With Due Respect: Miracles are unscientific!

One of evidences for God?
One of the most frequently touted evidences for God is the occurance of miracles. Scottish philosopher David Hume states in his 1748 book An Enquiry on Human Understanding, that "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience as can be imagined".

In other words, a miracle is an event that violates scientific laws. David Hume further asserts that since these scientific laws are "established", the occurance of miracles are an impossiblilty. Therefore, it is not scientific (or even rational) to accept the existance of miracles.


With great respect to David Hume, I disagree with him. It is entirely possible to be a scientist, and believe in miracles.


On scientific law
Firstly in the realm of science, the word "law" has an entirely different meaning from what it is common understood. In everyday use, it is a legal set of rules that everyone has to follow. Unlike the legal term, a scientific "law" merely states what is generally observed.


For example, let's talk about Mendel's laws of genetic inhertience. His second law (aka the Law of Independent Assortment) states that each parent transmits a random copy of an allele. However, it is noted that while this oberservation is generally true (as it is a law), it does not always happen (due to the presence of epigenetics and self-genetic elements). Violating the scientific law just means an anomaly in the observations. It does not mean the laws no longer hold.

I suppose one could ask miracles do not occur more often. If they did, they would not be rare, and therefore would be called miracles.



A circular argument
Furthermore, the English poet Chesteron (1908) rightly points out the David Hume's argument is circular-- he defines miracles as impoosible to happen. Consider this:

1) Only scientific laws happen

2) Miracles cannot happen because they are by nature, unscientific.


3) Therefore, miracles cannot happen.


In other words, Chesterton points out that the assertion that miracles cannot happen because they simply cannot happen is an argument from dogma, rather than rationality.


Miracles aren't unscientific?
Yes miracles are one-time or rare events. So they aren't scientific as science investigates the repeatible and the general. However, they can be investigated-- through history (i.e. the historical method). So come and investigate Jesus Christ, the God who stepped into time and space, and who knows-- it could be heavenly.

References

Chesterton, G.K. (1908) Orthodoxy



For further reading
Bethinking

Alternative Culture: God's Philosophers review

I have to confess-- I'm a fan of history, philosophy, theology and science. When this book was published, I had to have it. So my friend bought it for me for my birthday in 2011. After all, it combined my interests together.

Basic premise
[God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science has another title. It was released as The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution in the United States]

This book challenges the paradigm that the medieval ages of Europe as the "Dark Ages" were a period of ignorance and regress when nothing of technological and philosophical importance happen. Listing over 100 medieval scholars, the author James Hannam protrays the medieval ages as some sort of Golden Age, where Christian Europe was supreme in both science and thought.

Furthermore, he brings into contention whether the Roman Catholic Church stifled free enterprise and research. According to the author James Hannam, the Roman Catholic Church did not ban zero, forbid human autopsy or even persecuted Galileo for his scientific views (they persecuted him for other reasons). However these modern myths continue to persist.

In this post I want to bring up some things I found enlightening in God's Philosophers.

European Languages
One of the practices of Christianity is the sending of missionaries. As Christian beliefs are rooted in the Bible, there was need to invent languages and translations of the Bible to make Christianity accessible to much of Europe.

Having a common root, most European languages contain about 25 letters and have similar grammar. The ease of learning such languages allowed the facillitation of ideas across Europe. Hannman constrasted this with Asian languages (such as Mandarin). Despite a unified written language across China, the pictorial Chinese language had more than 500 symbols that made the communication of ideas more tedious across Asia. Furthermore, China had little motivation to increase its literacy rate (unlike Europe, which had a religious basis).

Spectacles
Another key invention in the medieval period was the eye-glasses, or rather spectacles. With the development of glass and the studies of light in Europe, corrective lenses were inevitably invented. Spectacles allowed ageing scholars and workers to continue reading and working, allowing the retention of knowledge within the European populations.

