straw-man sense.
Richard Skinner doesn’t give us that. In fact, he takes precisely the opposite lesson from these considerations: the correct tack for believers is to refuse to say what they mean by “God”!
So, if our understanding of God can be encapsulated in a nice, neat definition; a nice, neat God hypothesis; a nice, neat image; a nice, neat set of instructions – if, in other words, our understanding of God does approximate to a Dawkins version, then we are in danger of creating another golden calf. The alternative, the non-golden-calf route, is to sit light to definitions, hypotheses and images, and allow God to be God.
It’s a strategy, I suppose. Not an intellectually honest one, but one that can help you wriggle out of a lot of uncomfortable debates.
I’m a big believer that good-faith disagreements focus on the strong arguments of the opposite side, rather than setting up straw men. So please let me in on the non-straw-man position. If anyone can tell me once and for all what the correct and precise and sophisticated and non-vacuous meaning of “God” is, I promise to stick to disbelieving in that rather than any straw men.
Update: This discussion has done an even better job than I had anticipated in confirming my belief that the “sophisticated” notion of God is simply a category mistake. Some people clearly think of God in a way perfectly consistent with the supposed Dawkinsian straw man, which is fine on its own terms. Others take refuge in the Skinneresque stance that we can’t say what we mean when we talk about God, which I continue to think is simply intellectually dishonest.
The only on-topic replies I can see that don’t fall into either of those camps are ones that point to some feature of the world which would exist just as well in a purely materialistic conception, and say “I call that `God.'” To which I can only reply, you’re welcome to call it whatever you like, but it makes no difference whatsoever. Might as well just admit that you’re an atheist.
Which some people do, of course. I once invited as a guest speaker Father William Buckley, a Jesuit priest who is one of the world’s experts in the history of atheism. After giving an interesting talk on the spirituality of contemplation, he said to me “You don’t think I believe in G-O-D `God,’ do you?” I confessed that I had, but now I know better.
For people in this camp, I think their real mistake is to take a stance or feeling they have toward the world and interpret in conventionally religious language. Letting all that go is both more philosophically precise and ultimately more liberating.
Change cause time not the other way.
How can there be change without time? Change does not cause time, but embodies it. It’s a tautology – there can be no change without time and no time without change. Time, if it can be explained or is even real, comes from somewhere else.
Only logical “stuff” can start to exist anyway. No surprise our laws of nature looks like math. We know of nothing(!) else that could make the universe self-consistent.
“Math” as concept is not logically consistent on its own – see Godel.
jeff, time can only be measured comparing some motion against some reference motion. In universe without motion there is no time. Just like distance can’t be measured in a space without any objects (or fields) in it (that actually span the space.
Godels theorem does not say that math is not consistent. It just say that in a finite
mathematical structure, one can formulate theorems that can’t be proven or disproven within that structure. One needs to expand the structure in order to decide the truth of these theorems.
Ultimatly it means that math cannot explain its own existence. That must be shown by an “outside” observation. This observation is that math also is created “from” nothing.
Carl
Jeff,
Past and future don’t physically exist, because the energy required is incorporated as the present. If they did, it would require a universe worth of energy to manifest every moment. So what is more efficient(and logical); To have the energy changing form, erasing old as it creates new, or having all points in time existing in some additional dimension and we happen to be where we are? One is incredibly simple, the other incredibly complex. Just think for a moment about driving in traffic; If all points in time exist, then you are at all points on your journey down that road and so are all the other drivers and cars. How is it that you don’t blurr together? How could one moment be so isolated from the next, yet so connected?
Time is a consequence of motion, similar to temperature, not the basis for it.
jeff, time can only be measured comparing some motion against some reference motion.
Time is more than just “change”. I can scan a number line and see 2 change to 3, 3 change to 4, and so on. Does that mean that time flows through the line segment? Is the fact that a sequence of events is ordered enough to create time and confer reality upon them? Not unless you take the view that consciousness is required to manifest time somehow by observing change.
Some of this was explored years ago by the philosopher McTaggert and his A-series and B-series. He came to the conclusion that time was unreal. Modern cosmology’s view of time corresponds to McTaggerts B series (essentially a static timeline) and assumes that consciousness emerges somehow and creates a perception of time. I personally find this view unsatisifying – time is something more, although I still suspect consciousness is vitally involved somehow. But I still think the future is not a static line – it is truly unknown, otherwise there would be nothing to distinguish it from the past. In this respect, time resembles McTaggerts A-series.
