Huckabee on Evolution

Roll the tape:

Of this, and Jamie Kirchick's suggestion that Huckabee believes in "fairy tales," Matt writes:

My understanding is that Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama all believe that Jesus Christ died for the sins of mankind and then rose from the dead. This strikes me as a hell of a tall tale. But, obviously, it's not what you'd call a rare view in the United States and if we're going to start writing off politicians who believe in "fairy tales" of this sort there's going to be nobody left.

I like Huckabee, and to a certain extent I liked his answer, but I don't think this will quite fly. I understand that atheists and agnostics have a vested interest in arguing that all religious beliefs are equally absurd - that there's no difference between believing n the God of Abraham and the flying spaghetti monster, say, or between a belief in the possibility of miracles and the belief that the Genesis account is literally true; and that the only reason the Book of Mormon looks more implausible than the New Testament is because the New Testament is older, and so forth. But serious Christians should reject that view (for reasons that I think should be self-evident, though I'm sure I'll have reason to elaborate on them at a later date), and within Christendom there's a pretty big distinction between the faith-and-reason crowd and the kind of fideism that Huckabee seemed to be gesturing at last night. I don't necessarily object to a President who claims to be agnostic on evolution, and I think Huckabee's point that "I’m not planning on writing the curriculum for an eighth-grade science book ... I’m asking for the opportunity to be president of the United States" is basically correct. But all things being equal, I would prefer a President who can reconcile his belief in the truth of Christianity with what seems to me to be the only conclusion that reason allows for at the moment - namely, the common ancestry of life on Earth.

Comments

I would prefer a President who is theologically, philosophically and scientifically sound from the ground up. As regards evolution, though, this is a difficult trick, as it seems to me that neither the science nor the theology has reached anything like a last word. What seems most crucial to me for any public figure making a statement on the question is to distinguish the science of evolution from the materialist philosophical conclusions which atheists draw from it, and which they often attempt to smuggle in with the science. So I give Huckabee high marks on the basis of this clip, especially up to about the 1:25 mark, for skipping past Blitzer's vague talking-point construct ("do you believe in evolution?") and addressing the critical question.

Posted by Maclin Horton | June 6, 2007 10:44 AM

But serious Christians should reject that view (for reasons that I think should be self-evident, though I'm sure I'll have reason to elaborate on them at a later date)

I would be very glad to read your elaboration on this point.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | June 6, 2007 10:56 AM

I would prefer a President who can reconcile his belief in the truth of Christianity with what seems to me to be the only conclusion that reason allows for at the moment - namely, the common ancestry of life on Earth.

No Jews, huh?

Posted by Swift Loris | June 6, 2007 11:13 AM

While the President isn't required to write 8th grade science texts, our current President's lack of an 8th grade understanding of science makes the question necessary. Will the next President continue to ignore all science that doesn't fit his or her political needs?
Moreover, if Genesis is literal truth, is Revelations also literal truth? Surely it is reasonable to ask a candidate who claims to believe in a literal Adam and Eve if his or her foreign policy would be premised on the belief that Israel will miraculously survive an assault by "the King of the North."

Posted by Noyatin | June 6, 2007 11:46 AM

But all things being equal, I would prefer a President who can reconcile his belief in the truth of Christianity with what seems to me to be the only conclusion that reason allows for at the moment - namely, the common ancestry of life on Earth.

Me, too, Ross. Although one wonders if Huckabee really believes what he says he believes, or is he just engaging in rhetoric he thinks his base wants to hear. I'm not saying that politicians with genuine religious conviction don't exist. Tony Blair's an obvious example. It sometimes strains credulity, though, to witness the specter of a successful, contemporary, obviously intelligent government leader rejecting one of the fundamental building blocks of science.

Posted by Jasper | June 6, 2007 11:52 AM

"But serious Christians should reject that view (for reasons that I think should be self-evident, though I'm sure I'll have reason to elaborate on them at a later date)"

I too would be interested in those reasons. I have never heard any that amount to anything more sophisticated than "I'm right because Christianity is truth." You're free to believe that, of course, but it's hardly a compelling logical argument.

Posted by moo-cow | June 6, 2007 12:07 PM

For what it's worth, allow me to third the call for your explanation--I'm very much looking forward to it (as is Ezra Klein)

Posted by Dan Miller | June 6, 2007 12:09 PM

Ross,

Faith is faith is faith. Why is one man's faith-belief more absurd than another's? Your claim implies that you think faith-beliefs are subject to some test of reasonableness by which you can evaluate their degree of absurdity. What is this test, exactly?

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 12:53 PM

I would prefer a President who can reconcile his belief in the truth of Christianity with what seems to me to be the only conclusion that reason allows for at the moment - namely, the common ancestry of life on Earth.

How do you do that, Ross?

Posted by TW Andrews | June 6, 2007 1:39 PM

This is evasion of the main issue. Matt may have referred to FSM, but what he is saying is that there is no difference between the belief in the God of Abraham and the belief in Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu or for that matter Allah. All are just as irrational, and do not belong in political discourse.

Posted by gregor | June 6, 2007 1:54 PM

I have never heard any that amount to anything more sophisticated than "I'm right because Christianity is truth."

are the only christians you've ever talked to fundamentalist protestants dancing around with snakes in their hands? look, i'm an atheist. i think all religions are man-made derivations of our cognitive apparatus, but to talk about something you need to know it. ross is i think known to be a catholic. as such he no doubt is alluding to (without being explicit) the fact that catholics believe that one can arrive at the truths of christianity via reason (e.g., see summa theologia). personally i find the rationales unconvincing, the force of the sequence of propositions seems to be clearly predicated on a priori belief (note even in aquinas' work there are references and appeals to the church fathers to clear up muddled or hazy areas of the chain of reasoning). that being said, the mode of thought is clearly different from justification by faith alone (yes, i know that i'm going beyond soteriology here).

as for ross' point about differences between religions, it is obvious when consider mormonism, fundamentalist protestantism and catholicism & mainline protestantism. in the case of mormonism the falsification is manifest on a first order level in a range of dimensions. genetic studies show that native americans do not derive from levantine populations. the archaeology does not confirm (disconfirms in fact) anything in the book of mormon in regards to the new world. the social & historical zeitgeist of joseph smith's milieu is well known, and how the book of mormon emerged from it is understood. smith's character is on record. in regards to fundamentalist protestantism the tenets often held are also easily falsifiable. the earth isn't 6,000 years old, you can confirm this with minimal contingent assumptions (assume inverse square law, speed of light and use parallax around the earth's orbit, you can figure out that the stars are too old). now, as regards catholicism & mainline protestantism they have receded beyond first order falsification in the modern world (in third world countries many 'mainline' christian churches have associations with magic and exorcism, so that's why i say the modern world). the religious events are deep in the past. the rejection of virgin birth and resurrection is intelligible in light of the uniformitarian assumption about the laws of nature, or naturalistic presuppositions. i find these big picture renderings of supernatural theism wholly convincing, but, they are different in character from the falsifications above.

