Information and the Teleological Argument

Before I moved on to the Moral Argument for God's Existence, I was doing a little more reading and thinking about the Teleological Argument. Basically, the teleological argument says, we see design therefore there's a Designer. Nevertheless, how do we know we see design? What feature of a "machine" implies design? How does the blueprint for that machine play a part in these observations? Moreover, how does the concept of God connect with these “blueprints”?

Well, the simple answer is that "machines" have information associated with them. They are conceived immaterially and are birthed physically through a blueprint or plan that is expressed through some sort of language or code. Information is this code.

In English, the word information means to “give form” to something. It is not the thing ultimately formed, nor is it the medium that conveys formation. Information is the immaterial meaning that eventually has expression in the sensible world.

One researcher, Andrzej Chmielecki, claims that information really is just the ability to discriminate:

The fundamental feature of animate systems (which are all informational systems) is their ability to discriminate and select. From single cells to plants to animals and human beings the behavior of animate systems depends on what they can discriminate, be it the concentration of certain substances, or the magnitude of physical parameters like temperature, humidity, or shape. What counts here is thus some detected difference between things that can be distinguished by a system. "Difference" and "detection" are thus two key words in our enterprise of grasping what information is. Information is, roughly speaking, any detected difference . . . . .

And later:

Information is an abstract entity. It has no separate existence on its own, because no difference can exist save there are real states of affairs between which the difference holds, and which constitute its code.

I think this makes sense because the physical “blueprint” we usually call information (but isn’t), only comes about through an immaterial process (especially when we are looking at higher concepts such as art, love, morality, spirituality, ect.).

According to another researcher, Werner Gitt,* information equals the sum of the following:

• Statistics: the number and kind of symbols used in the code.
• Syntax: the permissible combination of symbols; the structural characteristics of the code.
• Semantics: the sequential rules for the code which carries the actual meaning of the message.
• Pragmatics: the sender's invitation to action; the intention of the sender.
• Apobetics: the results, the consequences and outcome of the reception; the receiver's action predicated on the sender's intention.

Thus, information is a code made up of "freely willed" conventions and arbitrarily defined symbols designed to discriminate between states. There is no information without a code, and no code without an intelligent sender. Even if no "author" is physically present, you can still know that there was an author. It requires a material medium for storage and transmission but can only be generated from non-material sources--souls, consciousnesses, wills.# It cannot be generated from a material entities and, according to Gitt, is the basis for all program-directed technological and biological systems.

But how do we know that information is non-material? Gitt attempts to demonstrate this by imagining a sandy beach. On this beach, we take a stick and write out a meaningful English sentence. Then, we smooth it over with our foot and write another. The material in which the information was temporarily stored had not really changed. The sand's mass and energy had not changed; it's configuration changed, not it's material. The meaning in the code transcends (if I can use that word) the sum total of all of the silica, quartz and other materials found in the sand and is expressed in the arbitrarily-, but intelligently-, constructed code we call English. The meaningful English sentences, obviously intelligently designed and evolving (not to put too fine a point on it), is the insubstantial code. It is the active force that motivates structure, cohesion, discrimination and perception in the physical world. While it has no form in itself, it must reside in some kind media. Unfortunately, due to metonymic conventions, it is sometimes difficult to separate the media (the blueprint, speech, book, DNA) from the information it holds. For example, sounds (and their accompanying information, speech, music) are not stored on an MP3 file, rather they are merely causally connected to the 1’s and 0’s on the magnetic disk. In much the same, information is not on the medium.

Is it true that the material world cannot explain the non-material? Obviously, I'm not going to be able to elaborate on my belief that non-material entities exist here (for starters, I think that Kant's noumenal world, among other things, is generally correct), so for now I will just assume immaterial entities exist for sake of argument and try to elaborate on that at a later time. If non-material entities--such as minds, ideas, consciousness, spirits, God--exist, then we can should be able to see how they produce tangible results in the physical world. We have a thought (which, I argue, may have material components, but it is essentially immaterial) that is transferred into language, then becomes an impulse to do something. As this impulse is transferred, either through speech or action or set in some physical medium for future use, it now becomes able to form something in the physical world. If information is non-material and has a non-material origin, yet can be expressed in the material world (our English sentences written in the sand, for example), then it seems plausible that the ultimate creator of this code (God) exists.

Interestingly enough, this is exactly what the book of Genesis suggests that God did, through some kind of information stream (apparently, speech), when He created the world. In the New Testament, Jesus is identifies as the Word (logos, both speech and action). This is, perhaps, an apt description of what information is: arbitrary symbols that are designed to express, motivate or otherwise create or cause action in the material world. While I don’t believe Jesus was purely information (that seems rather absurd), it is clear from the Bible that before there was a material world, there was some sort of code in preparation for everything substantial. The author of this code is God.

For pantheists, this makes a lot of sense. God is, for them perhaps, the insubstantial code behind everything we see in the universe. From my point of view, this does not go far enough though because information is only an expression of the author’s intent. Therefore, there must be an author beyond, before and superior to the information itself; artificers are not the same as the artifact.

I’m not entirely sure that this line of argumentation is completely persuasive. I’ll have to give this some more thought, but information does, for myself, seem to play an important role in how I can properly apprehend the existence of God.

-----------

* I first encountered Gitt's work at Answers in Genesis. AiG presents a lot ideas that are, frankly, interesting and supportive of my views in general, but also present some hastily constructed arguments that, to me, seem far fetched and not terribly defensible. Gitt, while controversial, raises some interesting points. I have ignored his major arguments about the validity of evolutionary theories, which--in all honesty--I don't completely understand yet and concentrated on his proofs for God's existence.

