Killing the Devil inside of me, with the help of Descartes?

[2PhiloVoid]

I wasn't going in that direction, actually. I was just going to dismiss this one out of hand instead of trying to argue that there's an evil human controlling our perceptions.

...that's fine by me. I think we can all say we're confident that there is no evil scientist controlling our minds from 'outside' ourselves.

Can we assume that the Bible will tell us what all of the Devil's abilities are? I don't think so.

I suppose you're right on that point; maybe the Devil can deceive us all to a total level unless God decides to step in.

Sure, I'd like to know why though. I wonder if it's possible God just gave up on the Jewish people for breaking their covenant with Him too many times and let the Devil have the run of the place as He turned His attention elsewhere before the NT even occurred. And I wonder how Jesus could hear a prayer of, "If the Devil be deceiving me, please let me see the truth, in Jesus name I pray, amen!" from a decent God-fearing Christian and say, "Nope".

As far as I understand the bible, God hasn't given up on the Jews altogether in a total sense, but I'd have to agree with you that if a person genuinely prays a prayer for gaining insight, then in some way God will impart some impart. But exactly how much and when, I don't think we can say.

I think he still has the same cat avatar, but his new screen name is something I can't type. It's a bunch of symbols made to look like a face... I think that's him anyways. I wouldn't put too much stock in my ability to remember a cat.

... ok.

I dunno. It's always possible that when the Bible says "God cannot lie", the Bible is lying.

It could be that the biblical writers who've said this about God could be lying. But it could also be that they're not. Let's flip a coin over how it'll turn out !!

You've said that "faith" isn't just blind faith like so many atheists accuse, but that it's "trust" because some promises have been kept, then there's good reason to believe other promises will be kept, right? Maybe that wasn't you, it's been a while, but I seem to remember some atheist folks pointing out to you a lot of Christians around here using "faith" to mean "blind faith" as a response. Even if we go with that, isn't that believing something you don't know to be true anyways?

Yes, that isn't a bad description; I don't claim to 'know' the Bible is true and thereby place my faith in God. Remember, as a advocate of Philosophical Hermeneutics, I don't think of religious epistemology in the same way that I do with scientific epistemology. Two different fields with two different thought structures require different praxis for qualifying the cogency of each one. And this is where many of the modern, even Fundamentalistic Christians run into problems and inconsistency because they try to unify these human modes of inquiry like the atheistic Philosophical Naturalists do.

 

[zippy2006]

Now, I think a very similar argument can be made in rebuttal to Plantinga’s argument against belief in naturalistic evolution.

I guess one difference is that this thread is talking about a malevolent force that is intentionally deceiving, whereas Plantinga is talking about a level of rational unreliability that logically follows from the premises of certain theories.

Plantinga argues that if man’s cognitive faculties are the result of purely naturalistic processes, then we have no basis on which to trust those faculties as we have absolutely no way of detecting deception that may be inherent to our epistemic processes (similar to the way we would be powerless to differentiate an evil god from a good one).

The inability to detect deception is more remote in Plantinga's argument. From what I understand, Plantinga's more primary argument is that naturalistic processes which are not necessarily truth-oriented do not necessarily produce reliable truth-testing faculties.

I think we can dismiss this hypothesis on similar grounds: it’s pointless to suppose that everything you think you know is wrong. It’s not worth entertaining for practical purposes.

The disjunctions are also different, for in Plantinga's case we have a number of viable competing theories, whereas on the evil god hypothesis the options are more limited. Plantinga is saying that if you accept x, y, and z then you create a problematic possibility for strong deception, therefore you should reject x, y, and z (assuming that you have good reason to believe you are not deeply deceived).

I am somewhat tired today, but Plantinga's logic actually seems to me to parallel the logic of this thread in just the opposite way:

• If there is an evil god, then we are deeply deceived
• We are not deeply deceived
• Therefore, there is not an evil god

• If we are the product of naturalistic processes, then we are deeply deceived
• We are not deeply deceived
• Therefore, we are not the product of naturalistic processes

Plantinga agrees that it is pointless to entertain deep deception, but that is precisely why his conclusion follows. In general the opponent needs to address Plantinga's first premise, the connection between naturalistic processes and possible deception.

I have more thoughts comparing these two ways of dismissing universal skepticism, but I don’t want to go too far if it’s off topic.