Posted by razib | June 6, 2007 1:57 PM

Well, Maclin Horton's post up above demonstrates that Huckabee's pandering isn't being lost on the people he aims to influence. Here's a clue:

*social darwinism* is not *evolutionary theory* and is not "espoused" by atheists through any biological science curriculum. Social darwinism is, at best, sociology and anthropology and occasionally philosophy's appropriation of some metaphoric aspects of darwin's theory of natural selection to explore and understand trends in social and cultural history. That appropriation has gone on because the horrible materialism and brutality of social darwinist beliefs actually accorded very well with the religious beliefs of the early sociologists who appropriated the language. Do try reading the works of early christian slaveholders to understand the ways in which christianity and a kind of naieve eugenics/darwinism informed their fondness for slavery.

And by the way--anyone who has ever driven across a modern road or bridge owes the safety of this procedure to scientists and engineers who have studied the predictable, regular, geologic history of the world. It would be impossible to predict the location of oil, the substrate of rock or shale hidden under the topsoil, without insights from geology which depend entirely on the repeatedly proven record of the earth's billion year old history embedded in the rocks around us. I recommend reading "The Map that Changed the World" about the early work in this area. There is no way that the particular, limited, sectal beliefs of some christians about an instant god/life origin is reflected in the geological record. And in fact many, many christians the world over have no problem reconciling belief in the real world around them with their faith.It is a very peculiar, tiny, and to my mind pathetically frightened and ignorant American subset of protestant christianity that continues to insist that god spends his days planting phony facts for religious believers to ignore.

Its sad, and pathetic, but frankly thewhole republican line up falls into that category one way or another.

aimai

Posted by aimai | June 6, 2007 1:59 PM

But serious Christians should reject that view (for reasons that I think should be self-evident, though I'm sure I'll have reason to elaborate on them at a later date).

Please, do elaborate. I suspect that most "serious" Christians would say that it is self-evident that Christianity is more legitimate than Mormonism "because Christianity is true". Are you proposing that there is an empirical reason that Christianity is more legitimate than Mormonism? And if so, what is it?

Posted by Midwest Product | June 6, 2007 2:00 PM

razib, your point about the empirics of mainline Protestantism and Catholicism is perceptive, and well taken.

I suspect, however, that there is more to Ross's feeling about the views of "serious Christians" than merely the difficulty in discrediting factual claims. I would imagine that he thinks there is something intrinsically more appealing about them.

I could be wrong, though.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | June 6, 2007 2:06 PM

but what he is saying is that there is no difference between the belief in the God of Abraham and the belief in Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu or for that matter Allah. All are just as irrational

yes, but if you read ross' post i think the problem isn't the idea of god, it is the assumption that huckabee makes that his god demands that he reject the findings of modern science. consider:

candidate a)

believes in the flying spaghetti monster

candidate b)

believes in the flying spaghetti monster, and, that the flying spaghetti monster can cure illness through intercessory prayer and so would divert monies toward "prayer teams" circling hospitals

which scares you more? saying that fundamentally on first principles a & b are not different because they have no good cause for their believe in the FSM is fine, but b clearly has beliefs on top of the fundamental irrationality that give one particular pause.

Posted by razib | June 6, 2007 2:08 PM

razib,

the fact that catholics believe that one can arrive at the truths of christianity via reason

Really? Is that what the Catholic Church teaches? Is that what rank-and-file Christians generally believe? I'd love to see someone show via reason the "truth" that Jesus is the Son of God. Or that he rose from the dead after three days and ascended into Heaven. Or, for that matter, that the world was created by a benevolent and omnipotent God.

If Catholics truly believe that these claims can be demonstrated via reason they're as deluded about science and reason as "scientific creationists."

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 2:10 PM

Mixner, Razib did indeed overstate; Catholics (of whom I am not one) believe that some theological truths are demonstrable -- the existence of God, his creation of the cosmos, etc. -- while some are revealed, like your examples.

This is the diff b/t "natural" and "revealed" theology.

Posted by Anderson | June 6, 2007 2:23 PM

My examples included the creation of the cosmos by God. I think the claim that the truth of this belief can be shown via reason is as absurd as the claim that the truth of the Resurrection or of the relationship of Jesus Christ to God can be shown via reason.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 2:53 PM

Ross,

I think that the solution here is, as you suggest, to point out that the supposedly clear connection between the valid underlying science of the Modern Synthesis and a materialist philosophy collapses upon careful inspection. Hopefully the conservative tradition can end its sustained flirtation with pseudo-scientific alternatives (which Huckabee nodded to in the previous debate, but not in this more carefully-scripted answer).

I believe that rigorous consideration of the mechanics of the evolutionary algorithm can show this to be a teleological process that requires an Unmoved Mover to initiate the process (or more precisely, precedent process). It is appropriate for science to proceed as if evolution is non-teleological because the calculation of any such goal is so difficult it is essentially a philosophical rather than a scientific point.

I have written a fairly lengthy article on this that I expect to publish soon.

Posted by Jim Manzi | June 6, 2007 3:04 PM

aimai, I said nothing whatsoever about social Darwinism, and it hadn't even crossed my mind. Whoever you're ranting to and/or about, it isn't me.

Jim Manzi, your views are intriguing. I believe the temperature of the whole evolution debate could be lowered if the boundaries between science and philosophy/theology were correctly understood and respected by both sides. It's my understanding that the Unmoved Mover is essentially what Catholic theology claims is knowable by unaided reason (although I am no expert on this).

Posted by Maclin Horton | June 6, 2007 3:26 PM

I'd love to see someone show via reason the "truth" that Jesus is the Son of God. Or that he rose from the dead after three days and ascended into Heaven. Or, for that matter, that the world was created by a benevolent and omnipotent God.

I'd love to see someone come up with a coherent reason for the necesity of Jesus's sacrifice as a "redemption" for a fallen world. Why not have him stub his toe as a "sacrifice"? Or, for that matter, why should God go through the charade of arranging a "sacrifice" of himself - why not simply say "you're forgiven"?

It makes perfect emotional sense if you're a Hebrew primitive of the time who buys into the tribal use of a sacrifical lamb, but there's very few of them left these days.

Posted by Phoenician in a time of Romans | June 6, 2007 3:37 PM

It's my understanding that the Unmoved Mover is essentially what Catholic theology claims is knowable by unaided reason (although I am no expert on this).

If the existence of an "Unmoved Mover" is knowable by reason (strangely, the scientific community seems unconvinced), that just gets you to the god of deism. The baroque, caring, anthropomorphic god of Catholicism is a different matter entirely.

I'd love to see someone come up with a coherent reason for the necesity of Jesus's sacrifice as a "redemption" for a fallen world. Why not have him stub his toe as a "sacrifice"? Or, for that matter, why should God go through the charade of arranging a "sacrifice" of himself - why not simply say "you're forgiven"?