Logic
Another aspect that was further developed was logic. Formal logic was first introduced by the ancient philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), and medieval philosophers had little qualms about incoporating Aristolian logic to Christianity. Hannam records St. Anselm of Cantebury (1033-1109)'s ontological argument as one of the earliest attempts to rationalise Christianity. The famed St. Thomas Aquinas (1225- 1274) also features as a champion of Aristotle.

However, the medieval scholars also showed that they weren't just blindly following to Aristotle and the other classical Greek philosophers. The Reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) often challenged Aquinas's (and hence Aristotle's) view on morality and the Roman Catholic Church had once declared Aristotle's works heretical in the Condemnation of 1277.

These challenges to the Greek's idea of the world eventually led to experimentation and the development of science. Hannam advocates the idea that the philosophy of science emerged from the rationality of Christianity. [While other civilisations came up with great scientific discoveries like gunpower, they failed to come up with a philosophy of science which pushed for improvements.]

Overall
While I'm no historian, theologian or philosopher, I really enjoyed God's Philosophers. I highly recommend it to anyone with at least an interest in church history. Hannam's style of writing is simple and engaging, and supported with diagrams for better understanding. I give it a 92/100.

Theology 1.0: What is the ontological argument for God?

[Author's note: The author attempts to present the ontological argument as he best understands it. The author is not in anyway, a philosopher or a theologian. He has a Masters in Biology. He is simply a Christian trying to make sense of the world. This post is also dedicated to his two philosopher friends, Guojun and Mitchel, who helped him immensely through this thought process.]

The Ontological Argument often leaves my brain scrambled like my laptop screen

An argument for the existance of God
One of the arguments for the existance of God is called the ontological argument for God. One unique thing about this philosophical arguement is that we are able to trace its origin to St Anselm of Cantebury. Around 1077-1078, St Anselm wrote Proslogion. This work is where the ontological argument first appeared (Hannam, 2011).

 St Anselm wrote that there is a "conception of God in our minds that is greater than any other thing we can conceive. However, in order for God to be the truly greatest thing He must also exists. A real greatest thing is certainty greater than an imaginary one. If God did not exist he would not be the greatest thing we can conceive and hence he must exist" (Anselm, 1973).

From the wording (and historical research), this argument was not intented to prove God's existance, but rather to show believers why God's existance was necessary. Nevertheless, it has been modified by many philosophers such as Rene Decartes, Gottfried Leibniz and Mulla Sadra as a proof for God's existance (Hannam, 2011).

As with many philsophical agruments, this argument has been refined over time. In this post, I will be exploring the Alvin Platinga's version.

Platinga (1998) argues

1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.

2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.

3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.

4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.

5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.

6. Therefore, a maximally great being (i.e. God) exists.

If you're like me, you'll confess that it does not make any sense the first time you heard it.. This is why I chosen to write this post-- to explain it clearer, and hopefully, it'll make sense to you and me.

The difficulties
What does "possible worlds" mean?
One of the difficulties of the argument is to understand what the word "possible worlds" mean. It does not mean alternate universes or alien worlds. They simply mean hypotheses of how the world might have been (Craig, 2008).

Using this idea of possible worlds, any entity can either be impossible (exists in no possible worlds), contingent (exists in some possible worlds) or necessary (existance in all possible worlds).

Examples of impossible entities include the proposition of squared circles, or that the prime minister of Singapore is a prime number.

Examples of contingent entites include extant elephants (there are possible hypothetical situations where elephants became extinct) or that the prime minister of Singapore is related to me (not true in the actual world, but is possible in other worlds).

Examples of necessary entities include the concept of mathematics, or the proposition that square contain four sides.

What does maximally great mean?
A maximally great being is one that possesses all qualities (such as necessity) which are considered better to have. Furthermore it not only possess such qualities, it possesses them to the maximum extent. This means it possesses maximum power (omnipotent), maximum knowledge (omniscience) and maximum good (omnibenevolence).