It's an interesting thought.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and Philo, you can shut this down if you think it’s off-topic, but hear me out. I think we’ve seen good reasons in this thread to dismiss the possibility that this universe is ruled in totality by an evil, deceptive god, at least when it comes to our decision-making. We might not be able to disprove it as a hypothesis, but it is not worth entertaining for practical/existential purposes.
Now, I think a very similar argument can be made in rebuttal to Plantinga’s argument against belief in naturalistic evolution. Plantinga argues that if man’s cognitive faculties are the result of purely naturalistic processes, then we have no basis on which to trust those faculties as we have absolutely no way of detecting deception that may be inherent to our epistemic processes (similar to the way we would be powerless to differentiate an evil god from a good one). I think we can dismiss this hypothesis on similar grounds: it’s pointless to suppose that everything you think you know is wrong. It’s not worth entertaining for practical purposes.

I have more thoughts comparing these two ways of dismissing universal skepticism, but I don’t want to go too far if it’s off topic.

Oh, what you're saying sounds fine by me, so far. Feel free to keep going if you wish. I for one am with you in thinking that Plantinga's argument fails here, and I suppose it just gives me one more reason to not mentally inhabit his Reliablist epistemology.

However, in some ways, his argument parallels epistemic concerns that Darwin himself had regarding "If our rational faculties are just the random outcome of the processes of evolution, then how can we depend upon them?"... or something close to that effect. Plantinga then seems to try and run with that idea to some 'loose' end that he thinks plays into his epistemic favor.

 

[gaara4158]

The inability to detect deception is more remote in Plantinga's argument. From what I understand, Plantinga's more primary argument is that naturalistic processes which are not necessarily truth-oriented do not necessarily produce reliable truth-testing faculties.

Wouldn't that be directly analogous to an all-powerful deity with unknowable motivations not necessarily setting us up with reliable truth-testing faculties?

The disjunctions are also different, for in Plantinga's case we have a number of viable competing theories, whereas on the evil god hypothesis the options are more limited. Plantinga is saying that if you accept x, y, and z then you create a problematic possibility for strong deception, therefore you should reject x, y, and z (assuming that you have good reason to believe you are not deeply deceived).

I am somewhat tired today, but Plantinga's logic actually seems to me to parallel the logic of this thread in just the opposite way:

• If there is an evil god, then we are deeply deceived
• We are not deeply deceived
• Therefore, there is not an evil god

• If we are the product of naturalistic processes, then we are deeply deceived
• We are not deeply deceived
• Therefore, we are not the product of naturalistic processes

Plantinga agrees that it is pointless to entertain deep deception, but that is precisely why his conclusion follows. In general the opponent needs to address Plantinga's first premise, the connection between naturalistic processes and possible deception.

I agree that Plantinga's first premise is the one that's a problem, but that's the very premise I'm trying to dismiss on the same reasoning as this thread. We can say that natural processes, just like an all-powerful god, might cause us to be deeply deceived, and might not. We can all agree that it is pointless to entertain deep deception. Therefore, we summarily dismiss both the types of natural processes and the type of god that would deceive us (let's call them evil nature and evil god). So my syllogism would read as follows:

-If we are the product of evil nature, then we are deeply deceived
-We are not deeply deceived
-Therefore, we are not the product of evil nature

I know it's a little clunky, but I'm tired too. The important thing to note is that with this reasoning, Plantinga's argument fails to rule out natural processes as a source of reliable cognitive faculties.

 

[zippy2006]

Wouldn't that be directly analogous to an all-powerful deity with unknowable motivations not necessarily setting us up with reliable truth-testing faculties?

I suppose if someone believes that God may have created us with unreliable faculties then it would be analogous. In that case the reliability of our faculties would also be at stake.

I agree that Plantinga's first premise is the one that's a problem, but that's the very premise I'm trying to dismiss on the same reasoning as this thread. We can say that natural processes, just like an all-powerful god, might cause us to be deeply deceived, and might not. We can all agree that it is pointless to entertain deep deception. Therefore, we summarily dismiss both the types of natural processes and the type of god that would deceive us (let's call them evil nature and evil god).

If you rule out those types of natural processes aren't you agreeing to Plantinga's argument? Isn't that just what he wants you to do?

So my syllogism would read as follows:

-If we are the product of evil nature, then we are deeply deceived
-We are not deeply deceived
-Therefore, we are not the product of evil nature

I know it's a little clunky, but I'm tired too. The important thing to note is that with this reasoning, Plantinga's argument fails to rule out natural processes as a source of reliable cognitive faculties.