Yes, indeedy. Perhaps Ross will clear it all up in a future post.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 3:46 PM

I think the claim that the truth of this belief can be shown via reason is as absurd as the claim that the truth of the Resurrection or of the relationship of Jesus Christ to God can be shown via reason.

well, you can have your opinion but most people would probably disagree. i tend to think that 'reasoned' proofs of god's existence are weak, verging upon the absurd, but certainly not as absurd as attempting to rationalize the resurrection or the trinity. now, there is the reality that you might think it is as absurd, but that still doesn't change that the majority of americans probably don't agree with you, so in a public policy discussion we can ignore your yammering since you're a nobody.

Posted by razib | June 6, 2007 3:56 PM

Mixner, re your 2nd paragraph: yes, that's correct, except that your paren about the scientific community is an example of a confusion of the spheres: whether or not there is an Unmoved Mover is not a question on which the scientific community has any particular standing, as it can't be resolved by study of the physical world. It's a philosophical question.

Posted by Maclin Horton | June 6, 2007 4:05 PM

razib,

You haven't shown anything about what "the majority of americans" believe on the question, so we can ignore your yammering since you're a nobody.

And of course, "the truths of christianity," which you claimed Catholics believe can be "arrived at" "via reason," consist of much more than just belief that the world was created by their God.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 4:09 PM

Mixner, re your 2nd paragraph: yes, that's correct, except that your paren about the scientific community is an example of a confusion of the spheres: whether or not there is an Unmoved Mover is not a question on which the scientific community has any particular standing, as it can't be resolved by study of the physical world. It's a philosophical question.

Really? So you think they think the existence of this postulated God can be established purely through reason, through reason alone, unaided or uninformed by any observations of the world around them? Then it's even more ridiculous.

If observation is involved, then it is most definitely a scientific question, and the lack of support for the proposition among scientists would seem to suggest rather strongly that Catholic "reasoning" isn't very good.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 4:17 PM

Maclin Horton,
sorry you didn't like my "rant", how very uncivil of me to respond to your post at all.

I took this phrase:
"What seems most curcial to me for any public figure making a statement on the quesiton is to distinguish the science of evolution from the materialist philosophical conclusions which atheists draw from it, and which they often attempt to smuggle in with the science." It seems you were setting up a different straw man. Most atheists don't see any need to defend "materialist philosophy" they just don't see any need to buy into your particular brand of immaterialist or faith based philsophy. As scientists have said for a few hundred years--they don't *need* god to explain the things they are attempting to explain, and resorting to god (the way some religious people do) to explain away evidence, or to explain away the gaps, is not really any different, from a scientific point of view, than throwing up your hands and saying "I dunno."

My comments about both social darwinism and about creationism and geology stand. but it must be very embarrassing for you to have to align yourself with the people to whom you think I'm replying so I won't consider my original post a response to you at all. I'm sure *your* understanding of science and the universe isn't as foolish as the people huckabee is pandering to.

aimai

Posted by aimai | June 6, 2007 4:34 PM

I, too, anxiously await your empirical anlysis of the self evident.

Basically, it seems to me that you feel a certain brand of Christianity should be privileged because it has been around for a long time and has been a central part of Western culture. But does this in any way speak to its inherent demonstrable truth?

I think you might strain yourself trying to make that case.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | June 6, 2007 4:35 PM

If anyone here is seriously interested in the rationality of religious belief (as opposed to desiring to repeat what you think we believers must think--which is amusing, and about as empirically grounded as belief in the spaghetti monster, but why be epistemically consistent when knocking the eptisemic strength of others' beliefs?), then please start here or in some similar place: http://www.amazon.com/Atheism-Theism-Great-Debates-Philosophy/dp/0631232591/ref=sr_1_13/002-4161203-2607263?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181165611&sr=1-13

That book is a relatively recent exchange between two highly skilled and respected philosophers, one a skeptic, the other a believer. The book may or may not change people's views in either direction as to whether there is a god, but it should prevent either side from claiming that the other is simply patently absurd or somehow acting in bad faith as a creature endowed with reason.

Posted by Bill | June 6, 2007 5:34 PM

Mixner, on the question of the Unmoved Mover I'll just direct you to a long philosophical tradition that goes back to at least Aristotle. It's not a Catholic idea, but the Church has semi-officially adopted it (some would say absolutely officially, some would say not--that's an intramural Catholic argument).

Observation is not involved, beyond the "observation" that stuff exists. What observation could possibly answer the question "where did all this come from?" or "how did all this come to be?", to say nothing of "what does it mean?" It's fine to postulate a materialist answer to those questions--to say "it's just here, and this is all there is, and that's all we can know." But that's not a scientific position, it's a philosophical one.

aimai, thanks for your much better response. I agree with you completely about the way science works. Clearly a scientist must always start with the presumption of physical causes, and not just postulate a miracle to get past a knotty problem. My reference to "materialistic philosophical conclusions" was not to that process, or to anything that a scientist as scientist does. Rather, it's the assumption that *only* the material world exists and therefore all questions are in principle answerable by science. Whether that's true or false, it's not science--it's philosophy. Not physics but meta-physics. Pop atheists like Dawkins do this all the time; their refutations of religion tend to assume materialist premises.

I'm not implying that many theists don't illicitly insert non-material postulates where they don't belong--clearly they do, and the scientific complaint about this is perfectly valid. But so is the religious complaint that materialists who press the physical sciences into service on their behalf are similarly trespassing, so to speak.

Posted by Maclin Horton | June 6, 2007 5:35 PM

I haven't read that particular book, but I've many read many other books and essays by distinguished authors arguing for theism, and have never found any of them remotely persuasive. I doubt Haldane brings any new arguments to the table. The only form of theism I consider plausible is philosophical deism. All traditional forms of theism seem to me hopelessly irrational.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 5:42 PM

Maclin Horton,

Mixner, on the question of the Unmoved Mover I'll just direct you to a long philosophical tradition that goes back to at least Aristotle. It's not a Catholic idea, but the Church has semi-officially adopted it (some would say absolutely officially, some would say not--that's an intramural Catholic argument). Observation is not involved, beyond the "observation" that stuff exists. What observation could possibly answer the question "where did all this come from?" or "how did all this come to be?" to say nothing of "what does it mean?"

What possible reasoning, or combination of observation and reasoning, could answer those questions either, let alone demonstrate that all this stuff came to be from the God postulated by the Catholic Church?

It's fine to postulate a materialist answer to those questions--to say "it's just here, and this is all there is, and that's all we can know." But that's not a scientific position, it's a philosophical one.

I'm not postulating an answer, I'm attacking the view that the answers given by the Catholic Church can be shown to be true by reason (or by observation, or a combination of observation and reason, for that matter).

