February 2008 Archives

What could the doctrine that all times are present to God mean?

Suppose you have a time machine that lets you travel through all of time in a finite amount of subjective time. How? Well, first travel back a thousand years; then slow down your internal time, so that you live through the millenium in half a second of internal time, or else fast-forward with your time machine at two thousand years per second; then travel back two thousand years, and then change your subjective time so as to live through that millenium in a quarter of a second (or else fast-forward); keep on going until all the past is covered. This will take no longer than one second, even if the past is infinite (if the past is finite, you need to adjust for the fact that the age of the world may not be a multiple of a thousand years, but that's a triviality). Now do the future, which is easier: just slow down your internal time to cover the future millenium in half a second, the next millenium in a quarter of a second, and so on (or else use your time machine in fast-forward mode). In at most two (subjective) seconds, you'll have covered all of time.

Now, repeat this process over and over, forever. Assuming your specious present is at least two seconds long (if it's shorter, just speed up the process and/or increase your mental capacity), all objective times will always be within your specious present. So here is one apparently coherent sense of the claim that all objective times are present to a being: all objective times are within that being's specious present. And the above argument suggests that it is logically possible to have a being such that all times are within the being's specious present. Indeed, it is possible to have a being such that this is always the case.

I am not claiming that God is such a time-traveler. For one, God is unchanging, while this being seems to live on a changing two second cycle. But we can get a bit of a help towards imagining of God's relation to time as follows. The above being goes through all of objective time every two seconds. We can imagine another being that does this every second. And another that does this every half second. God, then, is like the limiting case of this progression of beings.

What is helpful about this is that it suggests a way of understanding the idea that God's immutability is not stasis but infinitely fast activity.

The following argument is valid:

1. Every phenomenal species of experiences has a veridical member. (Premise)
2. Mystical experiences are a phenomenal species of experiences. (Premise)
3. A mystical experience is veridical only if something is numinous. (Premise)
4. Therefore, something is numinous. (By 1-3)

5. If naturalism holds, nothing is numinous. (Premise)
6. Therefore, naturalism is false. (By 4 and 5)

Here's a moderate Molinism. It has two parts.

1. Accept that subjunctive conditionals of free will ("F-conditionals") have non-trivial truth values if their antecedents are sufficiently determinate, and God knows these truth values.

In this respect, the moderate Molinism is exactly like standard Molinism. Whatever qualifiers one wants to put on when F-conditionals have non-trivial truth values can be put in.

2. Deny that God can make use of his knowledge of an F-conditional with antecedent p as part of a reason for bringing it about that p.

Why go for (2)? In order to avoid the priority in the order of explanation argument: if God makes use of his knowledge of an F-conditional with antecedent p as part of a reason for for his bringing it about that p, then the truth of that F-conditional, as well as the truth of p, are explanatorily prior to the free action in the consequent, and hence the free action is entailed by facts explanatorily prior to it, which contradicts a plausible principle of alternate possibility.

If it's logically impossible for anyone to make use of knowledge of F-conditionals with antecedent p as part of a reason for bringing it about that p, then this is not a problematic restriction on omnipotence.

Moreover, the idea that God has to bracket some of his knowledge of F-conditionals when making decisions seems quite plausible. For instance, plausibly, he has to bracket his knowledge of F-conditionals that, together with his knowledge of their antecedents, entail that he is going to do A, when he is deciding to do A.

In Revelation, we learn that the angels are singing "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty!" We speak of "holy men" and there might be a "holy moment". We strive for "personal holiness".

I've always had difficulty getting a grasp of this concept. Sometimes, it seems that "holiness" is used synonymously with "moral purity" or "sinlessness". I've also heard "being holy" equated with "being wholly other or set apart or different", but what's that supposed to mean?

As a first approximation, x is holy iff x is really, really morally good. But this feels like its lacking. Any ideas?

Trenton Merricks's recent book is reviewed today at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. It will be of interest to Prosblogion readers not just because Trenton is a sometime philosopher of religion and that the review by Ben Caplan thanks our own Tim Pawl, but also because it discusses issues in ontology such as presentism, eternalism, endurantism, truthmakers for subjunctive conditionals, etc. that are relevant to issues in the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology such as the nature of God, freedom and foreknowledge, molinism in particular, and others.