I guess I'm not seeing how your syllogism impacts Plantinga's argument. Wouldn't he agree with your syllogism? Maybe I'm just not understanding what you mean by 'evil nature.'

It seems to me that the heart of the Plantinga debate is whether evolution and reliable rational faculties are strongly correlated. That seems like a different issue than what we have with the evil god hypothesis. In the evil god hypothesis the nature of the connection between the originating source and our rational faculties is not controversial. Everyone agrees that an evil god leads to unreliable faculties, but not everyone agrees that evolution leads to unreliable faculties. At least in that way it seems quite different.

 

[Silmarien]

-If we are the product of evil nature, then we are deeply deceived
-We are not deeply deceived
-Therefore, we are not the product of evil nature

Evil and good nature? We'll make an Aristotelian naturalist of you yet.

I'm not sure if Plantinga frames it in precisely this manner, since he's Reformed and all, but the big problem for naturalists is explaining intentionality in cognition while denying intrinsic teleology. I've noticed time and again that materialists in particular alway pull a bait and switch at some point, and rationality just becomes the illusion of rationality, and then you get a lot of handwaving.

 

[Moral Orel]

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," replace just one word so as to instead read:

"In the beginning Satan created the heavens and the earth," and then claim that the output is somehow the same. But surely, I'm not understanding this point correctly, because one sentence doesn't equal another, right?

Sure, the sentences aren't the same, but that doesn't mean that the output is what is going to be different. See, a function is just like a shortcut to another chunk of code. If godCreates() is a function, and satanCreates() is the other function, the output can still be "Heaven and Earth" even if all that inner code you don't see is completely different. For instance, if we were to define the godCreates function as:

godCreates() {
heavenAndEarth = true; //a single '=' assigns a value to a variable
if (heavenAndEarth == true) { // a double '==' tests the value of that variable
print("Heaven and Earth"); // the print function displays the string between the () on the screen
}
}

And the satanCreates function as:
satanCreates () {
while (heavenAndEarth != 1) { // this is a loop that repeats while the variable doesn't equal 1
heavenAndEarth = randomNumber(1,1000000); // random number between 1 and 1000000
}
print("Heaven and Earth");
}

Side note, using the // allows me to make comments that people can read to see what's going on in the code, without the program reading whatever I write after them until the next line. The color coding isn't exactly how it would look in most programming environments, but I think it's the easiest way to break it up for folks not familiar with it. Each set of {} is a section or subsection of a function. You may need to stretch your browser window to keep it looking neat. Unless you're on a phone, in which case, I don't know what you could do if those lines are running into each other. I don't own a cell phone.


See, for God creating it's as simple as making it true. For Satan he has to fumble around a lot picking a random number between one and a million over and over until he gets it right. A huge difference between those two functions, but the output is the same.

Now, how I'm using the analogy is that we don't know those inner workings. Even if we're talking about a being that's lesser than God, such as Satan, he's still a higher being than us for us to talk about his inner machinations as well. All we see is the output and we make a guess about the name of the function being called.

Can we tell by looking at the output whodunit? Can we tell by looking at the output those inner machinations? I think the answer is "no" to both questions. Even if we discard the whole idea of a matrix screwing with our perceptions and assume the outside world is exactly the way it seems, we still don't know the answers to those questions.

In programming, for whatever function I want to use, I can look up the code it refers to. I could even learn binary and look up how that code flips the transistors in your computer's processor to see exactly everything that is going on. There isn't anything like that for gods and demons.

 

[Moral Orel]

As far as I understand the bible, God hasn't given up on the Jews altogether in a total sense

Ready for an insultingly oversimplified summary of the OT? Jews honor God, He showers them with good fortune. Jews stop honoring God, He stops helping them and things go poopy. Things have been poopy for the Jews for a long time, they're certainly not in God's favor at the moment, so if we don't consider the NT to be true and just set that aside for a moment, wouldn't it be possible that God left the building?

It could be that the biblical writers who've said this about God could be lying. But it could also be that they're not. Let's flip a coin over how it'll turn out !!

Is there any reason to give it better than 50/50 odds?

Yes, that isn't a bad description; I don't claim to 'know' the Bible is true and thereby place my faith in God. Remember, as a advocate of Philosophical Hermeneutics, I don't think of religious epistemology in the same way that I do with scientific epistemology. Two different fields with two different thought structures require different praxis for qualifying the cogency of each one. And this is where many of the modern, even Fundamentalistic Christians run into problems and inconsistency because they try to unify these human modes of inquiry like the atheistic Philosophical Naturalists do.