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 5:56 PM

Maclin Horton,

Rather, it's the assumption that *only* the material world exists and therefore all questions are in principle answerable by science. Whether that's true or false, it's not science--it's philosophy. Not physics but meta-physics. Pop atheists like Dawkins do this all the time; their refutations of religion tend to assume materialist premises.

If you think that, I don't think you understand Dawkins' arguments, a failing that seems to be very common among his critics, most of whom, in my experience, do not even seem to have read him. None of Dawkins' arguments against religion rest on an assumption of metaphysical naturalism. He doesn't deny the logical possibility of a supernatural world or of a God of some kind, he argues that the Gods postulated by Christianity and other common forms of theism are highly implausible.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 6:05 PM

To ratchet it up a bit, I think it is completely self-evident that the reason Mormonism looks so ridiculous to many people is because it is a younger religion and we know more about its origins.

Just from what we know of Christianity's origins, it was a mess, with all sorts of competing sects and competing gospels espousing many contradictory viewpoints as to Jesus' teachings until a Church hierarchy, almost certainly motivated as much by maintaining power as espousing truth, settled on an official history and decided which books were canonical and which ones were heretical.

I suspect that had the formative events of orthodox Christianity occurred in the 1820's and 1830's, Christian teachings would look implausible to many people for much the same reasons that Latter-Day Saint teachings do.

Look, I am not as dogmatic about this as Matthew Yglesias is-- it's perfectly respectable to be a Christian or a Mormon. But surface implausibility is simply not a criterion that favors believers-- the surface implausibility of Mormonism is entirely a product of its relative youth.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 6, 2007 6:31 PM

Mixner, time doesn't permit me to keep up this conversation, but a couple of quick points: the Catholic Church doesn't claim to have thought this stuff up; the whole idea is that it was revealed by God. One doesn't come to believe it by starting from scratch and reasoning toward it, but by accepting the chain of testimony that goes back to Christ himself. The "address," to use one of literary critic Marion Montgomery's favorite words, of the believer or of the seeker to this tradition is an encounter of one self with another. Every faculty comes into play, including but not limited to reason. So we believe that the faith is not contrary to right reason, but not that it can be encompassed by reason, much less arrived at purely on that basis. No one to my knowledge has ever claimed to deduce the divinity of Christ either from observations about the natural world or from abstract reasoning.

So "demonstrate" and "postulate" are the wrong sorts of word to use. I expect that was just a casual word choice on your part, but I wanted to point out that the Church would not use it or anything like it. The claim about reason and the First Cause, or Unmoved Mover, is really ancillary to the faith as a whole, and I think a bit of a distraction. As you say above, and the Church agrees, that gets you at most to the god of the deists, and certainly plenty of philosophers would argue that it doesn't even get you that far. (And however much the Church approves it, it's not a core article of faith.)

In reply to your last paragraph, I didn't mean that you were postulating that answer, just that it's a widespread mistake. I meant to be referring back to the original issue, which involved the spheres proper to science and to religion.

Gotta go--nice talking to you.

Posted by Maclin Horton | June 6, 2007 6:56 PM

Re: Your claim implies that you think faith-beliefs are subject to some test of reasonableness by which you can evaluate their degree of absurdity. What is this test, exactly?

Well, here's one suggestion: some beliefs have withstood the test of time and change (including translation across cultures). If you stop to think about it, that's ultimately a sort of natural selection test for beliefs: those which survive are apt to be closer to reality.

Re: I'd love to see someone come up with a coherent reason for the necesity of Jesus's sacrifice as a "redemption" for a fallen world.

Interestingly enough, this notion was added onto Christianity in the West in the Middle Ages. It was not part of ancient Christian soteriology and it is not accepted in Eastern Christendom to this day. The older (and still Eastern) belief is that Christ made himself a "ransom" for humanity which was enslaved to the forces of sin and death (sometimes personnified as the Devil). By dying as a man Christ entered the realm of death ("Hell", but not a Hell of tomrent, rather more like the Greek Hades), and there proclaimed his divinity enabling him to defeat death and free all who desired it. I am not insisting that anyone has to believe this interpretation, but I am pointing out that some things thought to be "core" Christian doctrines aren't necessarily so and widespread alternatives may exist, and have since antiquity.

Re: I suspect that had the formative events of orthodox Christianity occurred in the 1820's and 1830's, Christian teachings would look implausible to many people for much the same reasons that Latter-Day Saint teachings do.

Except that the formative events of Christianity could not have occured in the 19th century: the culture, politics etc. of the world would not have admitted them. The events of the Gospel are fixed in time, and while they probably could have occured a century or so either way from when they did, they can't be displaced too far (in either space or time) or you would get a radically different outcome.

Posted by JonF | June 6, 2007 7:05 PM

the Catholic Church doesn't claim to have thought this stuff up; the whole idea is that it was revealed by God. One doesn't come to believe it by starting from scratch and reasoning toward it, but by accepting the chain of testimony that goes back to Christ himself.

Razib claimed that the Catholic Church teaches (or, at least, that "catholics believe") that "one can arrive at the truths of christianity via reason." I'm not sure that's true, but the Catholic Church certainly teaches that the existence of God can be known through reason. So your claim above is false, at least with respect to the question of the existence of God. It's not supposed to depend on "accepting testimony," it's supposed to be knowable through reason alone.

Of course, to the extent that Catholic beliefs do rest on "accepting testimony," that just begs the question of why one should accept the testimony.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 7:10 PM

Well, here's one suggestion: some beliefs have withstood the test of time and change (including translation across cultures). If you stop to think about it, that's ultimately a sort of natural selection test for beliefs: those which survive are apt to be closer to reality.

No they're not. They might be apt to be more useful, or more appealing, or more intuitive, but the longevity of a belief is a very poor guide to whether or not it's true. And, of course, under that test, the belief that the earth is young (on the order of thousands or millions of years) is "apt to be closer to reality" than the belief that the Earth is billions of years old. In fact, almost all modern scientific knowledge that conflicts with ancient folk beliefs would fail the test.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 7:20 PM

"Except that the formative events of Christianity could not have occured in the 19th century: the culture, politics etc. of the world would not have admitted them. The events of the Gospel are fixed in time, and while they probably could have occured a century or so either way from when they did, they can't be displaced too far (in either space or time) or you would get a radically different outcome."

That's completely circular. The point is, ANY possible false revelation-- whether by means of the events told in the orthodox Christian story or otherwise-- that occurred in the 19th Century would meet much the same skepticism as Mormonism, because there would be a histoical record which contradicts it. Whereas, revalatory events that occurred 2,000 years ago are simply more difficult to falsify, even if they are indeed false.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 6, 2007 9:06 PM

I think Ross's original point, though, is that there is a distinction between the type of fideism which will reject empirical evidence such as carbon dating which contradicts their religious belief and the "faith and reason are the two wings by which mankind ascends to the truth" (John Paul II) approach which does not reject empirical evidence in favor of religious truths. In other words, Catholicism is not empirically falsifiable on the basis of physical science, whereas a belief that the earth is 6,000 years old is. This difference is probably irrelevant if you are a militant atheist like Dawkins that believes all religion is a cancer, but the difference is rather substantial in terms of its effects on science, philosophy, etc. Science in universities after all began as a branch of theology in the middle ages with people like Aquinas arguing strenuously that faith and reason cannot contradict.