#Of course, animals and plants may produce information. It is probably a quantitative rather than qualitative difference between the information created by non-material entities (human souls, God) and reflexive, responsive information created by plants and animals; animals posses souls (nefesh) but human beings posses living souls (nefesh khaya) in the image of our Creator. Leave it to my cat-loving wife to destroy my carefully constructed argument; no wonder I'm so conflicted! hehe

Evaluation of the Teleological Argument

Look round the world; contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. ~David Hume

I honestly don’t know how anyone can not stand in awe of the natural world, our bodies, our cells, the very particles that make up . . . well, everything. I am continually blown away by the natural world, both in it’s beauty and complexity. (The other night I caught The History Channel’s exploration of the brain--“the most complex machine in the known universe”--and was completely dumbfounded; well, my brain thinking about my brain is dumbfounded!) Indeed, the brain makes even the most complicated human invention look like a randomly tumbled stone. But does this complexity, this wonderfully amazing “machinery” we call life, compel us to believe in a creator? Does the “design” we see in nature require a Designer?

As with the other arguments for God's existence, there are some problems. First, the basic premise of the argument seems to require us to believe that bodies, organs, solar systems, ecosystems and planets behave as if they were machines. Paley (and others) want to say that our eyes, our cells, the very planet we live on is analogous to a machine (a watch in this case). This analogy has never seemed necessarily credible as it seems to break down rather quickly. Watches have makers; that much is clear. They are not made by themselves, but animals, plants, even planets and solar systems are self-replicating or self-organizing through the laws of physics. (It might be argued that the physical laws implies a creator, but that only says that God created a set of rules not the universe itself.) It breaks down because we are comparing non-living with living, self-sustaining with non-self-sustaining. Watches do not reproduce. Animals do, cells do. All of the systems we see today that appear to evidence design were formed through the use of preexisting materials; God, at least the God of the Bible, is said to have made the universe without that benefit. Without a doubt, the universe is a wondrous and complex thing, but an analogous argument never entirely convincing.

Next, while I am completely amazed by nature and how it appears that the universe evidences design, I am also aware at how wasteful and, dare I use the word, evil it can be. For all the carefully designed elements of life, there are also many maladaptions that seem to defy the notion of a thoughtful, entirely moral Designer. The abject waste of young life is an observable fact; it's pretty clear that for every "fit" individual in nature, there is massive majority of "unfit" individuals die before they can reproduce. Such waste must be addressed if I am to make claims about the perfect design of the natural world.

By way of a partial rebuttal to this objection: Sin may be a powerful explanation, but, if so, then we might not be able to have our cake and eat it too, perhaps, forcing us to make the rather weak claim that God only designed the good parts of nature. I personally think evil can be explained sufficiently to at least address this issue enough to set it aside.

There may be an "unconscious purpose" that has produced the appearance of design in the world. I can imagine, given some vast stretch of time, that the standard evolutionary story could become plausible. If a thousand monkeys hammered on a thousand keyboards for a hundred million years, something approaching the genius of Shakespeare could appear on the page through pure chance. But chance is not the only active force in nature: there is gravity, there are chemical interactions, there is natural selection (known most commonly by the tautological slogan: "survival of the fittest"). To my way of thinking, the all-to-common example of the human eye may have plausibly evolved gradually from a simple light-sensitive organelle through successive modifications, down to the variety of eyes we see today in the animal world. This doesn't mean that something has purposed to create an eye. Rather, it could be that my eyes are more adaptive than my ancestors and their eyes were more adaptive than their ancestors, etc., until we reach back in time to find a mildly photosensitive skin cell on some sort of primitive and completely unknown creature.

Finally, I think it is quite possible that we may be fooled into thinking that there is actual design, when there really isn't. Our brains, being, as I say, pattern--whether there really is a pattern or not--recognition machines, may be attempting to overlay meaning and cohesion onto the complexity we see. We see the amazing fine-tuning required for life on this planet (well, perhaps, life anywhere in the vastness of space), and we are required to interpret this data. Our limited perspectives and psychology may trick us into a false apprehension of purpose where there really is no purpose at all.

As probably the strongest line of reasoning for God’s existence, the teleological argument leaves some interesting questions even if I find the counter-arguments lacking. Even if this complexity leads me to the acceptance of a Grand Designer, what kind of God does the argument imply?

If I take the teleological argument at face value, I think I may be justified in saying that God likes death, suffering and meaninglessness as much as He likes life, pleasure and meaningfulness. God simply sets out the plans and hopes that things will turn out for the best. If you believe that God is the grand and wonderful designer of the universe, then how does one explain Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Yersinia pestis (bubonic plague) or cancer? How does one explain why all animals (including, under normal conditions, humans) have far more offspring than usually don't survive until maturity? How does one explain earthquakes and famines? To me, this is not particularly good system design. (I could be wrong, of course, and I do think, as I've said, that a good argument can be constructed to tell us why evil is a necessary thing, but that’s for another time.)

I have studied evolution and I’ve studied creationism (in all their various permutations) and I find that either explanation is equally plausible. Both, though, have problems, crippling problems if you ask me. These problems require some kind of leap of faith to overcome. For some, the problems associated with the teleological argument are insurmountable, but for myself they do not hold me back from a belief in God. Indeed, while this argument does not come close, in my mind, of proving God's existence, it certainly makes for a plausible case. It seems likely that if there was a God, we could see some sort of design in the world and I think we see just enough of that to make it likely that God exists.

