An Essay about Atheism in Latin

[Belacqua]

I agree with you that apologetics has devolved a lot over the centuries

I don't think that theology has devolved over the centuries. 

I think there have always been smart people and not-so-smart people, better arguments and worse arguments. If anything has changed, it may be that the stupider people have more confidence. Because anybody can use the Internet, and because publishing has become almost entirely profit-based (rather than quality-based) stupid people can get themselves heard more readily. 

This applies to dumb Christians but it also applies to atheists who publish without knowing what they're talking about. 

Why do you think theology holds any more merit than, for instance, astrology?

Because the basic premises of astrology have been shown to be false. While those of good theology have not. 

Look, sometimes, famous philosophers and scientists in history do get things wildly wrong. 

Well, sure. Galileo rejected the idea that the moon influences the tides despite huge amounts of empirical evidence, because he refused to accept the alchemical idea of "action at a distance." 

One of the most important lessons we can learn is that there is a very good chance that we are wrong about something basic, just because so many people smarter than you or I have been so wrong.

(though it's a bit hard to conceive how could somebody realize that and still think the Cosmological Argument is valid)

The Kalaam cosmological argument is not persuasive, I agree. Both Aristotle and Aquinas rejected first cause argument from a temporal chain. 

The Aristotelian/Thomist argument, however, makes sense. It has persuaded people in modern times -- including a guy I know who recently got his doctorate from the philosophy department of one of America's top-level universities. Not that this means it's correct -- I don't know, personally -- but it may be harder to knock down than you think. 

that we can talk about hotness just because fire exists

Do you really think this is what the 4th way argues? 

Do you think Richard Feynman was wrong for criticizing Spinoza's obviously incoherent text about the concept of substances?

Not at all. Feynman was obviously a brilliant man. Did he understand Spinoza properly? These days some physicists (Krauss, Hawking) have said things about philosophy that were cringe-inducing. I don't know Feynman's critique, so I can't say.

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added a moment later:

A quick Google indicates that Feynman was reading Spinoza for the first time with his son, who was an undergraduate. However I don't see what exactly Feynman's objections were -- only that he had objections. Until I know what those were I can't really say anything. The book I link to below claims that Feynman didn't understand Spinoza properly.

On the other hand, Einstein referred to Spinoza repeatedly, and said that much of modern thought, and Einstein's own, trace back to Spinoza.

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=avOP...za&f=false

It looks to me as if there has been a dumbing-down.

The earlier generation of physicists -- Bohr, Heisenberg, etc. -- and mathematicians -- especially Godel -- knew philosophy pretty well and acknowledged their debt to it. It's no fault of Feynman, who of course was brilliant, if he wasn't taught in his US education what Spinoza meant. Terms in metaphysics are often meant differently from physics, and you need training to know that.

[FlatAssembler]

I don't think that theology has devolved over the centuries.

Theology as a whole perhaps hasn't. Apologetics obviously has.

While those of good theology have not.

So might an astrologist say that the premises of bad astrology have been refuted, but that the premises of good astrology haven't been. Having made more stuff up to evade falsification doesn't make you more credible, in fact, it makes you even less credible.

Galileo rejected the idea that the moon influences the tides despite huge amounts of empirical evidence, because he refused to accept the alchemical idea of "action at a distance."

That's not the same degree of wrongness as when Aquinas suggested that that with fire was a valid argument.

It has persuaded people in modern times -- including a guy I know who recently got his doctorate from the philosophy department of one of America's top-level universities.

Philosophers generally aren't the biggest experts in logic or physics these days, which is necessary to evaluate those statements.

Terms in metaphysics are often meant differently from physics, and you need training to know that.

How is that different from saying that the Bible has perhaps just been mistranslated? Look, maybe there is some language barrier going on here, but it's hard to deny that Lucretius got many more things right than Christian philosophers have.

Look, Belacqua, your responses here read like this:

Yes, the Earth is probably round. But the ships appearing to sink as they disappear over the horizon isn't a valid argument. But don't ask me why, I am not going to teach you the basics of plateogeology here. You need to study plateogeology to be able to refute it. Otherwise, you are just making yourself look arrogant and ill-informed.