Posted by John B. | June 6, 2007 11:13 PM

John B,

I think Ross's original point, though, is that there is a distinction between the type of fideism which will reject empirical evidence such as carbon dating which contradicts their religious belief and the "faith and reason are the two wings by which mankind ascends to the truth" (John Paul II) approach which does not reject empirical evidence in favor of religious truths. In other words, Catholicism is not empirically falsifiable on the basis of physical science, whereas a belief that the earth is 6,000 years old is.

Catholicism obviously rejects the empirical evidence against the claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after three days, and against sundry "miracles" that are a part of its teachings. It also claims that the existence of its postulated God may be known through reason, which is certainly not accepted by either philosophers or scientists.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 11:39 PM

My point about evolution and materialist philosophy was actually quite narrow. I believe that careful consideration of evolution does not logically compel acceptance of a materialist philosophy because it does not resolve the key philosophical problems of, among other things, first cause. That does not mean that I'm asserting someone has definitively resolved the well-known philosophical problem of infinite regress in favor of theism or atheism, simply that evolution leaves it unresolved.

Huckabee (or anyone else) can recognize the truth (in the the scientific meaning of truth) of evolution without having to accept an atheistic philosophy.

Posted by Jim Manzi | June 6, 2007 11:42 PM

I haven't seen anyone suggest that evolution resolves, or even addresses, the alleged problem of "first cause." (By the way, if everything needs a cause, then God needs a cause. If not everything needs a cause, then the universe may not need a cause).

Evolution describes a deep history of the development of life, including human beings, that is violent and chaotic, that lacks any sign of purpose or intelligent guidance, that is indifferent to suffering, inefficient and wasteful. It's hard to see this process as the handiwork of an omnipotent and benevolent God. That's the basic challenge evolution poses to theism, and it probably helps to explain why belief in God among evolutionary biologists is especially low and why evolution is so strongly resisted by so many theists.

Posted by Mixner | June 6, 2007 11:57 PM

Mixner,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I have inserted my take on each of them.

"I haven't seen anyone suggest that evolution resolves, or even addresses, the alleged problem of "first cause.""

Dawkins, for example, argues this repeatedly, and explicitly, by arguing that evolution describes the creation of human life from building blocks sufficiently simple that the their spontaneous creation is not problematic. See The Blind Watchmaker.

"(By the way, if everything needs a cause, then God needs a cause. If not everything needs a cause, then the universe may not need a cause)."

As I'm sure you know, this is a very old argument(which is not to say that is either false or has been refuted). I will not engage on this here, other than to say it's hard to call first cause and "alleged" problem of philosophy, if by problem we mean something that smart philosophers continue to argue about.

"Evolution describes a deep history of the development of life, including human beings, that is violent and chaotic, that lacks any sign of purpose or intelligent guidance, that is indifferent to suffering, inefficient and wasteful."

I believe that this is more precisely stated as:

Evolution describes a deep history of the development of life, including human beings, that is violent BUT NOT chaotic, that lacks any APPARENT sign of purpose or intelligent guidance, that is APPARENTLY indifferent to suffering, AND CAN NOT BE SAID TO BE EITHER EFFICIENT OR INEEFICIENT.

Posted by Jim Manzi | June 7, 2007 12:58 AM

Jim Manzi,

Dawkins, for example, argues this repeatedly, and explicitly, by arguing that evolution describes the creation of human life from building blocks sufficiently simple that the their spontaneous creation is not problematic. See The Blind Watchmaker.

Dawkins argues no such thing. I have a copy of The Blind Watchmaker on my desk. I just retrieved it from my book case. Perhaps you could quote the text and cite the page number where you think Dawkins makes this claim.

Perhaps more importantly, you seem to have confused the supposed philosophical problem of a "First Cause" with the scientific problem of the origin of life (or possibly just the origin of "human" life. Your description is unclear). Those are two separate issues.

Evolution describes a deep history of the development of life, including human beings, that is violent BUT NOT chaotic, that lacks any APPARENT sign of purpose or intelligent guidance, that is APPARENTLY indifferent to suffering, AND CAN NOT BE SAID TO BE EITHER EFFICIENT OR INEEFICIENT.

No, it really is chaotic. It is driven by random mutations of DNA and random environmental changes, like the impact event that wiped out the dinosaurs. I'm not sure what difference you think there is between a "sign" and an "apparent sign" (how can it be a sign if it's not apparent?), but there's no evidence of either, and no evidence of any sensitivity to suffering. And it certainly can be said to be inefficient. A competent human engineer could improve the efficiency of countless designs found in nature. They're inefficient because of the nature of the process, which must jerry-rig new parts through gradual changes to existing ones, instead of producing them from scratch.

Posted by Mixner | June 7, 2007 1:21 AM

Mixner:

The Blind Watchmaker, Page 23, 2006 paperback edition:

"The fundamental original units that we need to postulate, in order to understand the coming into existence of everything, either consists of literally nothing (according to some physicists), or (according to other physicists) they are units of the utmost simplicity, far too simple to need anything so grand as deliberate Creation."

I don't believe that I have confused the problem of First Cause (or more precisely, the Aristotelian proposed solution of the Uncaused Cause to the problem of infinite regress) with the origin of life.

From Dictionary.com:
cha•ot•ic [key-ot-ik] –adjective completely confused or disordered

I don't think you believe that this is an accurate description of evolution. The evolutionary algorithm searches the space of possible genomes by combining three fundamental operators: selection, crossover and mutation. While both crossover and mutation contain random (from a scientific perspective) elements, in no useful sense, can this process be called "completely confused or disordered".

The difference between a "sign" and an "apparent sign" is that we can read the latter, but can not necessarily read the former. For example, in the year 1800 there was no apparent signs of an expanding universe, but nonetheless (as far as we can tell as of 2007) the universe was expanding in that year. With better theoretical physics and instruments, there would have been an apparent sign of this.

You say that: "A competent human engineer could improve the efficiency of countless designs found in nature. They're inefficient because of the nature of the process, which must jerry-rig new parts through gradual changes to existing ones, instead of producing them from scratch."

But this is like saying I'm a more efficient engineer than James Watt because I can figure out how to improve the steam engine. Good luck putting yourself back in his place and inventing it in the first place. Evolution is a process for searching a vast space of possible solutions to find fit ones. It can only be said to be either efficient or inefficient in comparison to some other search method equipped with the same raw materials as were provided to evolution.