It is amazing that there no concept of “now” in physics. There are possible “nows” in relativity, but not an actual “now”. The only way to define “now” is by referencing your own consciousness. And yet we use the word everyday as if it had objective meaning.
Time is a consequence of motion
If time is a consequence of motion, then why is the measure of motion (“speed”) defined as distance over time?
If you take the math view of the universe, time appears as primitive variable in all equations. It is never reduced to anything else, and is therefore not a consequence of anything else. At least not yet. It is – a mystery.
Jeff,
Temperature is a non-linear measure of motion, so “speed” would correspond to “heat.”
“Equations” are intellectually linear.
To refer back to my earlier point;
Human activity is intensely linear and the more focused we are, the more linear our mindset, but is reality fundamentally linear, or is it just our interaction with our context? Is motion at its most elemental, temperature, ie. activity in space, or is it the sequencing of events, ie. time? The brains of insects have been described as a thermometer. Our minds are largely a function of narrative. Time may be elemental to us, but that may simply be a matter of our perspective.
Jeff, John,
I have written earlier that in physics you are actually free to regard momentum as more fundamental than time.
Naively stated: p = dq/dt , viewing p as fundamental, time is generated by dt = dq/p. Or dø/dt = Hø. Time is generated by dt= dø/Hø, H a constant hamiltonian. Not that any new insights are obtained from this. Just trying to make a point.
And we might note that for observers without memory there is no time. Observers without memory cannot see any motion as they cannot tell a change in scene from one moment to the next. They have no concept of the past and cannot know there is a future. Only the present exists.
So the human perception of time is totally dependent on our memory. This makes it difficult to get a “logical” understanding of what time “is”. But I still think time is something not fundamental. Time works very well in physics, we all know that, but I think it can be “improved” on. 🙂
Carl,
Having discussed the issue over the years, I can tell you that whatever the various historical and logical conceptions of time may be, there are quite a few academics and scientists with significant personal investment in time as a fundamental dimension and they won’t let go easily. It’s “spacetime” and that’s that.
A philosophic observation occurred to me today, that if time is a fundamental dimension, with life traveling toward the future, we don’t know what is in store and the sense is that we have little control over events, so we are simply consumers and we are what we consume. On the other hand, if reality is simply the present in motion and all we can know is the past receding, then we are what we produce and set free.
Naively stated: p = dq/dt , viewing p as fundamental, time is generated by dt = dq/p. Or dø/dt = Hø. Time is generated by dt= dø/Hø, H a constant hamiltonian. Not that any new insights are obtained from this. Just trying to make a point.
Well, of course, you can argue that these equations show observed or computed relationships and not “fundamentality” – the same is true in relativistic equations relating time, space, and gravity.
And we might note that for observers without memory there is no time. Observers without memory cannot see any motion as they cannot tell a change in scene from one moment to the next. They have no concept of the past and cannot know there is a future. Only the present exist
And that is really the issue. Is what we call time the past, present, and future (A-series)? Or is it a continuous static dimension (B-series)? If time is a static dimension (like our models say), then all times exist at once and everything is determined. Time would only be structural dimension of the universe. But if the future truly does not exist (yet), then time is something more, and is quite real. The uncertainty principle seems to argue for the second choice (A-series).
It’s also very difficult to integrate the notion of “now” with a static time line. Which “now” on the line is real if all times exist at once? Why is it the one you’re experiencing? And if “now” is subjective, that would also mean that the past and the future are also subjective.
To deny “now” is to deny consciousness, and to deny consciousness is to deny reality, since reality cannot ever be separated from your consciousness.
Is motion at its most elemental, temperature, ie. activity in space, or is it the sequencing of events, ie. time?
As normally understood, motion is a relationship between matter/energy, space, and (optionally) time. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems that you are turning things around and considering motion as fundamental, with matter, space, and time as consequences? But in your model, suppose that “motion” were instantaneous. Would time “emerge” then? That would seem to argue that time is indeed an element of motion, or at least on equal par with it.
