Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Neo-Scholastic, out of curiosity and with all due respect, regardless of all the labels and thought processes that people put into interpreting reality, is it possible that no one is right? In other words, is it possible that nobody is correct about the truth and that people are all deluded in their own unique ways? Is the human mind evolved enough to separate delusion from objective experience?

The issue is much deeper than whether or not any particular religion is true or if is closer to the truth than others. Debates about the historical reliability of the NT are way down the road for me. I accept Christianity the same way that most lay people accept the theory of evolution. I’m not deep in the weed* of NT studies the way Steve and RoadRunner are, but what I have studied points me in the direction of accepting the more mainstream opinions rather than the speculation of the fringe. I was raised in a Christian culture. It is familiar to me, conforms to my more certain understanding about reality, and the tradition provides adequate moral guidance and hope. If I had never heard the gospel or if geo-political events had quashed the nascent Christian tradition, then I would probably be a pagan neo-Platonist or Stoic.

Instead, I think it is pretty clear to everyone who knows me, personally and on the forums, that my interests are more basic, having to do with what is real, how we know what we know, and degrees of certainty. With this in mind, I think your question could be restated like this. Is the human mind evolved enough to have true justified beliefs (knowledge), where ‘true’ means correspondence with reality as-it-is and ‘justified’ means warranted by a rational inquiry.

In reply I would say that there appear to be two epistemological limits: 1) whether reality, at the most fundamental level, is orderly or chaotic; and 2) whether knowledge about the world can actually be attained by means of reason. The first is a necessary precondition for ‘truth’ The second is a precondition for ‘justified’. Because of those hard limits, each person must choose without any appeal to reason or experience what stance they will take with respect to both of those existential limits. Beyond those limits people can only guess. Either you believe that the world is intelligible or you don’t. Either you believe that reason is effective or you don’t.

I think if you dig deeply into nearly every debate you will find that people on opposite sides of every issue come down their existential stances, their worldview if you will. For example, the 5W of Aquinas are only valid for people who affirm that the world is intelligible and reason is effective. If you look closely at the most serious objections presented against the 5W they will ultimately involve an attack on either one or both of those pre-commitments. Likewise, in debates about moral realism (objective vs. subjective morality) people are talking past each other because the skeptical stance implicitly includes denial of the world’s intelligibility. Ultimately we’re all just guessing. At the same time, each guess, or existential choice as I call them, comes with a price. IMO people should recognize the implications of those fundamental choices with respect to important values, such as human rights, personal autonomy, meaning & purpose, and their obligations to others.

Personally, I feel that atheism is a symptom of an underlying, corrosive, and insidious skepticism, that I truly believe only leads to nihilism. I don’t mean this in a pejorative sense as if atheists are bad people. I just don’t think very many see the conceptual foundations on which many of their beliefs rest. At the same time, I recognize that I just have to accept that because their skepticism follows from very different existential choices we have no common ground for debating issues at less basic levels. The situation is entirely different with other Christians. I see all the crazy doctrines and twisted apologetics to which atheists rightly object. But at least with them, I share a basic world view and can at least hope to have nuanced and productive conversations.

*I was going to edit this for spelling but didn't because I found the typo kind of funny