Posted by Jim Manzi | June 7, 2007 2:02 AM

Jim Manzi,

I don't believe that I have confused the problem of First Cause (or more precisely, the Aristotelian proposed solution of the Uncaused Cause to the problem of infinite regress) with the origin of life.

Your statement referred to "the creation of human life from building blocks sufficiently simple that the their spontaneous creation is not problematic" which certainly sounds like a reference to the problem of the origin of life (or perhaps just the origin of human life) rather than the origin of the universe or of some more fundamental predecessor.

Your quote from Dawkins describes a respectable cosmological hypothesis. Your claim was that Dawkins asserts that evolution addresses or resolves the supposed problem of a "First Cause." I'm still waiting for you to produce a quote substantiating that claim.

From Dictionary.com:
cha•ot•ic [key-ot-ik] –adjective completely confused or disordered

Well, that's one definition. Others include "A dynamical system that has a sensitive dependence on its initial conditions" and "A condition or place of great disorder or confusion" both of which would seem to apply to evolutionary processes.

The difference between a "sign" and an "apparent sign" is that we can read the latter, but can not necessarily read the former.

If we can't read it, it's not a sign. A sign, by definition, indicates or suggests or signals something.

But this is like saying I'm a more efficient engineer than James Watt because I can figure out how to improve the steam engine.

Yes, it is a bit like saying that. The designs produced by evolution are like that inefficient James Watt steam engine that you, being a "more efficient" (or, rather, better) engineer could improve. It is hard to see why an omnipotent God would have made evolution such an inefficient process.

Evolution is a process for searching a vast space of possible solutions to find fit ones. It can only be said to be either efficient or inefficient in comparison to some other search method equipped with the same raw materials as were provided to evolution.

No, it would be more efficient if the method of finding fit solutions using the same raw materials were faster or less wasteful, or if the raw materials were better. Evolution is full of false starts and dead ends, laborious trial-and-error attempts to solve engineering problems, jerry-rigged designs that work poorly, and so on. And it inflicts inconceivable amounts of suffering. Again, it is hard to believe that an omnipotent and benevolent God could not have come up with something better.

Posted by Mixner | June 7, 2007 3:17 AM

Mixner,

"Catholicism obviously rejects the empirical evidence against the claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after three days, and against sundry "miracles" that are a part of its teachings."

The resurrection is empirically falsifiable, if you can produce evidence such as the bones of Jesus. However, that evidence has not been produced either because they were hidden by his followers (who subsequently were killed for maintaining that He was resurrected), or because it did in fact occur.

When you say that it is empirically falsifiable, you only mean that it is not commonly what is observed in 99.99999999% of cases, which really was the whole point of the Christian message - that this was a completely new way in which something outside of human experience had entered history.

You probably have neither the time nor the inclination, however there is abundant evidence that miracles do in fact occur - or at least events such as healings, etc. which are dramatic exceptions to what is observed 99.999% of the time.

Also by saying the Church says that the existence of God can be shown through reason, Catholics mean simply that it does not require revelation. For instance, Plato, Aristotle, etc. believed that they had demonstrated that there is a first principle. Whether you accept, reject, or are agnostic about the arguments will depend on your sympathies.

Posted by John B. | June 7, 2007 9:23 AM

Mixner:

Dawkins argues (correctly, in my view) that evolution explains the origin of life, given the pre-existence of particles and physical laws. He punts the problem of ultimate origins / First Cause / whatever you want to call it to the physicists. It is this philosophical problem which remains unresolved. You may say that spontaneous creation (or its functional equivalent) is a respectable cosmological hypothesis all you want, but it is no such thing. Many respectable cosmologists may assert something like this, but upon careful evaluation of claims, these always resolve either to: (1) a normal scientific hypothesis about something like very rapid expansion in 10 to the negative nth seconds, or (2)a scientists speaking about a non-scientific concept.

A scientific theory is a falsifiable predictive rule that links cause-and-effect. Scientific laws create a chain of such cause-and-effect rules. Either this chain ends in some uncaused cause or it is an infinite chain (the so-called "turtles all the way down" view). Ultimately, you must confront the problem of infinite regress, which is inherently philosophical rather than scientific.

I believe that the same observation (i.e., that evolution is a highly structured, rule-bound search procedure) applies as directly to your second alternative definition as the one that I provided. In terms of the first definition, the ultimate end-point of an evolutionary algorithm is defined by the fitness landscape and space of possible genomes. It is not dependent on initial conditions (e.g., original genome population, etc.). The complexity of actually defining such an end-point (it is for the foreseeable future computationally impossible) makes it appropriate for scientists to proceed as if the goal were unknowable.

If a caveman walked down my block he would walk right in front of an octagonal red piece of metal with the letters STOP on it. He would not consider this to be a sign. It would not be apparent to him because he lacks the cognitive machinery to interpret it. The sign is there, it's just not apparent to him. This is the sense I meant that there is no apparent guidance embedded in evolution.

Your argument about inefficient design implying no omnipotent God is really one of a long list of arguments of the form "I don't understand or like some aspect of the universe, therefore a good and omnipotent God could not have created this, therefore as long as I believe what I see around me there can be no such God." Without trying to resolve this debate, I'm sure you can see that this argument existed well before Charles Darwin was born. Evolution is one on a long, long list of such things, and as such, has no unique status (in this regard, at least) in the debate about the existence of God.

I agree with your practical standard for efficiency (and believe it was what I was implying). The question is not the standard, but the other horse in the race. That is, evolution is inefficient as compared to what alternative algorithm? Without such a comparison, it doesn't mean anything to call it inefficient.

Thanks for the time you have devoted to this thread. As I indicated earlier, I should have a long article coming out on the topic, and if you are interested, I can email you when it comes out. That might be the most productive way to continue this stimulating (to me, at least!) discussion.

Best,
Jim

Posted by Jim Manzi | June 7, 2007 11:40 AM

Mixner, some of your earlier comments indicated that you might be conflating reason and "what is rational" with "what can be demonstrated by the scientific method". Such a position errs in at least two ways: first, it reduces reason to the scientific method without any justification (the consequences of which are beyond the scope of a combox comment). Second, such a position (condensed in the assertion that "only those things demonstrated by the scientific method can be deemed rational and true") is self-referentially incoherent, in that the position itself cannot be demonstrated by the scientific method: it's a philosophical position taken a priori.

In fact, there are many dimensions of human existence to which the scientific method simply cannot speak; to demand that things must be verified by the method before being considered rational is not only philosophically incoherent and untenable... it goes against common sense.

Posted by Chris Burgwald | June 7, 2007 12:13 PM

John B,

The resurrection is empirically falsifiable, if you can produce evidence such as the bones of Jesus.

The claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after three days is contradicted by a mountain of scientific evidence from chemistry, biochemistry and biology regarding the decay of biological tissue and the operation of the human body. We don't need his "bones" to test the claim scientifically, any more than we would need the bones of any other corpse about which the claim was made.