Teleological Argument

The next argument I would like to address in my continuing quest to figure out why Lee believes in God, is the Teleological arguemnt, a subargument of the cosomological argument. In short, the argument goes something like this:

1. All things designed have a designer.
2. The universe (from galaxies to single cells) evendence design.
3. Therefore, the universe has a designer (and that is God).

Today the argument is most often accociated with the English theologian William Paley, who presented the argument in his 1802 book Natural Theology. Paley suggests that the analogy—watch is to watchmaker what universe is to God—pooves that there is a designer, because the universe, the planet, our eyes, even the very cells of our bodies exhibit positive signs of being designed. They are so dazzlingly complicated that they must have been intentionally created. Even if one had no real idea what the purpose of a particular part of the world, we reconginze the difference between an erroded stone and the complex mechinism of watch. In short, as A. C. Ewing demonstrates in the following passage, we are allowed to attribute design when we see complexity:

Suppose we saw pebbles on the shore arranged in such a way as to make an elaborater machine. It is theoretically possible to they might have come to occupy such positions by mere chance, but it is fantastically unlikely , and we should feel no heistation in jumping to the conclusion that they had been thus depositinted not by the tide by some intellegent agent. Yet the body of the simplest living creature is a more complex machine than the most complext ever devised by a human engineer.

Systems in nature, it is argued, appear to be not unlike machines built by human beings. Therefore, there is a Great Designer.

To avoid the weaknesses of an analogy (analogies always seem to break down, don’t they?), two supporting theories have gained groundin recent years: irreducible complexity and fine-tuning.

Since the mid-1990’s the teleological argument has been repackaged by supporters of Intelligent Design into what is known as irreducible complexity. First fully articulated by Michael J. Behe, irreducable complexity is

a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic funtion, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complext system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuosly improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precusor to an irreducibly complext system that is missing a part is by definition nonfuctional.

Even in the highly unlikely event that a complex system (say an eye or bacterial phygelum) came into existance by random, grandual and undesigned means, as complexity increases the less likely that it came to be without the benefit of a designer. Specifically, Behe is speaking about biological systems, but as early as the mid-1960’s larger systems, including the universe itself has been looked at in a similar light.

The other modern extension of the teleological argument has come from astronomy and astrobiology, namely the idea that the universe is finely tuned to support life and, for some, human life in particular. Astronomers had now identified more than 150 finely tuned characteristics. In the 1960s the odds that any given planet in the universe would possess the necessary conditions to support intelligent physical life were shown to be less than one in ten thousand. By 2001 those odds dramatically shrank to less than one in a number so large it might as well be infinity (10 to the 173th power). In other words, if the universe were actually different in any of those 150 ways, we wouldn’t be here at all.

For many observers, this would only be possible if the universe was indeed created to support life. And the creator of the universe is none other than God.

1. Anthropic Principle
2. Fine Tuning for Life on Earth
   

Evaluation of the Argument from Contingency

So what to make of the Argument from Contingency? Is it persuasive? Does it prove that God (or god) exists?

Let me first lay out the arguments again. First, here's Leibniz's version:

1. Every existing thing has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. The universe is an existing thing.
3. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
4. Therefore, the explanation for the existence of the universe is God.

And Aquinas':

1. There is cause for everything; nothing can be the efficient cause of itself and everything must be caused by something.
2. Either the chain goes on forever or there is a first cause.
3. If there is no first cause then there will be no other causes or effects; the chain of causes can't go infinitely backward.
4. Therefore, a first cause exists (and this is God).

Without giving this much thought, these arguments seem reasonable to me. At least, I've never really thoroughly questioned them until recently. It seems rather obvious that every effect has a cause and that we could either trace those causes back through time. This could go on infinitely (that is the universe has no beginning) or to a specific first event and therefore to an uncaused cause. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to say that every thing in the universe contains within it one or more logical dependencies. That is to say that everything is made up of or depends on other things to constitute that thing or effect. A thing is either necessary (it exists because of itself) or it is dependent on something else. In the case of the universe itself, it may be that it is necessary by itself.

First, the most troubling problem with these arguments is that, as Hume points out in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (§XI), we can’t really say much about a particular cause other than what is necessary to produce the effect in question. The effect may actually be an arbitrary outcome not a necessary one. As we follow the chain of causes backward, as Aquinas would have us, we may wrongly attribute design (more on that later) to a particular outcome. When we toss dice, for example, we know what the cause is but the necessary effect (the number of pips on the top side of each die) is random, unguided and thus we only say that the dice were thrown, but we can say nothing about the individual craps player.

There is some skepticism on my part as to whether there is anything necessarily illogical about an infinite, eternal and non-contingent universe. In other words, what makes it impossible that there was no first cause? Just because our finite brains has difficulty accepting the idea of the infinite (which is only to be expected, no?), does that mean that the universe must be finite as well? But don't we encounter infinities all the time? (How many times have I screwed up a computer program because I failed to close my loops somehow, I don't really know. But then again, does that make me the First Cause of that infinite loop . . . .) It may be that there is nothing but the universe and that everything in it, including all causes and effects. Meaning, because we have only seen these causes, effects and dependencies within the universe, it may be that the universe itself is non-contingent. Having no way of apprehending the universe's contingency, we can not, with any measure of certainty, decide the matter.

Finally, on a related note, I think in some ways this argument fails because it really is a thinly disguised ontological argument. I think Kant would agree (see, if you dare, Transcendental Dialectic in Critique of Pure Reason) that in order to turn the idea of a First Cause into an actual fact the ontological argument must be invoked. What the Contingency argument may be doing is saying: "God is that thing that we conceive is holding the universe together." This doesn't prove God exists, rather it only gives us a name for that thing which, if our argument is true, started or is the necessary dependant for everything in the universe. Again, just because we have an idea (especially an a priori concept) of some being does not require us to accept its reality.