Have you ever heard of a "long con"? Basically you fulfill a bunch of little promises to keep someone on the hook for a big lie to come later. When we're deciding to trust other humans, they don't have all the time in the world to stretch out a long con forever, so a good long while of being trustworthy is a good reason to trust them. God has all the time in the world. I'm not saying I have any reason to suggest you should think He's lying, but if He was pulling a long con, the list of promises kept thus far would be pretty much the same whether He's always going to tell the truth or whether He's going to pull the rug out when it really counts, wouldn't it? How do you tell the difference between an evil god pulling a long con and a good god just being honest because that's his nature?

 

[gaara4158]

If you rule out those types of natural processes aren't you agreeing to Plantinga's argument? Isn't that just what he wants you to do?

Well, I certainly could be wrong about Plantinga’s intent, but I thought he was trying to rule out all natural processes as potential cause for reliable cognitive faculties. He’s a creationist trying to tell naturalists they shouldn’t accept evolution. I’ve created an out for naturalists where they don’t have to reject evolution, just a certain evolutionary path by which we end up deeply deceived.

I guess I'm not seeing how your syllogism impacts Plantinga's argument. Wouldn't he agree with your syllogism? Maybe I'm just not understanding what you mean by 'evil nature.'

It seems to me that the heart of the Plantinga debate is whether evolution and reliable rational faculties are strongly correlated. That seems like a different issue than what we have with the evil god hypothesis. In the evil god hypothesis the nature of the connection between the originating source and our rational faculties is not controversial. Everyone agrees that an evil god leads to unreliable faculties, but not everyone agrees that evolution leads to unreliable faculties. At least in that way it seems quite different.

I’m splitting the idea of “natural processes” into two types which I’m labeling “good” and “evil,” both for lack of better words and to more closely mirror the good/evil god dilemma. I’m using the logic of this thread to dismiss the possibility that we are deeply deceived, and I’m using Plantinga’s logic against him to dismiss the possibility that evolution would leave us deeply deceived.

 

[gaara4158]

Evil and good nature? We'll make an Aristotelian naturalist of you yet.

I'm not sure if Plantinga frames it in precisely this manner, since he's Reformed and all, but the big problem for naturalists is explaining intentionality in cognition while denying intrinsic teleology. I've noticed time and again that materialists in particular alway pull a bait and switch at some point, and rationality just becomes the illusion of rationality, and then you get a lot of handwaving.

I'm afraid your terminology here is just a notch too technical for me Is this a criticism of the soundness of my response to Plantinga, or is it a redirection to a more important aspect of his argument?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Sure, the sentences aren't the same, but that doesn't mean that the output is what is going to be different. See, a function is just like a shortcut to another chunk of code. If godCreates() is a function, and satanCreates() is the other function, the output can still be "Heaven and Earth" even if all that inner code you don't see is completely different. For instance, if we were to define the godCreates function as:

godCreates() {
heavenAndEarth = true; //a single '=' assigns a value to a variable
if (heavenAndEarth == true) { // a double '==' tests the value of that variable
print("Heaven and Earth"); // the print function displays the string between the () on the screen
}
}

And the satanCreates function as:
satanCreates () {
while (heavenAndEarth != 1) { // this is a loop that repeats while the variable doesn't equal 1
heavenAndEarth = randomNumber(1,1000000); // random number between 1 and 1000000
}
print("Heaven and Earth");
}

Side note, using the // allows me to make comments that people can read to see what's going on in the code, without the program reading whatever I write after them until the next line. The color coding isn't exactly how it would look in most programming environments, but I think it's the easiest way to break it up for folks not familiar with it. Each set of {} is a section or subsection of a function. You may need to stretch your browser window to keep it looking neat. Unless you're on a phone, in which case, I don't know what you could do if those lines are running into each other. I don't own a cell phone.

Is this a small lesson in "Basic," Nick? I'm asking because I vaguely remember attempting to learn some of this stuff for use on a Radio Shack TRS-80 in a Computer Science class way back in '83. Suffice it to say, I barely squeezed out a C- in those tumultuous days of youth, and I only did that with the help of one of my much, much more gifted friends. So, thanks for laying it out there for me to reminisce upon and re-experience one of my child-hood traumas.

See, for God creating it's as simple as making it true. For Satan he has to fumble around a lot picking a random number between one and a million over and over until he gets it right. A huge difference between those two functions, but the output is the same.