[GrandizerII]

The problem with arguments such as Aquinas' Five Ways is that they aren't compelling arguments for God, given what we've settled on as scientifically true regarding the structure of this world and how it works. Maybe the arguments were very compelling in the past, but times have drastically changed since the days of Aquinas. We know a lot of things scientifically that Aquinas himself, for all his intelligence, could not have known.

Looking at the first three arguments for God from Aquinas, the premises seem reasonable, but the conclusion doesn't really follow from the premises unless we are defining God in a very minimalistic kind of way to the point that we could call a naturalistic first cause "God". In such a case, however, the arguments aren't pointing to the kind of being believed in by Aquinas and Catholics (and other Christians) in general.

When it comes to the last two arguments, there is much to doubt about some of the premises. The fourth argument relies on the necessity of the existence of the "maximum", something which has not been successfully established from what I've read. The last argument appears to be "out-of-date", given what we do know thanks to such sciences as evolutionary science.

[Belacqua]

Apologetics obviously has.

Maybe so. I don't know what apologetics -- separate from theology -- was like centuries ago, so I can't judge.

So might an astrologist say that the premises of bad astrology have been refuted, but that the premises of good astrology haven't been. Having made more stuff up to evade falsification doesn't make you more credible, in fact, it makes you even less credible.

If an astrologist made that claim, we'd have to ask him to make arguments, as see if we could refute them. 

Philosophers generally aren't the biggest experts in logic or physics these days, which is necessary to evaluate those statements.

Why should philosophers be experts in physics? Those are separate fields. I don't expect physicists to be expert in philosophy -- though if they say things about philosophy they should try to know what they're talking about.

As for logic, that's a field in philosophy. The experts on what logic is or does are philosophers. 

How is that different from saying that the Bible has perhaps just been mistranslated? Look, maybe there is some language barrier going on here, but 

It's entirely different. 

When Kant uses the word "intuition," he doesn't mean what we do in conversation. When Merleau-Ponty says "intentional," he doesn't mean what we do in conversation. In order to deal with difficult subjects philosophers have often had to use special vocabulary, and to understand them we have to learn what they mean. 

It's the same in science, right? When scientists talk about "theory," they don't mean "my best guess." 

To work out Feynman's critique of Spinoza and whether it was fair or not, we'd have to know what Spinoza meant be "attributes" and "substances," etc. These may or may not be the same as what Feynman was imagining when he read the words. If you know more specifically about Spinoza and why Einstein was wrong about him, I'd be glad to read your explanation. 

it's hard to deny that Lucretius got many more things right than Christian philosophers have.

Christian philosophers like Locke and Kant? Christian physicists like Newton? I imagine that Lucretius got some things right. If you'd like to specify one or two I might be able to talk about them. 

Look, Belacqua, your responses here read like this:

Yes, the Earth is probably round. But the ships appearing to sink as they disappear over the horizon isn't a valid argument. But don't ask me why, I am not going to teach you the basics of plateogeology here. You need to study plateogeology to be able to refute it. Otherwise, you are just making yourself look arrogant and ill-informed.

No doubt it sounds that way to you. 

So far you've taken a kind of scatter-shot approach, addressing so many different ideas in a single post that it's just wearisome. Frankly it comes across as a kind of Gish Gallop, in which you try to make half a dozen weak arguments add up to a strong one. I know that isn't intentional, but it makes it hard to respond. There are so many claims that it's hard to know where to begin. I try not to type out personal insults, but for the record you seem very arrogant and ill-informed to me too. 

Which specific theological claim would you like to focus on?

[Belacqua]

A note on Lucretius, by the way:

The goal for Epicureans like him was a state of mind called ataraxia. After realizing that the world was merely a combination of dead atoms, you would attain this state and become indifferent to the suffering of others and how the world works.

If this had really caught on, it would have nipped science in the bud by eliminating its two main motivations: the desire to improve life, and curiosity.

When the Christian philosophers of the Renaissance began to look at Lucretius' book again, they took from it a number of ideas, but wisely chose not to make ataraxia their goal. As Christians, they were taught not to be indifferent to other people's suffering. And since the Logos is the second person of the Trinity, and Logos is also the set of principles and laws through which nature operates, many Christians had long argued that to learn how the world works is to know God better.