In the end, the best that can be said for these arguments is that they may prove that something exists, but that "God" is fairly impotent in today's world. The Uncaused Cause, if true, is merely the "inventor" of the universe and, as far as the argument goes, has only been idly watching the unimaginably complex chain of cause and effect since time began. Or, if Leibniz is correct, God is merely the extra-substantial necessary property of the universe, the "spiritual", super-small particle/energetic glue that binds all effects of energy and matter.

The Argument from Contingency

“It is self-evident that truth exist in general, but not self-evident to us that there exists a first Truth.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, Q2, art. 3)

The Argument from Contingency is the probably the most popular and, perhaps, the oldest cosmological argument for God’s existence. While the Bible does not attempt to prove God exists (it assumes it), the argument can be found in the Bible itself, as typified by Psalm 19:1 which reads “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.” The cosmological argument says in an oversimplified nutshell, “hey, look at the universe—something must have created it!” The argument from contingency says “even the universe depends on something for its existence and that something is God.”

Key to understanding this argument is the notion of contingency. Contingency is used in this argument in two distinct ways. One, contingency is used to denote an unknown state in the logical necessity of a given claim. A contingent claim is one that may be true, but there is nothing that forces us to accept it as truth. To say that a thing’s existence is contingent is to acknowledge that it need not exist at all or that its existence is merely possible. For example, it appears that human beings are contingent (that is, there’s no reason why we could not exist). Some truths depend on something else. This sentence depends on each word; each word depends on many letters. (For all you other database nerds out there, think functional dependencies between attributes in related tables.) Others do not in the same way that a triangle with three sides depends on nothing else. In fact, it appears that the entire universe is contingent because each element or property of a whole is required before we can say a thing exists.

But why was there a universe at all? Under what circumstances could we conceive that it not exist? Why, as Leibniz asks, is there something rather than nothing at all? There is a universe; that much is obvious but how do we explain its existence? The answer given by those who subscribe to the cosmological argument is that, because it appears that everything we can experience could not exist (that is, they are contingent and dependent on their various relationships), a necessary cause (as opposed to contingent one) must act in such a way to hold the universe as an existent whole.

The second, and perhaps more important, way in which contingency is used is more closely related to the idea of dependence. Specifically, any change is contingent (dependent) upon another. Things don’t simply change on their own, rather they come about because of something else. If one thing (the universe) is the creation of another, it is dependent (contingent) for its existence on that other. Things do not owe their own existence to themselves. Even if some things are eternal (suppose, for example, the sun or the universe itself), they do not owe their existence to their own nature. Their existence depends on, and is caused by, something else. That something is what we call God.

While almost every major philosopher throughout history has attempted to tackle this problem, the most oft-sited formulation for this argument comes from St. Thomas Aquinas (and a lesser extent Leibniz). Aquinas builds on St. Paul’s claim that “the hidden things of God can be clearly understood from the things He has made” (Rom. 1:20). He therefore argues that, if that were so, “we must be able to demonstrate that God exists from the things he has made, for the first step in understanding a thing is to know that it exists” (Summa Theologiae, I, Q2, art. 3). Aquinas claimed that, in order to know that God exists, we should be able to find God by tracing a linage effect to cause, infinitely backtracking. Each event, object or state is caused by something previous and each effect implies something about it’s cause. As we trace these implications backward, we see that, eventually, we must encounter some sort of uncaused cause. If not, we would not exist at all.

If we trace all of these effects back through time, carefully noting each cause in turn, we will, according to this line of reasoning come upon a moment when there was no universe at all and we will encounter God. Unlike Aquinas’ argument, the so-called Kalam arguments assume an actual beginning of time. But this isn’t a required element of the contingency argument. Aquinas simply states that God (the Uncaused Cause) is non-contingent to the universe; whether He created (in the conventional sense of the word) the universe is indeterminate. The universe simply depends upon God the way that the moonlight depends upon the sun. For most people today, we can, with some confidence, argue that the universe did have an actual beginning: the so-called Big Bang some 15 billion years ago. But this does not necessarily torpedo the argument. Not even God can bring Himself into being. Self-caused or uncaused, in this case, simply means that God exists independent of any cause whatsoever. He is necessary, though not the “first” cause in time, but the ultimate, primary cause of the universe. (The claim is that the Big Bang wasn’t the first moment IN time but rather the first moment OF time.) The universe depends on God to exist, perhaps, to hold it in place, to give it shape and meaning.

Whether or not there was a specific beginning of the universe in time and space seems to me irrelevant to the question. Rather, the point of the entire argument is that there seems to be a particular relationship between things in the universe. Whether we can trace these dependencies back in time (one cause/effect at a time) or in some kind of relational (the earth depends on atoms which depend on smaller particles), there is, according to Aristotle, Aquinas, Leibniz and Taylor, a direct pathway back to God.

I am not convinced that this is a completely sound argument in general and some problems seem to pop out at me immediately, but that is a task for another day.

Cosmological Argument for God's Existence

As probably the most widely used argument for God's existence, the Cosmological Argument attempts to reconcile observed facts with the existence of God. We observe that there is a universe and that the universe appears to follow some kind of rules of behavior (if not, we could not really say anything about it). What caused the universe to be? What designed it to be the way that it is? We observe a set of facts (the existence of the universe, the apparent design found in nature and a universal sense of morality) and attempt to induce the existence of god. Where the Ontological Argument is a deductive, a priori argument, the Cosmological Argument is an inductive, a posteriori argument.