Having these qualities, one would call this maximally great being "God". Since this "God" would be omnipresent (as part of its maximal powers), if He existed in even one possible world, he exists in all.

Strengths of the argument
The summary of the argument is simple this--  if it is even possible that God exists, then God exists. In other words it shifts the onus of proof of God's nonexistance to the atheist. This is because if the atheist even concedes a slight possiblility of God's existance, then God exists.

To debunk the ontological argument, one must show that it is IMPOSSIBLE for God (or rather, a maximally great being) to exist.

A maximally great rubber duckie?

Objections to the argument
As with any argument, there are always people who disagree with it. I shall go through more famous ones.

The unicorn alternative
A common objection to the ontological argument is that it can be applied to anything. For instance, in this youtube video, an atheist ridcules the argument, stating it can be applied to unicorns. He uses the argument to show unicorns exists, thinking that the argument states "if you can define it, it exists."

Nevertheless, let's look at this objection in the best possible light. Let's say we use the argument for a maximally great unicorn. Even if we had a perfect unicorn in everyway, clear of any defect, it still would not be omnipotent, omniscience or omnibenevolent. (If it did, then it would be "God"; we are then just replacing the word "God" with the word "unicorn".) At best, it would be contingent (only exists in some possible worlds).

In fact, this kind of objection is not new, and handled by St Anselm himself 900 years ago. Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, St Anselm's rival used a Lost Island as an example (rather than a unicorn). St Anselm pointed out that even the most perfect island is lesser than the greatest thing can be thought of (i.e. it is not "God"; or it does not have the qualities of "God") (Cornman et al., 1992).

Kant's objection
That said, there are forminable arguments against the ontological argument. Almost all serious objections focus on premise 1 ("It is possible that a maximally great being exists"). This is mainly because premise 2 onwards logically follows (Craig, 2008).

One of the greatest philosophers of the Western World, Immanuel Kant also had reservations with the ontological argument (even though Kant himself was a Christian). He questioned the existance as a "necessary proposition". In other words, he argue that a triangle must have three sides if it existed in the first place. Being necessary does not mean an object exist. Furthermore, he argues that a judgement of the non-existance entity is impossible (Kant, 1787).

However, Platinga's (1988) version of the argument does not take issue with this (i.e. it leaves the question of whether existing is a perfection open).

 Can a maximally great being exist?
Another challenge to the ontological argument is whether the concept of a maximally great being is coherent. The notion of God seen as classical theism (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is omniscience, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. But these attributes have been often portrayed as contradictionary. For instance, Smith (1980) argues that God is either not good enough or powerful enough to stop all evil.

Limits of the argument
As with any argument, there are limitations. In the Christian context even if this argument is convincing, it does not lead to the conclusion that this god is the Christian God (since the God of Islam and Judaism is also omnipotent, omniscience and omnipresent). Granted, this argument is not intented to lead people straight away to the Christian God, but a step in a series of arguments to get there. So this argument is only at best useful against atheists.

In my personal opinion..
I find this argument logically coherent, but yet in the same way unconvincing. I sincerely doubt if I would use this argument as an argument for God's existance. For one, not everyone would agree to call a maximally great being "God". One of the most famous Christian theologians, Thomas Aquinas pointed this out in his landmark Summa Theologica.

Next, it would require people of some level of technical knowledge of philosophy to understand it, blunting its effiency.


References
Anselm, St. (trans. Benedicta Ward) (1973) Prayers and Mediations of St Anselm with Prologion

Cornman, J.W., Lehrer, K., Sotiros Pappas, G. (1992) Philosophical problems and arguments: an introduction
Craig, W.L. (2008) Reasonable Faith (3rd Edition)

Hannam, J. (2011) God's Philosophers

Kant, I. (1787) A Critique of Pure Reason

Kukkone, T. (2000) Possible Worlds in the Tahâfut al-Falâsifa: Al-Ghazâlî on Creation and Contingency. Journal of the History of Philosophy. 38, 479-502.

