Scientific Naturalism is a worldview that is powerfully influencing our culture today. So much so that even believers in one and the same God struggle with conflicting views. J.P. Moreland begins the first of his four part series with a clear examination of its belief system and the
role theistic evolution plays to perpetuate its ends. Here are parts II, III, IV.
Denying the existence and emergence of morality and ethics, Naturalism, a growing worldview, proves inadequate in explaining human nature and its qualities. Having examined the myth of evolution and scientism in Part 1, Moreland explores the jeopardy of the absence of ethics in this second part of a four-part series.
Dallas Willard offers a fresh appeal for the benificence and salience of truth, arguing that it has largely fallen into disrepute because of misunderstanding. The meaning of truth, Willard suggests, is both simple and obvious: "An idea or statement or belief is true if what it is about is as it is presented." Among its benefits, truth is what helps us deal with reality and it serves as the basis for tolerance. Willard goes on to suggest that Jesus Christ is the ultimate exemplar of a truthful life and he can serve as the basis for the redemption of truth in our culture.
If every person understood the true foundation of society, the common
origin of all its members, their natural and necessary sympathies,
their community of interests, their necessary action upon, and with
each other, it might be supposed, that all who are reasonable, would be
civil. They would be so, because they would promote their own good,
because they would be doing what it is proper to do, to promote the
good of others; and because they would know, that in so doing, they would
conform to the design of their creation. We do not include under the
term civility, the great duties of justice, acts of munificence,
important personal services. These arise out of some special relation,
which an individual bears to one or more other individuals. It seems to
be limited to the manner in which the common, or accidental
intercourse of the members of society, in general, should be carried on.
This matter may be better understood by some examples. Thus, if one comes into the presence of another, as a beggar,
servant, laborer, mechanic, trader, merchant, farmer, lawyer,
physician, clergyman, or public officer; or if it be a female, or child
of either sex; there may be very various modes of receiving these
different persons. Yet, certainly, by every one of the laws, which we
are endeavoring to illustrate, these several persons are entitled to
civility. Even the beggar, perhaps one should rather say the beggar in
particular, if not deformed by voluntary transgression, should be
received with civility. That is, gentleness, kindness, decorum are to
be observed relatively to each one. Why? because no man can afford to
be deemed insensible to the calls of reasonable humanity; nor a
stranger to the decencies of life; nor ignorant of what is due from
him, nor to him, in any of his proper relations. Politeness may be
quite another thing, in some of the supposed cases. One interchanges
politeness with those who happen to know what politeness is; civility,
with every body. A king would be polite to the ladies of his court, to
his prime minister, to the members of his council, to foreign
ministers, &c., and civil to his coachman, and to the humblest of
his subjects.
We
may find many illustrations, and fill ever so many pages with them. Let
us take one which will concern the greatest number. In this country a
stage-coach, and a steamboat, bring many persons into a small space,
who may be utterly ignorant of each other’s existence, until they meet.
They have a common object, that is, to be transported in the same
vehicle, from the point of departure, to that of destination.
Circumstances compel them to be very close to each other, and each one
has the power of being very disagreeable to each one of the others, in
a variety of well known modes. Let us suppose that each one consults
merely his own interest, including in that, his own self-respect, the
reasonable good will, which each man desires from all others, and the
ever present principle of doing as he would be done by. He shows that
he is sensible of the presence of his fellow-men; that he thinks them
of sufficient consequence to wish to have their good
opinion; that he is attentive to their comfort, or convenience; that he
is disposed to learn something; from them, or communicate something; or
to join with them in disposing of the time in which one has nothing to
do, but to be carried. Take the other side of the picture; — he puts
himself in the best place; takes out his cigar, lights it from a pocket
apparatus, and goes to smoking; he sees no one, speaks to no one, and
endeavors to hear no one; if spoken to, he answers in a coarse
monosyllable, and in a tone which prevents all further attempt at
intercourse with him. If he make his presence known at all, beyond his
sullen sitting there, it is by some selfish exclamation; or
contemptuous ejaculation, on what is passing within his notice. Which
of these two persons is civil;
which of them is making the most of human life; which of them is
attracting good will; which of them ought to like himself the best;
which of them will have the most to look back upon, with pleasure?
Which of them is a rational, sensible, well disposed human being, and
which of them is a selfish brute.
Nielsen (philosophy, U. of Calgary) presents a defense of naturalism as the most reasonable way to view humans place in the world. His naturalism is an atheistic and humanistic philosophy, but it is not a scientific or value-free one. He articulates a naturalistic explanation of the functions of religion and argues that truly understanding religion necessitates disbelief. He argues that a consistent atheism does not "rob life of its significance or make social and political commitment arbitrary." After explaining the theory he explains arguments for and against the theory as propounded by various other philosophers, most notably the work of Wittgenstein, which he believes to be the most serious philosophical challenge to secular naturalism. ~ Product Description
Basinger responds to Anthony Flew’s contention that: “the historian must maintain with respect to any alleged miracle that the event did not in fact occur as reported”. Basinger concedes that Flew’s argument has merit, but argues that it ultimately fails. And by the way, to save a trip to dictionary.com, “nomology” is the science of laws. Basinger concludes: “The fact that an alleged occurrence is incompatible with current nomologicals must indeed be seriously considered when the historian rules on its historicity. However, Flew has failed to demonstrate that a seeming counterinstance must be shown to be consistent with current nomologicals before the historian can justifiably rule that it can be known to have occurred. Alleged ‘miracles’ cannot be dismissed this easily.”