The Cosmological Argument usually takes of one of three forms:

• Argument from Contingency
• Argument from Design (teleological)
• Argument from Morality

In a nutshell, the Argument from Contingency says that God must exist because something must have caused everything we see now. This is why it is often referred to as the "First Cause" argument. The most famous formulations of this argument come from St. Thomas Aquinas (I will also be relying on Richard Taylor's and a collection of Medieval Arab scholarly writings as well to explore this argument).

The second formulation of the Cosmological Argument is a result of the perceived order we find in all natural systems. It is often referred to as the Teleological (telos, purpose or end) Argument. If we look around, we, apparently, see only order. We see systems in some state of functionality. Where we see chaos, we are really seeing other systems acting upon other systems. Why does there seem to be design in everything we see? According to the proponents of this argument, the answer is God.

Finally, there is the argument that human beings are morally aware, then there must be an originator of that awareness. Most notably championed by Immanuel Kant, I will also be looking at some of the writings of C. S. Lewis to help me understand this argument.

I'll need to do a little re-reading and will attempt to tackle each of these sub-arguments in turn.

Criticism of the Ontological Argument for God's Existance

As one of the weakest arguments for the existence of God, I thought it would be a good place to start. As stated before, the ontological argument basically says that if we have a concept or definition of God, then God must exist. This is true, Anselm and Descartes would argue, because God's basic traits (the greatest thing imaginable and that thing that cannot deceive) demand that we acknowledge the fact that God exists.

A number of very solid thinkers have pointed out several rather obvious problems with the ontological argument, namely, we can have all sorts of images in our head that do not, nor have ever corresponded with reality. For example, the contemporary of Anselm, Gaunilo asks "Now could it not with equal justice be said that I have in my understanding all manner of unreal objects, having absolutely no existence in themselves, because I understand things if one speaks of them, whatever they may be?" He further accuse Anselm of confusing the mental formation of an object with actually discovering whether it even is real. Gaunilo asks us to image the greatest possible island and compare it with the concept of a being that which nothing greater can be imagined. (What properties of this island would make it the best island after all?) If, according to Gaunilo, this argument works for the existence of God it should work for the existence of the perfect island, which, on the face of it, seems silly. Just because we can image the greatest possible island, for example, does that mean it exists? Does Santa Claus exist because every December I am bombarded with mental constructs of the Jolly ol' Elf?

A more coherent and real critique of the ontological argument comes from Kant. Without going into too much detail (and the much dreaded re-reading of Critique of Pure Reason), Kant says that existence is not a property of objects. Existence is only a property of a concept. Whether the ideas that make up the concept of God (which may or may not manifest themselves in reality) is yet to be determined. Existence (being) is not something we can safely call an attribute. Existence is not a predicate. Consider the following attributes of God:

• God is good
• God is all powerful
• God is the creator of the universe

Each of these predicates (good, all-powerful, creator of the universe) is a real property of God. What Kant is saying, though, is that the ontological argument makes a fundamental mistake by neglecting to have a real predicate. In other words, the ontological argument simply states "God is" (simply because I can construct the concept of God in my imagination). This statement is actually contentless because existence is not a true property of God (or anything else for that matter). Therefore, the ontological argument fails. What Kant seems to be saying, and I think I agree, the ontological argument is really saying: God is, therefore God is. To which, Kant would ask: have you no other premises? (And, after showing that the ontological argument lacks the basic structure of a real agrument, God is what?)

I personally find Gaunilo and Kant persuasive, especially in the absence of other empirical or rational arguments for God's existence. There is just something wrong with the basic ontological argument; I feel like someone is playing some kind of word-game with me. But I cannot exactly pinpoint the problem any better than Hume, Aquinas, Gaunilo, or Kant. In essence, as a metaphysical realist myself, I reject the idea that if something can be imagined, conceptualized or defined then it must exist. All sorts of loony things go on my head that I thank God do not exist! Does this mean that God does not exist? That is yet to be determined (even if, obviously, I suspect He does). A purely a priori argument does not seem to be completely sound to me.

Ontological Arguments for God's Existance

Ontology is the study of the most basic or base metaphysical categories. The study of ontology seeks to place categories of reality into simple hierarchies. Therefore, ontological arguments for God's existence are derived from categories of pure logic and a priori reasoning. In this case, they seek to marry what we know with what is real.

There are a number of ways in which this argument for God's existence can be laid out, but I will focus on just a couple. St. Anselm of Canterbury's argument is probably the most famous. Essentially, Anselm's argument can be boiled down to the following:

1. God is a being that which nothing greater can be conceived.
2. Existence in reality is greater than existence solely in human imagination.
3. Therefore, God must exist in reality because if God did not, God would not be a being greater than anything that can be conceived.

Anselm observed that people have an idea of a perfect being, they can imagine a being that is so complete in its perfection that no other perfect thing can compare. How then did such a being come to inhabit human imagination if it did not exist in the first place? It got there because it actually exists. Something that does not exist is somehow lacking in perfection, thus that which nothing greater can be conceived actually exists. It seems to me, and here I agree with Karl Barth, that what Anselm is saying is that God isn't really proven by this argument, but rather that God cannot be denied once we know what He is: the most perfect being.

Later, Rene' Descartes expanded on this idea. He compares the knowledge of geometric shapes and the reality of God, writing,

But if the mere fact that I can produce from my thought the idea of something entails that everything which I clearly and distinctly perceive to belong to that thing really does belong to it, is not this a possible basis for another argument to prove the existence of God? Certainly, the idea of God, or a supremely perfect being, is one that I find within me just as surely as the idea of any shape or number. And my understanding that it belongs to his nature that he always exists is no less clear and distinct than is the case when I prove of any shape or number that some property belongs to its nature.