Trenton is one of my very most favorite authors and I hope to get to teach this book soon.

Here is a simple proposal:

A being x is omnipotent provided that in every possible world, x's free choices are collectively the ultimate explainers of the rest of contingent reality.

In particular, only a necessary being can be omnipotent. Whether omnipotence is compatible with created free will depends on how exactly we spell out "ultimate explainers". We might think that if y in situation S freely chooses to A, and God creates y in S, and y freely chooses to A, then God's creation is an ultimate explainer (it may or may not be the case that an ultimate explainer of a proposition is an explainer of the proposition).

This definition is incompatible with Molinisms on which God is not an ultimate explainer of conditionals of free will.

If the above account is right, we have a sound ontological argument along the lines of the standard S5 ontological argument:

1. Possibly, there is an omnipotent being.
2. Therefore, there is an omnipotent being.

There was a bit of heated (well, at least luke-warm) controversy a few posts below about the status of a November NYT article about Anthony Flew's coming to be a theist. That article cast aspersions on the genuineness of that change and even made claims of manipulation not in accordance with the evidence. One specific charge had to do with Flew's failing memory and the reality of his association with Brian Leftow and Gary Habermas. I am privileged to have known both these guys for years and they were kind enough to make statements on that article to help set the record straight. I'll post them below the fold. [Interested readers can use the search function on the side bar to see an interview I did with Brian last year.]

I doubt anything can compete with this story, but challenges welcome:

After Greco's talk, in the middle of a question by Christina, John passed out! He was out for roughly 30 seconds, during which I was a totally useless observer; good thing it was not a serious emergency, 'cuz I'm worthless on that score. Anyway, he finally revives, to the relief of all, sits up, and says, "Man, that was a tough question!"

Courtesy of Brad Monton:
pics

Just got home from the 3rd annual conference. Lots of wonderful philosophy and lots of time to enjoy San Antonio. Since the papers are posted elsewhere, I won't summarize content, but, in my view, conferences like this are much better for philosophical discourse than APA's. I hope many will start to make plans for next year to make it to the conference. We cap attendance at a small number, there's lots of discussion, and lots of time with the primary speakers, who are always first-rate.

Brad Monton took a bunch of pictures, and I'll link to the pictures as soon as he posts them.

Organized by our own Jon Kvanvig, the third Annual Philosophy of Religion Conference kicks off this afternoon in San Antonio, TX. (I'd gladly trade my foot of snow to be out on the river walk today.) While many of us can't be there in person, you can still enjoy some of the excellent work going on at the conference by reading the posted papers. Perhaps we'll get lucky and some intrepid attendee will post some updates here.

Congratulations to Kevin and Allison Timpe on the birth of their son Jameson Lloyd Cooper Timpe. Born this morning at 6:51am Jameson weighs in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 19 ¼ inches. Kevin reports that both mother and child are doing well.

In his "Reasonable Religious Disagreements" Richard Feldman uses the principle that "Evidence of evidence is evidence" (lets call it EEE) to argue that (very roughly) one can't use one's own private experience as a way to settle disagreement with an epistemic peer."

Here's a test case you and I are looking out across a field and I (honestly) claim to see a sheepdog about 10 yards off. You say you don't see any such thing. There is nothing in the vicinity with which to confuse the sheepdog, it's fairly bright day, I have (antecedent) reason to believe your eyes are functioning properly, etc. Some would say (and van Inwagen seems to say) that the fact that my view still seems to me to be true after I consider your disagreement, then that persistent belief is justified.

Rich says this can't be because I know that *your* view seems true to *you* and I have no reason to think you are more prone to error than me. He uses EEE to urge this for he says that your statement that you don't see it is evidence that you've had an experience the veridicality of which would entail that I am in error. Thus I have evidence that I am in error.

So far so good, but I don't think it follows from this that I am unreasonable to maintain my belief. Rather, I think a conclusion more like that of Christensen 2007 is correct: that I ought to revise my belief down in light of this new evidence.

