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Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion—several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. —Mark Twain

Intro to Thomas Aquinas July 29, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Existence Arguments, Naturalism, Non-Existence Arguments, Theologians , add a comment

Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274) sought to find a workable fusion of Aristotle and the Church; nonetheless he strongly objected to Plato’s formulation of man as strictly a thinker and the Platonic abandonment of matter. In particular, Plato’s program consisted of separating “being” from “becoming”. What exactly is meant by being as opposed to becoming — who knows?1

It is the kind of philosophical mumbo-jumbo that drives people away from philosophy. Whatever the distinction is supposed to be, it’s probably a poorly chosen one. But let’s see if we can figure it out. Being, one must suppose, refers to abstract Form or Ideas existing in our minds (Plato was enamored of mental talk like this) while becoming must refer, in the Platonic canon, to material things: always changing, growing, decaying and generally being messy (something Plato wanted nothing to do with).

Plato’s attitude toward bodily things strikes me more as the product of mental illness than of a rational thought process. Only a diseased mind, cut off from the rest of the self or warped by infection or chemical imbalance, concludes that mental imaginings alone are real, that the body is nothing. Indeed there is something very unreal about such an attitude, something pathological. Nor is the foolishness of the Platonic attitude difficult to show even relying strictly on reason — which brings us back from parenthesis to Aquinas.

Aquinas understood the distinction Plato was trying to make between being and becoming, and he strenuously objected to it. Plato had to try to wash matter — the material world of bodies — out of the picture as if it didn’t exist. But it does exist, Aquinas said, and Plato’s philosophy can’t account for why.

If I understand him correctly, Aquinas maintained that Plato’s abstract ideas (the abstract idea of a tree, for instance) have in themselves (whether held in our mind or in God’s) absolutely no power to bring real, material trees into existence. The particulars of the world can’t be thought into being by thinking universals, no matter who is doing the thinking. But not being able to explain how matter comes to exists is only part of the problem. In the Platonic system, Aquinas saw, there could never be a satisfactory explanation of why matter exists. (more…)

Aquinas and the 2nd Way

Posted by Rastaban in : Cosmological, Existence Arguments, Non-Existence Arguments , add a comment

I was first exposed to Aquinas’ 5 proofs of God’s existence as a college freshman — a strongly religious theistic freshman, at that — yet immediately I saw that his proofs were flawed. They didn’t work to prove God at all. My thought at the time was that if you substituted the human mind for God in the proofs, they worked just as well. The general conclusion I came at the time was that the type of God the proofs addressed was wrong: that our concept of God was too tainted with, too similar to, the human mind itself. The solution had to be in finding a better definition of God than the traditional one.

Surprisingly, at the time rejecting God never occurred to me as an option. Instead, I determined that the nature of God had to be quite different than traditionally conceived. God was not a creator-God, not a logos-God, but had to be some other kind of entity. I spent the next couple years trying to figure out what that entity might be.

Eventually I resolved the difficulty: by becoming atheist.

The Cosmological Argument

To give an idea of some of the stumbling blocks I perceive in the idea of God, let me quote Terry Miethe, himself paraphrasing Aquinas’ “Second Way” or second proof of God’s existence. (more…)

God’s Physical Problem

Posted by Rastaban in : Naturalism, Non-Existence Arguments , 1 comment so far

In the Warren-Flew Debate* on God’s existence, which took place in the North Texas State University Coliseum from Sept 20 to 23, 1976, Anthony Flew identified 4 ways in which the existence of a postulated being might be challenged.

The first way, he said, is to declare that the being in question is simply not to be found anywhere. This is how most questions of existence get addressed. Are there wolves in Manitoba? Is there a sea monster in Loch Ness? Well, let’s do an exhaustive search and find out.

This is not a useful approach, Flew observed, for settling the question of God’s existence. And the reasons are obvious. For one thing, God doesn’t have a specific locale that we can go to and search; for another, God lacks an observable body. Both those who believe God exists and those who disbelieve would expect the same result from any such search: nada.

The second way the existence of a being can be challenged, Flew explained, is by asserting that it not only can’t be found anywhere, but that it’s existence is biologically or physically impossible.

The third way which Flew presented involves a different kind of impossibility: asserting that the being in question is logically impossible: a round square or married bachelor, for example.

Flew’s forth way to challenge the existence of a being will also sound familiar. It is to claim that the being in question has been qualified to such an extent that it’s existence is untestable. By way of explanation, Flew presented the claim that prayers are always answered. Yet when presented with a situation in which a prayer does not seem to have been answered, the believer replies, “Oh the prayer was answered, but you know, sometimes the answer is ‘No’.” When all possible evidence (whether negative or positive) supports a proposition, that proposition has been rendered meaningless.

In his debate with Warren, Flew challenged God’s existence using the 3rd and 4th approaches above. But what I want to examine here is an argument based on the 2nd approach. (more…)

Atheism & Morals July 9, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Ethics & Morality , 5 comments

In 1966 the Christian philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre gave a lecture at Columbia University called “Atheism and Morals” (later published in a book titled, The Religious Significance of Atheism, Columbia University Press, 1969) which is remarkable for laying out in clear language the moral catastrophe that has befallen Western civilization over the past few centuries. MacIntyre has continued to write on the subject since, of course, but it is this lecture which I have in my hands now and will summarize.

Dostoyevsky wrote that “if God does not exist everything is permitted” [p. 31]*. MacIntyre maintains that this is mistaken and in fact turns it around, as we shall see. He tells us,

”My central thesis is the direct opposite of their view: I hold not that a loss of theistic belief produces a loss of moral belief and a change of practice, but rather that a change in the character of morality is at least partly responsible for the modern inability to accept theistic belief. That is, I wish to invert the Dostoyevskian contention about the relation between theism and morals.” [p. 38-39]*

Theism requires, MacIntyre maintains,

”a particular position with respect to morality: more specifically, if theism is to be coherent [it] must rely . . . upon an independently understood moral vocabulary. To this conclusion I now wish to add another and stronger thesis: namely that theistic practice depends upon the existence of independent moral practices.” [p. 39]*

Moral practices, he makes plain, which have ceased to be common today. But what exactly is he getting at? (more…)

Beyond Atheism

Posted by Rastaban in : Atheist Culture, Naturalism , 4 comments

Atheism is only the glitter on the surface of the sea of naturalism. Has the time come for atheists to dive below the surface and explore the depths?

Let’s face it, denying God’s existence draws the attention — negatively, of course — of those who are believers. Theists see atheists — with justification — as people who tear down the beliefs of others but don’t construct anything positive of their own. And most atheists agree that atheism is strictly a negative position.

As atheists, we see our job as throwing bombs at religion and God. “Think there’s a God, huh? Then what about this — ” and we toss the problem of evil at them. [Boom!] “Oh, you think the Bible is God’s word? Eat this –” [Blam!] It’s fun, and there are certainly plently of bombs to throw. More than that, we know we’re right and we’ve got a point - in fact lots of points — that religious people really ought to pay attention to. (more…)