Clearly, as Descartes alludes, there are things that we know cannot exist--such as three sided squares--and there are things we know exist--three-sided shapes called triangles--without really giving it much thought. Because we have a clear understanding of what God is, according to Descartes, we know God exists. In other words, because the concept of God includes, by definition, the perfect goodness of God, God must exist. Because God, "a being subject to no defects whatever . . . [who] cannot be a deceiver, for it is manifest by the light of nature that all fraud and deception depend on some defect", cannot trick us into believing something that is not so and we can trust our perceptions about the world can be trusted--our perceptions of the world includes a perfect being--God must exist.

If this argument is sound, then it really does not tell us much about God in terms of our relationship with that Being. It only says that God is perfect in any conceivable way. God is all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal and entirely good.

Perhaps, that is all we can really say about God.

Problems with the Standard Definition of Knowledge

While I think that the so-called standard definition of truth (justifiable true belief) the best description of knowledge, it does have some serious problems. First, truth is presupposed in the defintion. If knowledge is supposed to be the way in which we determine if something is true and we have truth already in our defintion of knowledge, then how do we know that what we know is indeed true. We need truth in order to have knowledge, but we define knowledge as something that is already true.

Another point of confusion for me is the belief part of the definition. In the past, science (which is supposed to be our unimpeachable bastion of knowledge, not so?) has touted as true certian theories. Each of these universally-accepted theories were fully justified and believed to be true. Indeed, they were concidered knowledge. But, as time passes, we discover new justifications for new beliefs and they become knowledge. Now, certainly, we now know that the earth is not flat. It was never true that earth was flat, yet, in the past, scientisists possessed justified beliefs that the world was flat AND claimed that that fact was indeed knowledge.

How does the disruption of the Standard Defenition of Knowledge effect the way in which we "know" God exists? I think, for some people, the Standard Defenition will only help to explain why they think God exists. For me, though, it slightly clouds the issue.

Knowing God Exists

So, what do we mean when we say that we know God exists?

Despite the undeniable weaknesses of the Standard Definition of Knowledge, I think it is our best bet in making sense of the statement, "I know God exists." Based on the preceding epistemological discussions, we can only know God exists if we have a justifiable belief AND it is true. Knowing God exists comes because we can believe a truth and we can justify it. This involves using reason, rationality and belief. Without all three, I don't think we can honestly say we know anything. Granted, what we have been able to justify and believe in the past has not always been true. As mentioned before, I am free to justify and believe all sorts of untrue things. The trick will be in determining if my my arguments and faith that are built on a foundation of truth.

Can I just believe that God exists? I have always acted as if that were the case. As a new believer in Christ, I never questioned whether God existed. I just assumed it because I believed that Christianity was correct. Christianity doesn't, as far as I can tell, require that you know God exists. Rather, you are required to believe in Him (John 3:16, John 3:18, John 6:29, John 11:40, Acts 15:7, Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9, Galatians 3:5, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Hebrews 11:6, ).

It is interesting, though, that in several passages of the Bible there seems to be a relationship between knowing and belief. Obviously, they are two different things. It is my impression that belief for the Bible writers was a more subjective experience and knowing was somehow more objective. Yet there seems to be an order of operations; knowing follows from belief (see John 19:35 and 1 John 5:13). In other cases (notably John 6:69), belief and knowledge appear to be coequal. My personal take on this is that the Bible is saying that you must have faith before you can know and that faith is more important. Hebrews 11:6 says "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." So, knowing God exists doesn't seem as important as believing.

Perhaps, in the end, this is true. But I still feel I must have some kind of reasoned justification for my belief. Otherwise, I think, we are in danger of creating a completely subjective religion.

Knowledge, a Definition

Epistemology is the study of how we know but it occurred to me that I may not even know what knowledge is. What does it mean to “know” something? How can I tell if I “know” that God exists?
According to Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knowledge), the most useful definition of “knowledge” is:

2 a (1): the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2): acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique b (1): the fact or condition of being aware of something (2): the range of one's information or understanding c: the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning : COGNITION d: the fact or condition of having information or of being learned (a person of unusual knowledge>

In order to know that God exists then, it must be through personal experience, familiar acquaintance. I must be consciously aware of this knowledge and I must understand it.

As I've said before, epistemology is not my favorite subject. It always seemed to me that the major camps of epistemology are arrayed against each other like the old Nature v. Nurture camps. It's rather obvious to me that both play a major part in human development, and, thus epistemological subjectivism, rationalism, empiricism and faith all play a role in how we know anything. According to this definition, I may be required to use many different tools to know anything.

All of these tools have their weaknesses as well. Subjectivism fails because it cannot tell us anything about what exists outside of ourselves. Prepositional knowledge fails because it start from the general and makes assumptions about the specific and scientific knowledge fails because it starts from the specific and makes assumptions about the general. Faith fails because it attempts to know things that may have a variety of alternative and yet unknown explanations.

But all four have their own strengths. If we don't have a point of view (subjectivism) then we don't have any right to say that I know anything. If we don't think about why we know something (rationalism) or if there is nothing tangible (empiricism) to intuit, then there is no warrant to believe that we can know anything. Yet, there are things we cannot know for sure and we must make a leap of faith in order to accept. I wasn't at the Apollo moon landing in 1969 (I can barely remember 1969!) but it's reasonable to believe that it happened and I can actually touch some of the artifacts from the mission. That said, I cannot be 100% certain that it happened so some portion of my acceptance of the moon landing must be done on faith. All four theories seem to be necessary for a grounded view of knowledge.