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The problem with arguments such as Aquinas' Five Ways[...]

Yeah, I don't find them persuasive either. 

That doesn't mean we should say false things about them, though. 

One thing that I think has been exaggerated is the extent to which they are meant to persuade. I don't think they were written as stand-alone succinct proofs, as if they were syllogisms. They were more like bullet points for theology students, and several of the ideas -- like what constitutes the "greatest" and why there would have to be such a thing -- need filling in with about a semester's worth of lectures.

[GrandizerII]

When the Christian philosophers of the Renaissance began to look at Lucretius' book again, they took from it a number of ideas, but wisely chose not to make ataraxia their goal.

Wisely? You make it sound like these Christian philosophers were equally impelled by their Christianity to accept the idea of ataraxia as they were impelled to reject it, and that after a significant period of deliberation struggles, they eventually arrived at the decision to reject it. I don't think it was much of an option.

That doesn't mean we should say false things about them, though.

What false things did I say about the arguments? I expressed a view of the arguments in general which is confirmed by the observations I've made and the collective knowledge of today's world, with parts of that knowledge adequately accessible to me. As for the arguments specifically, I was careful enough to read and understand the best I can what they're stating, so if I misrepresented any of the arguments, it was not intentional and I am open to correction. But just implying that I said false things about these arguments without elaboration isn't helpful.

One thing that I think has been exaggerated is the extent to which they are meant to persuade. I don't think they were written as stand-alone succinct proofs, as if they were syllogisms. They were more like bullet points for theology students, and several of the ideas -- like what constitutes the "greatest" and why there would have to be such a thing -- need filling in with about a semester's worth of lectures.

But we have the Internet to help us fill in the gap in knowledge pertaining to all sorts of topics and subjects, including Aristotelian/Thomistic metaphysics. It's not like one needs to necessarily enrol in some prestigious university to have access to whatever extra information I may be missing regarding Aquinas' Five Ways. And it's not like one has to be a top expert of a subject before they can understand the basics and fundamentals of the topic or before they can be qualified to critique the various topics debated within the subject. I personally have made use of various Internet resources to eventually have a good idea of what evolution entails, adequately understand what quantum mechanics is about and the popular interpretations of quantum mechanics, and finally learn how to do calculus. Most of this I never studied back in school.

So it comes off as rather "lawyerly-speak" when you word things the way you have here, and in so doing, have placed theology at such a high epistemic level that laypeople aren't able to attain easily and thereby are very likely not to be qualified to discuss/debate theology.

Furthermore, you could have said a similar thing about arguments for God which you do not take so seriously, such as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. But it doesn't mean that because understanding how to properly defend and support every component of the argument may require semesters (or even years) of studying apologetics along with access to highly technical papers hidden behind paywalls, one needs to go through the same series of milestones to understand what the argument is saying and what objections can be reasonably made against it.

Ultimately, it's all about really understanding what these arguments are saying, and often times this can be achieved by reading the right free-to-access articles on the Internet (which doesn't take semesters to accomplish).

[Belacqua]

You make it sound like these Christian philosophers were equally impelled by their Christianity to accept the idea of ataraxia as they were impelled to reject it, and that after a significant period of deliberation struggles, they eventually arrived at the decision to reject it. I don't think it was much of an option.

Granted, I imagine that anyone recommending indifference and incuriosity would not have gotten much of a hearing at that point. It’s impossible for me to say, of course, to what extent the philosophers of the day were willing to consider wildly different views — psychology is complicated and mind-reading is impossible.

Experience with human nature indicates that none of us is very good at giving serious consideration to whatever conclusion is the exact opposite of what we currently hold. 

What false things did I say about the arguments? I expressed a view of the arguments in general which is confirmed by the observations I've made and the collective knowledge of today's world, with parts of that knowledge adequately accessible to me. As for the arguments specifically, I was careful enough to read and understand the best I can what they're stating, so if I misrepresented any of the arguments, it was not intentional and I am open to correction. But just implying that I said false things about these arguments without elaboration isn't helpful.

Apologies, I didn’t mean to say that you had said anything wrong about the Five Ways. (It should be clear to everybody that you are among the most careful posters here.) I meant to say “we” in the most inclusive way possible. And of course I had recently referred to Dawkins’ very poor explication. 