...there is abundant evidence that miracles do in fact occur - or at least events such as healings, etc. which are dramatic exceptions to what is observed 99.999% of the time.

Please produce some of this abundant evidence.

Also by saying the Church says that the existence of God can be shown through reason, Catholics mean simply that it does not require revelation.

The Catholic Church teaches that the existence of God may be known through reason. This is clearly stated in the First Vatican Council. I don't know what basis you have for claiming that the Church didn't mean this but meant instead "that it does not require revelation."

Posted by Mixner | June 7, 2007 1:05 PM

Jim Manzi,

It is not clear that "First Cause" is a "problem" at all, but more importantly you have produced nothing to support your claim that Dawkins improperly argues that the "problem," if there even is one, is resolved by evolution. The Dawkins quote you produced is a short statement of a respectable cosmological hypothesis, rooted in the science of quantum mechanics, suggesting that the universe may have come into being from a very simple precursor or perhaps from nothing at all.

Nowhere have I argued that "there can be no God" or that our knowledge of the world, or even just of evolution, conclusively rules out the existence of God. What I have said is that there is no evidence that evolution is purposeful, intelligently guided, or sensitive to suffering and abundant evidence that it is inefficient, wasteful, violent, chaotic, and dependent on random events. It is difficult to reconcile this evidence with the claim that evolution is the handiwork of an omnipotent, benevolent God. You may choose to believe that anyway, but the belief is irrational and unscientific in light of the evidence we have.

Posted by Mixner | June 7, 2007 1:19 PM

Chris Burgwald,

The scientific method involves reason but is not synonymous with reason. Observation and experiment are also involved.

I do believe that science and reason are the only methods for producing knowledge. If you disagree, please give me some examples of what you consider to be knowledge produced by some method other than science or reason, and a description of the method. I am especially interested in examples of what you consider to be knowledge produced through religion.

Posted by Mixner | June 7, 2007 1:27 PM

Mixner,

You wrote:
"The claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after three days is contradicted by a mountain of scientific evidence from chemistry, biochemistry and biology regarding the decay of biological tissue and the operation of the human body."

I think you're begging the question. The early Christians claimed to have witnessed a miracle - something outside the general workings of nature. They were quite aware that bodies generally decay - that is why what they were saying was so extraordinary. You can choose to believe them or disbelieve them, but without physical evidence about that specific claim you have not disproved them. It is simply restating your a priori assumption that miracles do not occur to say that the fact that human bodies in our observation decay proves that they didn't witness the exception they claim to have witnessed.

Regarding reason, I'm not sure you understand what is being said. Everything that you accept using your reason is based on some sort of probability. You accept, for instance, on faith that you're birthday is correct - that it is more probable that the birth certificate and your parents etc. are telling the truth than that they are not. The same is true of basically every historical event - you weren't there, but you think the probabilities are low that there is a massive disinformation conspiracy regarding who the First President was and so you accept it. The same is true of scientific theories such as evolution - you accept (as I do) that the available evidence indicates that evolution occurred.

Regarding philosophical proofs, which by their nature are not tangible, once again it is a question of probability - which arguments do you find more probable. You may or may not be familiar with arguments for the existence of God and you may or may not choose to accept them if you are. The Church's statement is simply that it can be demonstrated to an extent that many people (e.g. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) find probable that God exists. You are an obvious exception, however the claim was never on the same level as a demonstration you can observe such as that water freezes at 32 degrees. All philosophical proofs will appeal or not appeal to people based on which premises they grant and how probable those premises and arguments seem in terms of their lived experience. You indeed seem to believe it is possible to demonstrate that miracles (exceptions by definition) do not occur on the basis of reason. To say something is reasonable or can be demonstrated by reason is to say it is probable.

Posted by John B. | June 7, 2007 2:55 PM

John B,

Declaring an event to be a miracle does not lend credibility to the claim that it happened and does not rebut the scientific evidence against it. It's a handwave. I do not "assume" miracles do not occur, I conclude rationally that they almost certainly do not occur from the absence of evidence for them and the mountain of evidence against them.

And no, I don't accept the date of my birth or other claims of historical events "on faith." I accept them on evidence. If there is insufficient evidence--as in the case of the claim of the Resurrection--I don't accept the claim.

The Church's statement is simply that it can be demonstrated to an extent that many people (e.g. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) find probable that God exists.

You are, yet again, misrepresenting the Church's teaching. It does not claim merely that the existence of God "can be demonstrated to an extent that many people ... find probable." It claims that the existence of God can be known through reason, period. In fact, it claims that the existence of God can be known through reason with certainty. And it's referring not merely to some faceless, generic creator God of deism, but specifically to the God of the Christian religion. Not surprisingly, this absurd claim is not accepted by the philosophical or scientific communities.

Posted by Mixner | June 7, 2007 3:31 PM

Re: No they're not. They might be apt to be more useful, or more appealing, or more intuitive

Can something useful or good be wholly false? Somehow I don't think that's possible. Or if it is, it implies a world where any fact is liable to be nothing but a useful illusion. You raise a valid point about old folk beliefs and modern scientific learning, and I probably should have elaborated on my natural selection point: an idea that merely survives under conditions of cultural and intellectual stasis is not really proving anything about itself by its survival, just as a species which survives in a very static, favorable environment is not really being tested by natural selection. But if an idea survives across eras of cultural and intellectual change (as, say, the idea of the existence of God has endured) then I think we do need to assign some worth to its survival.

Re: That's completely circular.

If that's all you get out of what I said then you've missed my point entirely. To rephrase it: Christianity (as an institution) is not some abstract, time-loose verity, like the Pythagorean theorem. It is embedded in time and can only be understood and assesed according to its temporal history. Positing a Christianity that originated via the events in the Gospel, but in the 19th century, is as nonsensical and pointless as asking about the phonology and syntax of the ergative case in the English language (which case does not exist in English).

Re: Catholicism obviously rejects the empirical evidence against the claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after three days

What empirical evidence? Do you have Jesus' mortal remains stashed in your closet?

Re: The claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after three days is contradicted by a mountain of scientific evidence from chemistry, biochemistry and biology regarding the decay of biological tissue and the operation of the human body.

But this is not "empirical evidence" in the specific case; rather it is deductive reasoning. You are not saying you have evidence specific to Jesus at all. You are making a syllogistic claim that "Jesus is a man; all men die and do not rise; therefore Jesus died and did not rise." The syllogism is valid, but that alone does not prove anything. Without real empirical evidence (the body of Jesus, or contrawise, Jesus alive) the case for the Resurrection is not scientifically unverifiable.

Posted by JonF | June 7, 2007 4:11 PM

Mixner,

I do believe that science and reason are the only methods for producing knowledge.