Platinga, A. (1998) God, arguments for the existence of. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Smith, G.H. (1980) Atheism: The Case Against God

For Further Thinking/Reading
InspiringPhilosophy
GospelCoalition
ReasonableFaith

Alternative Culture: Wicked (musical)

During this year's Chinese New Year, my family and I decided to watch Wicked, the musical. It tells the familiar story of The Wizard of Oz, but in an unconventional way.

Synopsis
Without ruining anything, I shall summarise the story. The story is told from the perspective of Glinda the Good and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. The story takes place before, during and after the events of the Wizard of Oz. Let me warn you-- be prepared for a shock twist in the plot.

While high on entertainment and comic value, Wicked subtly challenges our preconceived notion of good and evil by asking us to reexamine our values. In fact, the key question asked at the beginning of the musical was if wicked people were born bad, or did events caused them to choose a path of evil. This will be the issue I will examine in this post.

Born evil, or made evil?
While the musical does not address this question directly, the events of the story seem to imply that events that happened in evil characters' life made them evil. For instance, Boq starts out good and eager to please Glinda, but a series of events twist him to be full of hate. Elphaba's sister Nessarose begins as good-natured, but through a series of betrayals and bad decisions, becomes more tyrannical than her father.

However, a little perspective is needed. Some of the characters such as Fiyero remained good although he suffered a hideous transformation. So maybe things aren't as simple as chance and individual choice as it seems.

 Why do people do wicked things?
I believe that what lies within the human heart is a natural inclination to sin (i.e. disobey God, His laws and not do good). I would even go further to argue that as sin entered the world via one man (Romans 5:12-14), people are born with an innate desire to rebel against God. In fact, the Reformer Martin Luther  knew this well. Examining his own life, he noted that a man is sinful "solely by impiety and incredulity of heart that he becomes guilty and a slave of sin, deserving condemnation, not by any outward sin or work" (Luther, 1520), based on his analysis of Romans 3:9-20.

In the Lutheran Ausburg Confession it notes that "all men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit" (Tappert, 1959).

Solution
But as a Christian, I know it is not enough to let people realise their sinful nature. There is a solution. We just need to put our trust in Jesus (Romans 3:21-31) whose sacrifice on the cross and resurrection paid for all our sins-- past, present and future. God help us if we attempt to overcome evil by our own efforts.

I guess this is why Marxist and literary critic Terry Eagleton (2009) commented that Christianity is "more hopeful than liberal rationalism, with its unhinged belief that not only is the salvation of the human species possible but that, contrary to all we read in the newspapers, it has in principle already taken place. Not even the rose-tinted Trotskyist believes that."

Conclusion
Wicked is a good show and I recommend it to all. I give it 85/100. While I did not find any of the songs memorable, I did enjoy it. I also wished some parts of the story (such as Nessarose's tyranny) were elaborated.

References
Eagleton, T. (2009) Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (2009)

Luther, M. (1520) The Freedom of A Christian

Tappert, T.G. (1959) The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church

With Due Respect: The Church persecuted Galileo for his scientific views!

Tower of Pisa, Italy 2009

Galileo, the man, the myth
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is often portrayed as a man ahead of his time. After all, he was a brilliant astronomer and mathematician. Appointed to the chair of the University of Pisa in 1589, he was spent the next twenty years making groundbreaking scientific discoveries.

The story of the man himself is often used as an example of how Christianity inhibits scientific discoveries. Galileo is shown as a man who was the first to show that objects of differing weights fall at the same speed, disgraced Aristotle's theories, proved Copernicus's ideas (of heliocentrism; the idea that the earth moved around the stationary sun) right, and ultimate irked the Roman Catholic Church with his findings so much that they finally persecuted him. A fascinating tale-- too bad none of it is true (Hannam, 2011).