Ultimately, it's all about really understanding what these arguments are saying, and often times this can be achieved by reading the right free-to-access articles on the Internet (which doesn't take semesters to accomplish).

I honestly think that some people begin with the assumption that anything in theology will be so stupid and obvious that it takes no effort at all to knock it down. And that it’s so wrong that we are entitled to just type out and publish whatever occurs to us. 

You’re right, of course, that a serious search on the Internet can teach us what we need to know. With the caveat, of course, that since any fool can make a web page what we find is likely as not to be wrong, and it’s a mistake to settle for whatever explanation jibes with our own initial thoughts. 

But I stick with my assertion that each of the Five Ways is not as easy as it may look, and that we need to make extra sure we are understanding the terms as they were meant. Language changes, special fields have special vocabulary, what we read is a translation, etc. etc. 

The obvious example to this would be the word “cause” as used in Aristotle or theology. No doubt you’ve seen that people on forums like this one nearly always assume that “cause” always and only means “efficient cause,” which is how we use it today. But of course in the olden times it meant something much more like “all the things that must be the case for X to be the case.” So my parents getting together caused me, but I am also caused, in the old sense, by the particular atoms in my body at the moment, and the particular form I have at the moment, and etc. 

Confusion over this word has led to misunderstandings, in which people have angrily told me that the Kalaam (temporal) argument is exactly the same as Thomas’ First Cause (essential) argument. So again, this doesn’t prove that any of the arguments is true, just that some people are dismissing them for incorrect reasons. 

As for the Fourth Way, I spent some time Googling that today. (Happy to say that the Internet is useful!) Not surprisingly, there’s more to it than I thought at first. It relies, as so much of Thomas’ work does, on the distinction between act and potency, and how one gets into the other. Here is a useful article:

https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/...stence-god

And here is how the author of that article re-writes the Fourth Way in language that is more like we moderns use:

Some things are found to be more perfect than others. Thus, some things have less than the superlative degree of perfection. Since a thing's perfection is its actuality, these things have less than the superlative degree of actuality. Something whose actuality is less than complete must be caused by something else with at least as much actuality. The resulting hierarchy of causes cannot be infinite, so there must be a first cause whose actuality is complete, who is pure act, and who therefore has all perfections in a superlative degree. And this we call God.

Obviously we don’t think that way any more, and a lot of it needs further clarification. Especially, I would guess, the assertion that if a thing’s actuality is less than complete it must be caused [in the old sense of the word] by something with at least as much actuality. 

Now, how can we figure out the reasoning behind this, since it isn’t obvious to us? The best way I know of from experience is to read Scholastic Metaphysics, by Edward Feser*

This book is an excruciatingly careful step-by-step explanation of how the actualization of potential works according to Thomas. It defines all the terms, it gives examples for all the ideas, it ends up with conclusions that I would never have come up with on my own in a million years. Yet despite having read it carefully, and despite being extremely skeptical of its truth, I am not capable myself of saying why it’s wrong. 

In other words, to understand the assumptions behind the Fourth Way, we need a hell of a lot of background. If the contents of this book were presented as a series of college lectures — two a week for an hour each — it would take at least a semester to get through. So yes, the Fourth Way at least demands that much work. (No doubt people who are smarter than I am could do it faster.)

I am afraid that FlatAssembler, in his discussion of the Fourth Way, has been distracted by a shiny object. It’s true that in the original text, Thomas says that fire is the hottest thing, and it’s true that he was mistaken in that. But the fact that his example is wrong does nothing at all to show that the proof itself is wrong. Flat has allowed himself to focus on an irrelevant detail. And this is why I think it is often too easy for us (me and everybody) to dismiss things that we don’t sufficiently understand. 

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*Necessary disclaimer for people who judge me by jumping to false conclusions: By mentioning this book I am not claiming that it is perfectly accurate, nor that its author is a super-genius, nor that every opinion he has ever expressed is the same as my own opinion. I refer to this book for one reason and one reason only: it explains in detail how the actualization of potentiality is said to work according to Thomas Aquinas. No doubt there are other books on the same subject. 