Jeff,
“Instantaneous” is a concept based on time. The fact is that most motion is at the speed of light, which from our perspective may as well be instantaneous. The mind is like a factory and the product is individual thoughts. If it didn’t function by producing these flashes of perception, much like a movie consists of a series of individual frames, everything would just be a blur of energy. So our minds proceed toward the future, as these conceptual units fall away into the past. Just as the projector light goes from prior frames to subsequent ones, as these frames go from being in the future to being in the past.
Of course and so is temperature. Just as energy and information are two sides of the same coin. Part of the argument is against the concept of information, laws etc. as some type of Platonic ideal that exists “out there,” whether it is expressed or not. Time and temperature do not exist, except as functions of motion and motion could not exist without causing the effects of time and temperature.
John Merryman:
That is part of the problem as I see it. You see these things as a “tangible part of reality” and yet there is no finer expression of them? You do not allow probability and possibilities as a “universal part of expression,” yet, we have these things in relation to the quantum world.
Our focus defines and confines them, yet out of all these possibilities there is a instantaneous effect of our own causations in the life of expression. A ripple effect in the world.
“Out there” and “inside” cannot go unlinked.
The very presence of the finer forms of expression, force us to the reducible elements and we quickly find that this cyclical nature, if oft the recognition of those two sides of the coin. Yet, we are not apart from this?
What if (*od was only an expression for the global consciousness of mankind? I had always assumed the story of Adam and Eve was about Adams first presumption of the world prior to Eve’s contemplation, where as he experienced a third-party perspective thought, a fundamental voice-of-consciousness that is experienced shortly after being given the gift of language. His subconscious speaks to him through his emotions, he is calm as he explorers the entire garden until he reaches a tree which makes him nervous… he makes a mental note of it, and after Eve precedes him, he teaches her, that all that he found in the garden, all but one tree felt safe to him; however, when she reaches the tree by her own and discovers no subconscious reaction, due to her predisposed thought of Adams God, that she mistakingly was bitten by a snake and rushed the fruit back to Adam as first testament, and fed him with his original sin,…. abstractly defining our voice of reason, one human consciousness….
this is,
-yo
Plato,
I’m in agreement with you. The ideal is a construct. The absolute is the essential out of which both form and function rise. Principles rise with the reality they define.
jeff, I checked out McTaggart, his A and B (and C!) series does not make much sense to me. It seems like he is reproducing the Zeno paradox once more. But he did say (just like me) that in a universe without motion there is no time. So time is unreal he says. That can of course be right (as I also suspect), but I’m not sure about the way he did it yet.
CarlN: McTaggarts philosophy doesn’t settle anything one way or the other (nor does philosophy in general), and many don’t agree with his conclusions. But he does call attention to to some important ways of looking at time. Modern physics definitely corresponds to his “B-series”. But his A-series is the way most people think of time intuitively. He thought the A-series was self-contradictory due to the Zeno-like logic you mentioned. I should point out that there are other powerful arguments against the A-series, such as relativistic simultaneity (look it up if you’re interested). Again, philosophy can be helpful in defining and understanding problems, but not solving them – science is required for that.
Much depends on the ontology of the future – does it “exist” or not? If it does, then the B-series is correct. If not, then there is a very real boundary between the past and the future that we call “now”.
When you say “in a universe without motion there is no time”, I have no argument with that – except to say that I think it’s a tautology, since motion involves time. If you say that time emerges from “change”, then I think (depending on exactly what you mean by “change”) that it’s also a tautology.
Jeff,
Motion also involves temperature, but no one tries arguing that motion is based on a dimension of temperature.
As for relativistic simultaneity, why wouldn’t that be possible in a reality that doesn’t have a dimension of time? I think it would make more sense, not less, if there is only the present.
Scratch that. I was thinking of quantum entanglement. Still, time as a consequence of motion doesn’t make it any less relative. As I recall, one of the reasons time is relative is because atomic activity is affected by velocity and gravity, so that the rate of change is affected. Well guess what? Atomic activity is temperature, so temperature is also relative.
Jeff, regarding time, it is pretty clear to me that the future does not exist. And quantum indeterminacy would say it cannot possibly exist. Neither does the past. We only know that the past existed because of its “imprint” on the present, memory, fossils etc.