According to Alvin Plantinga, it has been widely held since the
Enlightenment that if theistic beliefs are to be considered rational,
they must be based on propositional evidence. It is not enough for the
theist just to refute objections. The theist "must also have something
like an argument for [such a] belief, or some positive reason to think
that the belief is true." But this is incorrect, Plantinga argues.
Basic beliefs are beliefs not based on propositional evidence; such
beliefs are "properly basic in a set of circumstances" if they can be
so affirmed in those circumstances "without either violating an
epistemic duty or displaying some kind of noetic defect." And,
according to Plantinga, theistic beliefs can be properly basic. For
example, he argues that "under widely realized conditions it is
perfectly rational, reasonable, intellectually respectable and
acceptable to believe there is such a person as God without believing
it on the basis of evidence — propositional evidence vs. the kind
instanced by ‘the evidence of the senses’." But can a properly basic
belief such as this have any epistemic credibility (warrant) if it is
not conferred by other propositions whose epistemic status is not in
question? Yes, Plantinga replies. There are two significantly different
ways in which a proposition can acquire warrant. There is propositional
warrant — warrant conferred by an evidential line of reasoning from
other beliefs. However, there is also nonpropositional warrant.
In my view, none of our knowledge, including science, just “tells it like it is.” Knowledge, even the best scientific knowledge, interprets experience through human cultural understanding and experience, and above all (just as it is for poets and preachers) metaphor is the key to the whole enterprise. As I developed my own career path, as a historian and philosopher of evolutionary biology, this insight grew and grew. Everything was metaphorical — struggle for existence, natural selection, division of labor, genetic code, arms races and more. … Because metaphor helps you move forward. It is heuristic, forcing you to ask new questions. If your love is like a rose, what color is the rose? But note that it does so at a cost. A metaphor puts blinkers on us. Some questions are unanswerable within the context of the metaphor. “My love is a rose” tells me about her beauty. It does not tell me about her mathematical abilities. ¶ Now combine this fact with history. Since the scientific revolution, one metaphor above all — the root metaphor — has dictated the nature and progress of science. This is the metaphor of the world as a machine, the mechanical metaphor. What questions are ruled out by this metaphor? One is about ultimate origins. Of course you can ask about the origins of the metal and plastics in your automobile, but ultimately the questions must end and you must take the materials as given. So with the world. I think the machine metaphor rules out an answer to what Martin Heidegger called the “fundamental question of metaphysics”: Why is there something rather than nothing? Unlike Wittgenstein, I think it is a genuine question, but not one answerable by modern science.
What should we make of Naturalist’s efforts to explain language and mental states in acceptably naturalistic ways? What does it mean to say that intentionality and conceptual content are perfectly natural? What is there to commend Naturalism to us in it own right? Alston begins by attempting to clarify just what it would mean for a given phenomenon to be described in strictly naturalistic terms, concluding that establishing such criteria is itself difficult. The problem in part is a tendency to allow naturalism to permit any phenomena whatsoever within its ken, a license that Alston characterizes as a kind of "blank check". Unable to find the necessary criteria, Alston settles on: nature is, "by definition, to include all and only what is discoverable by the ‘scientific method’, including the incipient beginnings of this in ordinary sensory observation, and reasoning from the results of observation." Given such a definition, Alston proceeds to ask the epistemological question of why we should think that science is the only purveyor of knowledge. ~ Afterall
For as long as humans have pondered philosophical issues, they have contemplated "the good life". Yet most suggestions about how to live a good life rest on assumptions about what the good life actually is. Thomas Carson here confronts that question from a fresh perspective. Surveying the history of philosophy, he addresses first-order questions about what is good and bad as well as metaethical questions concerning value judgments.Carson considers a number of established viewpoints concerning the good life. He offers a new critique of Mill’s and Sidgwick’s classic arguments for the hedonistic theory of value, employing thought experiments that invite us to clarify our preferences by choosing between different kinds of lives. He also assesses the desire or preference-satisfaction theory of value in detail and takes a fresh look at both Nietzsche’s Ubermensch ideal and Aristotle’s theory of the good life. In exploring foundational questions, Carson observes that many established theories reston undefended assumptions about the truth of moral realism. Arguing against this stand, he defends the view that "good" means "desirable" and presents a divine-preference version of the desire-satisfaction theory. In this he contends that, if there exists a kind and omniscient God who created the universe, then what is good or bad is determined by His preferences; if such a God does not exist, what is good or bad depends on what we as rational humans desire. Value and the Good Life is the only book that defends a divine-preference theory of value as opposed to a divine-command theory of right and wrong. It offers a masterfully constructed argument in answer to an age-old question and will stimulate all who seek to know what the good life truly is.. ~ Product Description