Wait, what?
First of all, the idea of falling bodies moving at the same speed was already being championed by the scientific community at that time, as part of the project to show that the Greek philosopher Aristotle was wrong among many things. Secondly, Copernicus's ideas had already been proven by Johannes Kepler. And lastly, the Roman Catholic Church placed Galileo under house arrest for political reasons, rather than scientific or theological reasons. For the purpose of this post, I will be focusing on the apparent conflict between Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church. (Hannam, 2011)

Welcome to the 17th century
During the early 1600s, the prevailing view of astronomy were that of Aristotle's. The heavens (which could neither be generated nor decayed) were moving in concentric circles, with earth at the centre.

In 1609, Galileo was making astronomical observations using a brand new scientific equipment-- the telescope. After noticing more stars in the universe than previously thought, he observed sunspots and lunar craters. This suggested that the heavens were not unchangeable and perfect circles as Aristotle thought. More importantly, he noted that the planet Venus had different shapes at different times-- sometimes a complete disk, sometimes a semi-circle, and sometimes even barely visible. This made him conclude that Venus did not revolve around Earth; it revolved around the Sun.

The die-hard Aristotelian professors were eager to reject Galileo findings in advance. His colleague, Giulio Libri (c.1550-1610), Professor of Aristotelian Philosophy at the University of Pisa had trouble seeing through the telescope, and when he died, Galileo remarked that he could probably see the moons of Jupiter "on the way to heaven". This statement suggested how Galileo treated his opponents publicly, and it was no surprise that Galileo had few friends later in his life.

Ironically, it was the Jesuits (the Roman Catholic order of monks dedicated to education) who first warmly received Galileo's findings. The Jesuit Christopher Clavius (1538-1612), the most respected astronomer at that time confirmed his discoveries, and planned to set about ideas to reform astronomy (Lattis, 1994). The problem for Galileo now was that even though his observations contradicted the Aristotelian model of astronomy, he could not prove Copernicus's.

You mean there is another model?
Years earlier, another astronomer named Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) proposed his system of astronomy-- the earth was stationary, the Sun went around the earth, and everything else moved around the sun. After Galileo presented his work in 1611, Tycho's model became the preferred one over Aristotle's, and Copernicus's.

Furthermore, Copernicus's model was already in a bad light--Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino (1542-1621), the 'Consultor of the Holy Office and Master of Controversial Questions', was unconvinced that the Copernicus model was true (as it had yet to be demonstrated) and an Italian theologian Paolo Foscarini (1565-1616) had been aggressively advocating the Copernicus model. Thus in 1616, Copernicus's Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres was suspended from public till it's correction (Hannam, 2011).

Vatican City, 2009

Friends in high places
In 1623, Galileo's good friend, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (1568-1644) ascended the papacy to become Pope Urban VIII. Earlier that, Galileo published Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer'), mocking Jesuit Orazio Grassi(1583-1664)'s theories about comets. Grassi had argued that comets were further from the earth than the moon, while Galileo insisted that comets were an atmospheric illusion. (Incidentally, modern science concurs with Grassi.) Pope Urban VIII enjoyed the Il Saggiatore, and composed a poem in Galileo's honour.

Taking advantage of his new-found favour with the Catholic Church, Galileo travelled to Rome in 1624 to meet with the pope to explain his advocacy of the Copernicus model. Despite meeting Galileo no less than six times, Pope Urban VIII remained unconvinced. While he did not consider the Copernicus model heretical, he was unsure if it was correct either. He encouraged Galileo to treat the Copernicus's ideas as a hypothesis, rather than a fact, and asked Galileo to publish a book comparing the three models of astronomy (Aristotelian, Tycho and Copernicus). Pope Urban VIII was actually asking Galileo to be more open-minded in this case (Hannam, 2011)

But Galileo took the pope's kindness for granted
So in 1632, Galileo wrote Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems. In it, he portrays the astronomical debates as a discussion between an academic named Salviati (who represented Galileo), a Aristotelian simpleton named Simplicio and a biased chairman named Sagredo (who always agrees with Galileo's views).