I'll continue the discussion below the fold.

[This follows up on Mathew's post on the Draper collection below.] I thought I might say that I had the same kinds of discussion with Melnyk as Goetz and Taliaferro did when I took a Phil Mind seminar with him while doing my MA. He was my first philosophical mentor in analytic philosophy and one of my philosophical heroes, still one of the few atheists I've ever met (maybe the only) who's intellectual and personal virtues combined with his erudition (in general and on the subject of the existence of God (the man has read his Swinburne I promise you)) made me want to think harder about my reasons for belief.

However, I was quite surprised that he offers the kind of inductive argument that he does and that he gave such short shrift to the problem of free will. Goetz and Taliaferro response is almost identical to what I said in class: he just ignores the *data*. The inductive argument is further flawed by considerations pertaining to reference classes and I've had long-term goals to make this as clear as possible that my work with Kyburg has helped me on.

I'll continue discussion below the fold.

This is going to be a very exciting book. I look forward to reader's comments on this. You can pre-order it on Amazon and I'd insert a link if it weren't $75. However, do be sure to let your librarian know about this book. I'll but the TOC and description below the fold.

It's a special issue on the Ethics of Belief. [LINK: requires subscription] TOC beneath the fold.

If the link comes up all messy it's because I'm still figuring out the new system when it comes to HTML. [Edited by MM]

Paul Draper's edited E-Book God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence continues to deliver with substantial updates. The core arguments are probably familiar to most Prosblogion readers, but they provide a nice introduction to the newly initiated.

Section three, Science and the Cosmos, offers contributions from Quentin Smith, Robin Collins, and Draper himself. Collins paper opens on in a curious fashion.

Theoretical physicist Paul Davies writes that, when looking at the overall structure of the universe, "the impression of design is overwhelming" (1988, p. 203). I agree. And the famous atheist philosopher, Antony Flew, has also come to agree, citing the appearance of cosmic design as the main reason for his conversion to belief in some sort of intelligent designer.

I'm always wary of making appeals of this kind, but if the New York Times is to be believed, on might worry about marshaling Flew's reported conversion in support of your argument.

Section four, Faith and Uncertainty, features an exchange between John Schellenberg and Jeffrey Jordan. Jordan in replying to Schellenberg makes one point the bears repeating.

"John Schellenberg has presented an argument noteworthy in several respects. One interesting respect is that his "divine hiddenness" argument is a philosophically interesting innovation in a debate that has raged for millennia. Innovation in philosophy, especially an interesting innovation, is not an easy task, but Professor Schellenberg has accomplished it."

There is still time for you to weigh in on the debate with your questions for the various contributors.

Consider the following proposition:

1) P(R/N&E&C) is low or inscrutable.

where 'R' = Human cognitive faculties are reliable, 'N' = Naturalism is true (i.e., there are no supernatural entities such as God or angels), 'E' = Humans have evolved according to the suggestions of contemporary evolutionary theory, and 'C' = beliefs are causally efficacious with respect to our behavior in virtue of their content.

I want to assess the plausibility of (1). One way to argue against (1) is to show that we have an argument that

2) P(R/N&E&C) is high

But why think (2), i.e., why think that naturalistic evolution, even given C, would furnish us with reliable cognitive faculties? Perhaps it is because one thinks that the following is true:

3) Creatures with cognitive faculties that are reliable are much more likely to survive than creatures without such faculties.

But Plantinga has pointed out that there could be creatures that are just as good at surviving as we are, but who systematically form false beliefs. For example, instead of believing that "there is a tree", they believe "there is a witch-created-tree." He uses the example of the early Leibnizian who "thinks everything is conscious (and suppose that is false); furthermore, his ways of referring to things all involve definite descriptions that entail consciousness, so that all of his beliefs are of the form That so-and-so conscious being is such-and-such" (Naturalism Defeated?, p. 9). Such creatures would have cognitive faculties that are not very reliable, but they would survive just as well as early hominids. So it seems that there is no basis for thinking that (3) is true.