In this context, what do you mean by reason? Hopefully the following remarks will clarify my question:

Between high school and college, I took an extensive amount of math, physics, chemistry, and other science courses (I was an engineering major for 2 years). While I have confidence that the things I was taught were true, I verified relatively few of the things that were presented as truths of those respective disciplines... I accepted them as true on the authority of my professors. In other words, while those truths can actually be validated, the concrete means by which I learned them was by accepting them as true on the basis of an authority, of someone I trusted. My knowledge increased, in other words, because of the faith I had others. Would you agree that we can learn (our knowledge can increase) on the basis of indirect testimony, i.e. on the basis of things we are taught by others, which I accept as true because I believe those "others"?

Another related point: historians cannot -- for the most part -- submit their theories to the scientific method per se, yet we generally accept historical facts as truths. I'm guessing you agree with this, correct? That is, you have no problem acknowledging that it is rational to believe things about historical events, even though such assertions cannot be demonstrated via the scientific method.

Finally, philosophical tenets cannot be submitted to the scientific method, either... do you think that it can be rational to accept such a tenet?

Posted by Chris Burgwald | June 7, 2007 4:34 PM

JonF,

Can something useful or good be wholly false?

Of course. A lie told to save someone's life, for example.

Or if it is, it implies a world where any fact is liable to be nothing but a useful illusion.

No it doesn't. It implies merely a world in which some beliefs are false but useful. In any case, as I said, usefulness is not the only quality that may cause a false belief to persist for a very long time. It may persist simply because it is consistent with our intuition or the limitations of our senses, like the belief that the Sun revolves around the Earth rather than vice versa.

But if an idea survives across eras of cultural and intellectual change (as, say, the idea of the existence of God has endured) then I think we do need to assign some worth to its survival.

I would assign some worth to its survival. That's not the issue. The issue is the relationship between the endurance of an idea and whether it's true. Perhaps there is some correlation, but the point is that the mere fact that an idea has been around for a long time is not grounds to conclude that it's probably true.

What empirical evidence?

The empirical evidence from chemistry and biology about the decay of organic tissues and the operation of the human body.

But this is not "empirical evidence" in the specific case; rather it is deductive reasoning.

Of course it's empirical evidence. The conclusion that the claim that Jesus rose from the dead is almost certainly false follows rationally from the evidence we have about the decay and decomposition of human beings and other organisms after they die.

Without real empirical evidence (the body of Jesus, or contrawise, Jesus alive) the case for the Resurrection is not scientifically unverifiable.

It is "real" empirical evidence. On your absurd account, if a criminal defendant claimed an alibi that involved the violation of some well-established scientific law, the fact that it violated scientific law would not count as "real" evidence that the alibi was probably false. You seriously believe that, do you?

Posted by Mixner | June 7, 2007 4:53 PM

Mixner,

You don't seem to understand what reason is in the Catholic intellectual tradition; as Newman pointed out in his well-regarded classic the Grammar of Assent and as Benedict XVI has discussed in God and the World among other places, it is always based on probability. You are attributing to Catholicism a claim that what is a proof scientifically is the same thing as a proof philosophically when they deal with completely different spheres of knowledge. In a strict sense, no one can "know" that God exists or does not exist in the same way that they "know" when water freezes. You have an idiosyncratic view of what reason means within the context of philosophy.

Posted by John B. | June 7, 2007 4:55 PM

Incidentally, Mixner, John B. makes a point similar to my own in his 4:55 comment: that reason is not reducible to what is known via the scientific method, or (relatedly) what is known inductively.

Posted by Chris Burgwald | June 7, 2007 5:02 PM

JonF:

Sorry, still circular. At most, your argument establishes that the events that gave rise to Christianity could only have occurred 2000 years ago. But that doesn't get to my point at all, which is the claims of ANY religion which arose before daily newspapers, the printing press, organized and intensive governmental and business record-keeping, etc. (all of which occurred after the events reflected in the New Testament) are going to be harder to falsify than those of more recently-arising religions. This is simply a truism, and saying that you couldn't actually play out the counterfactual of New Testament events happening in the 19th Century doesn't answer it at all.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 7, 2007 5:04 PM

Chris Burgwald,

In this context, what do you mean by reason?

Rationality. Rational thought. Reasoning. Logical deduction and inference.

I accepted them as true on the authority of my professors. In other words, while those truths can actually be validated, the concrete means by which I learned them was by accepting them as true on the basis of an authority, of someone I trusted. My knowledge increased, in other words, because of the faith I had others.

But it wasn't "faith." You had rational grounds to believe that the claims made by your professors were probably true. If the claims had instead been made by some random guy you met on the street with no recognized knowledge or expertise in the subject he was talking about, you would instead have had strong grounds to doubt the truth of his claims.

Would you agree that we can learn (our knowledge can increase) on the basis of indirect testimony, i.e. on the basis of things we are taught by others, which I accept as true because I believe those "others"?

Yes.

Another related point: historians cannot -- for the most part -- submit their theories to the scientific method per se, yet we generally accept historical facts as truths. I'm guessing you agree with this, correct? That is, you have no problem acknowledging that it is rational to believe things about historical events, even though such assertions cannot be demonstrated via the scientific method.

Yes, we generally accept historical facts as truths. This isn't saying much, since "facts" are generally understood to be true claims rather than false or undetermined ones, so your question is somewhat tautological. Historical claims are certainly subject to verification and falsification using "the scientific method," if by that we mean rational inquiry in general (reasoning to conclusions from the results of observation and experiment).

I would still like to see some examples of what you consider to be knowledge (and I do mean knowledge, not mere belief) that has been produced by religion.

Posted by Mixner | June 7, 2007 5:16 PM

John B,

You keep making false claims about what the Catholic Church teaches. The Catholic Church clearly stated, in the First Vatican Council:

that God, the first cause (principium) and last end of all things, can, from created things, be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason (Denz., 1785-old no. 1634)

If you are now claiming that the Church is using the terms "known," "reason" or "certainty" in some idiosyncratic way that is dramatically different from their ordinary meanings, then it's up to you to support that claim with evidence.

Posted by Mixner | June 7, 2007 5:26 PM

But it wasn't "faith." You had rational grounds to believe that the claims made by your professors were probably true.

With some minor editing, your second sentence is almost a perfect definition of "faith" as I understand it.

I would still like to see some examples of what you consider to be knowledge (and I do mean knowledge, not mere belief)

How do you contrast knowledge and belief? Or rather, how do you define them such that they contrast?

As for your request of knowledge from religion... pick anything the Catholic Church believes. Some those assertions are verifiable by reason alone (e.g. the existence of Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, the immortality of the soul as demonstrated by Plato, etc.), others are accepted because we accept Jesus' claims. In no case, though, does the Church say that x doctrine is contrary to reason. Obviously you believe that most doctrine is unreasonable, but that's not my point: the Church's position is that everything it teaches is reasonable, that you do not need to suspend your reason to accept anything. (This is contrary to some theological positions which hold that some doctrines are unreasonable but are to be believed anyway.)

Posted by Chris Burgwald | June 7, 2007 5:41 PM