When Pope Urban VIII read the book, he was furious. Some of the pope's doubts and arguments against Copernicus's models were placed in the mouth of Simplicio. Furthermore, Galileo's book omitted Tycho's model entirely, even though Galileo's "evidences" for Copernicus's model could also be applied to Tycho's (Finocchiaro, 1989)*.

And Galileo's punishment? He was NOT burnt, tortured or even flogged. Despite his soured relations with the pope, Jesuits and academia, he was placed under house arrest, and lived in comfort till his death in 1642.

Conclusion
So in the life of Galileo we learnt that
a) Despite Galileo being right about Copernicus's models, he did not prove it scientifically or observationally, although he showed it to be superior to Aristotle's (but not Tycho's).

b) The Roman Catholic Church did not go after Galileo because his findings were a threat to Christianity, but because he was extremely rude to his colleagues and superiors. He was persecuted for personal (and perhaps political reasons).

c) Although this example often crops up a science vs Christianity case study, it is a misrepresentation of issue.

Let me be clear-- Galileo was a great scientist and presenter. He was able to write fluently and present his scientific ideas as a coherent whole. However, his attitude got the better of him.

References
Finocchiaro, M.A. (1989) The Galileo Affair

Lattis, J.M. (1994) Between Copernicus and Galileo

Hannam, J. (2011) God's Philosophers

Further reading
Bethinking

*Galileo's evidences for a rotating earth mainly included the existence of tides in the waters. He argued that tides exist because of the inertia experienced by the waters as the earth moved. However, it was not convincing at that era because if he was right, we would been experiencing great winds all the time. Now we know tides are caused by the moon's gravitational effect on the waters (Hannam, 2011).

With Due Respect: Christianity is like atheism, just one God less!

It is often touted that Christians are actually atheists. The author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins has said that Christians are actually atheists with respect to Greek gods (such as Zeus) and the Norse gods (such as Thor and Odin).

But it makes no sense!

However, what defines an atheist is the lack of belief in ALL gods, not just simply one god. To make the statement that "Christianity is like atheism, just one god less" is like saying "marriage is like singlehood, just one relationship less".

If you allow me to extend the analogy, suppose Gentleman A is married to Lady B. Would it be right to say that Gentleman A is single with respect to unmarried Lady C? Of course not! Gentleman A would still be married to Lady B with (or without) respect to Lady C.

Similarly, a Christian is still as Christian in the light of Zeus or Odin.

Isn't the atheism the default state?

I'm not too sure about this assumption either. Recent research (Barrett, 2004; Foster, 2010*) has revealed that if anything, children are born religious. They seem to start a belief that some supernatural agent is responsible for the workings of the world. In other words, atheism was seen to be something to be learnt, rather than a default state to maintain.

While this observation certainity does not prove Christianity or atheism true, one must not be to hasty to conclude atheism is the default state.

Conclusion

While it may sound cool, sweeping statements like "Christianity is atheism with one less god" does not hold water. The Christian must be wary in engaging in such word games-- while it may be fun, Christians are dealing with people's eternal destinies.


References

Barrett, J. (2004) Why Would Anyone Believe in God?

Foster, C.A. (2010) Wired for God?

* Foster is not a scientist, but rather a lawyer. However, he wrote a review about the biology of religion in Wired for God? which is interesting to read.

Update: My new job

A collection of beetles (Coleoptera)

 My new career

I have some great news! I just started my term at NIE (National Institute of Education)! For those not in the know, I am now a student at an institute that trains teachers.

This grants me my long, sought-after relief from academia. I will now be spending one year learning how to teach.

 

 My timetable appears rather hectic, so as a result, expect the freuqncy of posts to drop. Not to worry, I will still be keeping this blog updated, at least bimonthly.

So take care, and remember, God loves you.

God bless,

defensedefumer