[GrandizerII]

Apologies, I didn’t mean to say that you had said anything wrong about the Five Ways. (It should be clear to everybody that you are among the most careful posters here.) I meant to say “we” in the most inclusive way possible. And of course I had recently referred to Dawkins’ very poor explication. 

Oh ok, I should've kept in mind the wider context of your post and reinterpreted accordingly. My bad.

I honestly think that some people begin with the assumption that anything in theology will be so stupid and obvious that it takes no effort at all to knock it down. And that it’s so wrong that we are entitled to just type out and publish whatever occurs to us.

That's fair. Many of us do have this inclination, true. I certainly do based on my own prior experiences with the arguments in general. Nevertheless, I agree we should be careful in our analyses of any argument made by theologians and be humble in our addressing the argument. After all, lots of intellectual effort has been put into these arguments, backed by centuries of intellectual thinking on the relevant subjects, so the least we could do is think carefully about these arguments and be honest in our search for any flaws in the argument, if any. And if we can't find any obvious flaw, or think of a knockdown argument, then better to just admit we're unable to.

So yeah, it would be unfair to compare theology to astrology (at least the stuff I'm familiar with). That said (and I'll admit I say with very possibly with lots of ignorance), there does seem to be this one dominant theme in theology that generally constrains the range of thinking allowed in the field, and that is the dogmatic belief that "God exists". And I'm not sure I've ever heard a convincing counterargument to the contrary. Even in natural theology, where the aim is to get at the conclusion "God exists" rather than assume it, it would seem rather far-fetched to hear of a case in which an argument is made that rationally arrives at the conclusion "God does not exist" and is nevertheless accepted in theology. I'm sure there are atheist theologians out there, but I get the impression they're more in it for the intellectual exercise and aren't concerned about debunking arguments for God's existence. Again, this is the general (and honest) impression I get, and so not necessarily a statement of facts.

You’re right, of course, that a serious search on the Internet can teach us what we need to know. With the caveat, of course, that since any fool can make a web page what we find is likely as not to be wrong, and it’s a mistake to settle for whatever explanation jibes with our own initial thoughts.

Absolutely. I did not emphasize that well enough in prior post, but we're in agreement here. If I want to understand theology well, better to seek articles written by theologians that explain the arguments well than by atheists like Richard Dawkins. And better to consult multiple sources from different theologians.

As for the rest of what you said, look, you definitely have a better handle of these arguments than I do, and you have clearly devoted a lot of time to them, and are willing to be as honest and as fair as possible in your treatment of them, and yet nevertheless you don't find them convincing as well. I would say that's confirmation that perhaps they're not strong arguments after all.

Regarding that book, I believe you brought this up a couple times before. I'm in the process soon of searching this book up on Kindle and then purchasing it for reading. Might even post about it in your Book Reports thread.

[FlatAssembler]

In order to deal with difficult subjects philosophers have often had to use special vocabulary, and to understand them we have to learn what they mean.

Well, yes, but, sometimes, it's just not worth learning those things. What Flat-Earthers mean when they say "mirage" is different from what we mean when we say that, that doesn't mean it's worth learning those things. And, as far as I know, most philosophers today don't consider metaphysics to be a legitimate branch of philosophy, or consider only the part where it interferes with the philosophy of language to be legitimate.

Christian philosophers like Locke and Kant?

In what sense was Kant a "Christian philosopher"? As far as I know, he didn't write anything about religion other than claiming that the Ontological Argument had a hidden premise that existence was a logical predicate. By "Christian philosophers", I meant the Patristic and the Scholastic philosophers.

I imagine that Lucretius got some things right.

Well, he correctly criticized the Roman beliefs that, for instance, the lightnings were a sign of gods to be superstition. And the atomic theory is certainly a lot closer to the truth than the Aristotle's theory of matter is. Though it's not as amazingly accurate as the Boscovich'es version of atomic theory is. He also supposed the living creatures developed from less complicated ones to more complicated ones.

[GrandizerII]

Belaqua, I was able to locate that book by Feser on Kindle but there is no purchase option for it. There are two other books by the same author that I am able to purchase that seem relevant here: "Five Proofs of the Existence of God" and "Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide". I'll download the Aquinas one for now, and if I get enough value out of it will consider the other one.