Time in the physical equations seems to serve as an index that label the various “presents” in order to see how the “present” evolve due to motion or forces.
Back to God, time and eternity,
Why is something eternal impossible? This includes God, math, physics and logic.
1. Considering something eternal an explanation for its existence cannot be given. If we assume there is something eternal, a Theory of Everything becomes impossible. There will always be something we cannot explain the existence of. Since reality is self-consistent an explanation for existence must exist.
2. For something eternal to exist, it needs to cause its own existence. This is impossible. Why? It first needs to exist to cause its existence and also it first needs to cause its existence to exist. So there is no “things” (gods included) that can cause its own existence. Neither can math or logic.
3. For something to exist a sufficient reason must be afforded. Eternal existence
outside of “time” does not help. A reason for its existence must still be provided.
Nothing does not need any explanation on the other hand. Why something instead of nothing?
4. We note that eternal “things” have something in common with non-existent
“things”. They both have never started to exist. So in view of the above we can equate: Eternal = non-existent
Santa does not exist because he never started to exist. Same for God. Not so for the universe which actually started to exist (Big Bang).
Since nothing is eternal, and everything needs a start in their existence, we are forced to conclude that things that exist are created “from” nothing.
What is the sufficient reason for existence?
1. “When” nothing exists there are no hinders for something (universes) to start to exist. Any such hinders don’t exist “when” nothing exist.
2. There are no conditions the need to be fulfilled for something to start to exist
“when” nothing exist. Any such conditions don’t exist “when” nothing exists.
3. No causation is needed for something to start to exist “when” nothing exits. Such need for causation does not exist “when” nothing exists.
The self-consistency of reality requires that there is an explanation for everything, including existence. Existence comes from nothing. There is no other
“place” it can come from.
No wonder there is a start to our universe.
Carl, you obviously are convinced by your sequence on non-sequitors, do you realise others are not?
For example:
1. The ‘Real’ world is self-consistent, it also exists, but I would maintain that its existence need not be explicable. Why must something that is self consistent also be totally explicable? You have made a step of faith in drawing a conclusion others would dispute. Godel’s arithmetic systems exist and are internally self consistent yet incomplete.
2. You contend that the existence of something needs to be caused. I would contend that a thing can exist without cause. How do you prove which statement is true? Without proof you are making an unprovable statement of faith, that others do not necessarily agree with.
Again, prove this statement.
As you say, “in view of the above”, so your argument completes the circle. Without your act of faith the argument becomes circular, for if indeed something can exist without explanation then there is also a difference between it and ‘non-existent things’: it exists whereas they do not.
As we have argued on the thread “Why is there something rather than nothing”, my comment still stands: “Its not that your logical argument doesn’t provide an explanation of the existence of something from ‘nothing’, it’s that it can explain anything and everything from ‘nothing’.
There is no structure, no discipline, and there are no rules in the explanation – it is this that I find to be no explanation at all. It gets me no further in answering the original question, though I concede that that is a personal opinion: you obviously find it profound, whereas I find it empty.”
But then we agree to disagree!
Garth
Well Garth, it depends on whether you want an explanation or not. You do not want an explanation since that suits you.
1. How can something be consistent while not being explainable? If something cannot be logically explained, even in principle, it will be non-logical. That means again it will not be self-consistent.
2. If a sufficient reason for the existence of reality cannot be given (even in principle), by the same argument the existence of reality will be illogical and contradict itself. So the conclusion is that there is a reason.
The only way to break the circular logic around the question of why reality exists, is to realize that it comes “from” nothing.
🙂
It is not that not having an explanation for something suits me, on the contrary I look for explanations, the point is however that you have not proved self-consistent systems always have an explanation, you have had to assume it.
Are there statements in the language of Godel’s formal arithmetic systems that cannot be proven or refuted? Are those systems consistent? Then explain them.
Garth
Garth, we’ve been over this before I believe..
“Godels theorem does not say that math is not consistent. It just say that in a finite
mathematical structure, one can formulate theorems that can’t be proven or disproven within that structure. One needs to expand the structure in order to decide the truth of these theorems.
Absolutely, the Godel mathematical systems are consistent, they exist and yet are not complete. Whence comes the proof or refutation of a statement purporting to explain their existence?
Garth