According to the “standard definition of knowledge”, knowledge must contain the following three elements. I tend to agree with Plato by saying that knowledge must be "justified true belief". I only really know something if it is true, I believe it's true and can justify my belief in the truth of the matter. I cannot know untrue things, but I am free to believe all sorts of things that may not be true. There may be some true things I will never believed, so I do not know them. I can also believe untrue things; again, this is not knowledge. Thus what is known must be true by necessity and I must believe it is true.

As I said, one is free to believe all sorts of things, but we all know that there are many people who believe some pretty strange and obviously false things. Thus, belief alone is insufficient to knowledge. On the other hand, we can believe in something that is true, yet this is still insufficient. The belief must be warranted or justified. If I happened to believe that I have $1.35 in change in my pocket and there just by mere chance happen to be 4 quarters, a dime, 4 nickels and 5 pennies in my pocket and by pure chance there actually was $1.35 in my pocket, would I know it? The answer, of course, is no. I only guessed correctly and so the final element of knowledge is justification. My belief must be warranted somehow. In this case, I can reach into my pocket and count the change. In other cases, I may need to construct an array of evidence both logical and evidentiary.

So, on this view, that in order to know something, it must be true (some form of empiricism), it must be justifiable (rationalism) and I must believe in it (some form of faith). If I rely on any one theory to come to a conclusion, especially about the existence of God, I’m afraid this project will be hopeless. I think that’s why a lot of people fail in their attempt to prove God’s existence. Faith in God seems the most likely candidate for starters, but faith alone doesn’t seem to be sufficient to produce real, sustainable knowledge. For myself, I’m sure faith will continue to play a part in my relationship with God, but it cannot be the only way to know God.

Epistemological Rationalism

The second major epistemological theory I would like to cover is Rationalism, the belief that we acquire knowledge by using our minds. Knowledge is only warranted if our intuition can fully apprehend the thing in question. Knowledge is a result of analytic truth (deduction) and, thus, can be reliably expressed in syllogism. In its simplest form, this takes the form of an argument. The modus ponens (or modus ponendo ponens, "mode that affirms by affirming") states that if X and Y are true, the Z must be true. For example:

1. If today is Sunday, I will be at church.
2. Today is Sunday.
3. Therefore, I will be at church.

This can also be used to prove a negative (a modus tollens):

1. If you are a human being then you are not a stone.
2. You are made of stone.
3. Therefore, you are not a human being.

Of course, there are examples that don't work because we can deny the antecedent. Take for example:

1. If God would show Himself to me personally, that would prove that God exists.
2. But God hasn't done so.
3. Therefore, religion is false.

Just because 1. and 2. are both true, doesn't necessitate 3. There may be other explanations. God may show Himself to us, but our senses may not fully grasp His presence or just because something is not “shown” does not mean it does not exist.

For a rationalist, the mind and argument (essentially) determine what we can know, as opposed to an empiricist who may claim that that the only way to know if God exists if we can somehow experience Him. Only because the world has an inherently logical structure, can we, as an rationalist would claim, know anything. In our case, it must be proven to be a logical necessity before a rationalist can accept God's existence. So, when I begin to tackle the arguments for God's existence, I will be venturing into the world of rationalism, but I have my doubts about this method.

Epistemological Subjectivism

One of the most recent epistemological points of view, one that is growing in popularity, is call subjectivism. As mentioned before, epistemological subjectivism is the claim that all knowledge is purely a matter of perspective. The subjectivist may allow that there are knowable basic dimensions (space and time), but we can only know them and the things in them from a vantage point of the intersecting, and completely unique, dimension of our (my?) point of view.

Clearly, everyone has a unique point of view. We come from different backgrounds. We all learn through different means. We can really only know what what we, ourselves, have either thought about (as, generally, per Rationalism), physically experienced (Empiricism), found useful (Pragmatism) or simply believed (Faith). In other words, even if any other theory is correct, we must start with what is knowable from our own unique vantage point. When I was in school, one of the "big" questions running around was whether it was possible to be an atheist in Medieval Europe. On this view, it would have not been, because atheism was not a knowable position for the Medieval subject; his or her upbringing, teaching, culture and worldview precluded atheistic knowledge.

Often, we hear people say they "feel" God's presence or God has "spoken" to them. Of course, this is completely unverifiable. For the subject alone, this is proof of God's existence. In many cases, I imagine, this may be saying that God exists but God's existence can only be knowable through subjective experience. As much as modern Christianity claims to believe in objective truth, this, to me, is an interesting side-track to the debate. Is this what people really mean when they speak of the Holy Spirit as that "quiet voice" we hear in our heart (our subjective self)? Does "Jesus is real to me, because I have Him right here in my heart" mean the same thing?

The problem that these perfectly valid expressions pose is that it reduces God to an inner mood, removing Him from His essential quality of Other. Without denigrating these experiences, for I am convinced that many may be perfectly true and I would not wish to limit God's methods, it reduces Him to the role of Jiminy Cricket (which I suppose was originally a polite way to to take the Lord's name in vain).

Basics of Epistemology

In order to come to any conclusion about whether God exists, we have to examine how we might know that He (she or it) exists. Are we certain of God's existence? Or is there just a probability? How can our finite minds apprehend the concept of the infinite? How do we justify our claims to know anything?

These are the problems of epistemology. The defining questions of epistemology include the following:

1. What is the nature of propositional knowledge, knowledge that a particular proposition about the world is true? Knowing a particular proposition requires both that we believe it and that it be true, but it also clearly requires something more, something that distinguishes knowledge from a lucky guess. Let's call this additional element ‘warrant’. A good deal of philosophical work has been invested in trying to determine the nature of this additional element.
2. How can we gain knowledge? We can form true beliefs just by making some lucky guesses. How we can gain warranted beliefs is unclear. Moreover, to know the world, we must think about it, and it is not clear how we gain the concepts we use in thought or what assurance, if any, we have that the ways in which we divide up the world using our concepts correspond to divisions that actually exist.
3. What are the limits of our knowledge? Some aspects of the world may be within the limits of our thought but beyond the limits of our knowledge; faced with competing descriptions of them, we cannot know which description is true. Some aspects of the world may even be beyond the limits of our thought, so that we cannot form intelligible descriptions of them, let alone know that a particular description is true.

The third item, I imagine, will be particularly important while discussing the reality of God.

Out of these questions, five major camps have evolved: Subjectivism, Rationalism, Empiricism, Pragmatism, Faith.

Subjectivism says that there is only one thing anyone can know exists: our mind (rather, and more to the point, my mind, because I have no real basis for knowing you exist). Sometimes called epistemological idealism, this position holds that we can only understand the world through our own unique perspective and that other perspectives may or may not actually exist. Knowledge, therefore, deeply personal and entirely a matter of opinion.

Rationalism is theory that we acquire knowledge through thinking, using our minds. Rationalism relies on necessary, self-evident and universal truths, as well as syllogism (analytic truth and deductive reasoning). In other words, the real world is only knowable because it has a logical structure that can be analyzed and grasped through reason.

Usually opposing Rationalism is Empiricism, the view that we acquire knowledge by testing things out and using our sensory experience. It relies on synthetic truth, direct observation, induction (indirect empirical knowledge, generalization). A theories about the world must be tested against observations of the natural world, as per the scientific method.

Pragmatism is the view that knowledge is not, strictly speaking, out there waiting to be discovered. Rather, it is mutable and must be considered in relation to the consequences of its acceptance or rejection. There must be some conceptual agreement, practically speaking, about a given term. Essentially, if the theory, belief, or "fact" works, then it is true.

Finally, there is Faith (sometimes called Authority or Fideism). Epistemological faith is the belief that we quire knowledge through inspiration and revelation. There are some things we simply cannot know through our own personal perspectives, reason, experimentation or conventions. Reason is fallible and our sense can deceive. So, we must make leaps of faith toward any kind of knowledge. At the very least, we must suspend our skepticism and accept knowledge even though we cannot achieve certainty. Justification may be necessary for knowledge of this sort, but it is entirely insufficient to determine if something is actually true.

In the end, epistemology is as much about levels of certainty as it is about the way we know. Usually this is arranged from most certain or apodictic, to psychological certainty (does it feel certain?), to conventional ("all bachelors are unmarried men"), to pragmatic (is is helpful to be certain?), finally down to probabilities. For example, people can point to mathematical truths that can, supposedly, be proved indubitably. But is "1 + 1 = 2" a mere stipulative tautology? Is there any probability that this kind of knowledge is simply an useful convention? So, the quest becomes one of using whichever theory and then attempting to justify or examine our certainty.

To prove that God exists--to be certain in the way that many Christians appear to be--seems like a very difficult thing to do. But, throughout the history of the Church, subjectivists, empiricists, rationalists, pragmatists and fideists have, with various degrees of certainty, all taken their turns. Each one has used the tools of epistemology to make their case for (or against) the existence of God.

Proof of God's Existence, A Project

Over the past year, I have written extensively (and privately) about how I came to be a Christian. Mainly, I did that in response to my councilor's suggestion that, perhaps, my conception of faith, reason, God, Jesus, Church life, fellowship, and so on may be contributing to my bouts of depression. This was not an attack on my faith. Rather, it was an attempt to get me to think through some of my own biases and preconceptions and examine them in light of how I process the world at large. Essentially, my councilor wanted me to see if I was sliding unhealthy thinking into my Christianity.

Long story short: I realized that I never really tackled the issue of God's existence during my conversion from atheism and would like to do that this year.

I've avoided the "epistemology of the ontology of God" throughout my philosophical life. Mainly because epistemology is something I've only had passing interest. I really enjoyed Kantian epistemology in school and was glad when The Matrix spurred some interest in the topic, but, for me, how we know what we know is fairly mundane. Either way, that is where I will need to begin.

Secondly, I would like to examine some of the major arguments for God's existence. On the outset, I'm skeptical that any one of them will hold much water for me, so this should be interesting.

Finally, I'd like to form some reasoned response to the question: "Why does Lee believe in God?" by the end of the year based on my examinations of these arguments. This sounds like something I can pull off in one year. Whether or not I am able to articulate my subjective belief (even if I believe there is ample objective evidence all around us) in God remains to be seen.

Related blog entries:

• Basics of Epistemology (1/11/2008)
• Epistemological Subjectivism (1/23/2008)
• Epistemological Rationalism (2/6/2008)
• Knowledge, a Definition (2/12/2008)
• Knowing God Exists (2/28/2008)
• Some Problems with the Standard Definition of Knowledge (2/28/2008)
• The Ontological Argument (9/24/2008)
• Criticism of the Ontological Argument (10/3/08)
• Cosmological Argument (10/10/08)
• The Argument from Contingency (10/11/08)
• Evaluation of the Argument from Contingency (10/16/08)
• Teleological Argument (11/7/08)
• Evaluation of the Teleological Argument (11/12/08)
• Information and the Teleological Argument (12/22/08)