....wouldn't this have to assume that Satan has "all the time in the world"? I'm not sure that he does, biblically speaking.

Now, how I'm using the analogy is that we don't know those inner workings. Even if we're talking about a being that's lesser than God, such as Satan, he's still a higher being than us for us to talk about his inner machinations as well. All we see is the output and we make a guess about the name of the function being called.

Since we're analogizing with computer type world scenarios, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Satan is more like Clue in the Tron films than he is The Architect in the Matrix films. In fact, with the philosophy I'm thinking about at the moment, I think the structure of Tron is a better analogy than is the Matrix. And I'm saying this now as one who, as if being awoken by a long slumber, has been reminded [by you] that he took a long forgotten seminar on Technology in his first outing in college upon being fresh out of high school; and with that remembrance, I've dug out one of the books that was required reading and newly opened for a refreshed look. In this, I'll have to be Kant to your Hume, I think, or something along those lines. Of course, I don't want to give the impression that this is just a Kant VS. Hume kind of problem. No, we'd have to go way beyond their thinking.

Can we tell by looking at the output whodunit? Can we tell by looking at the output those inner machinations? I think the answer is "no" to both questions. Even if we discard the whole idea of a matrix screwing with our perceptions and assume the outside world is exactly the way it seems, we still don't know the answers to those questions.

Well, that would be to assume that whatever was spoken by multiple people in the biblical writings is just 'all' rot.

I'd rather say, as I usually do, that we can recognize that the biblical writers have not imparted, and were not meant to impart, comprehensive explanations or descriptions of the entities about which they wrote. But this doesn't mean that we aren't still given some context and generally useful information (call it Revelation?) by which to envisage conceptual contours by which we can still delineate up from down, moral right from wrong, or God from Satan. The Bible may offer us what seems to be sparse information, but it's not that sparse.

In programming, for whatever function I want to use, I can look up the code it refers to. I could even learn binary and look up how that code flips the transistors in your computer's processor to see exactly everything that is going on. There isn't anything like that for gods and demons.

And I can generally agree with this and say you're right, but only within certain semantic limits.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Ready for an insultingly oversimplified summary of the OT? Jews honor God, He showers them with good fortune. Jews stop honoring God, He stops helping them and things go poopy. Things have been poopy for the Jews for a long time, they're certainly not in God's favor at the moment, so if we don't consider the NT to be true and just set that aside for a moment, wouldn't it be possible that God left the building?

You're definitely right on that. Things haven't generally been in the favor of the Jewish people for quite some time, and the historical outcomes have been such, I think, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who bothers to read the entire Old Testament fully and carefully in context.

[EDIT] Hmmm. On second thought, I take some of that back: I should have said that things haven't gone well for the Jewish people for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who bothers to read the entire Old Testament fully and at least the New Testament Gospels or the works of Paul.

Is there any reason to give it better than 50/50 odds?

I could be wrong, but I think the answer to this will be relative to the real world context surrounding us in our actual flip of the coin.

Have you ever heard of a "long con"? Basically you fulfill a bunch of little promises to keep someone on the hook for a big lie to come later. When we're deciding to trust other humans, they don't have all the time in the world to stretch out a long con forever, so a good long while of being trustworthy is a good reason to trust them. God has all the time in the world. I'm not saying I have any reason to suggest you should think He's lying, but if He was pulling a long con, the list of promises kept thus far would be pretty much the same whether He's always going to tell the truth or whether He's going to pull the rug out when it really counts, wouldn't it? How do you tell the difference between an evil god pulling a long con and a good god just being honest because that's his nature?

Those are all good questions, but are you inferring that we need to be able to "tell the difference" between these two entities in a binary way, that is, with some kind of absolute differential certainty?

 

[zippy2006]

Well, I certainly could be wrong about Plantinga’s intent, but I thought he was trying to rule out all natural processes as potential cause for reliable cognitive faculties. He’s a creationist trying to tell naturalists they shouldn’t accept evolution. I’ve created an out for naturalists where they don’t have to reject evolution, just a certain evolutionary path by which we end up deeply deceived.


I’m splitting the idea of “natural processes” into two types which I’m labeling “good” and “evil,” both for lack of better words and to more closely mirror the good/evil god dilemma. I’m using the logic of this thread to dismiss the possibility that we are deeply deceived, and I’m using Plantinga’s logic against him to dismiss the possibility that evolution would leave us deeply deceived.

So you agree with Plantinga with respect to some natural processes but disagree with respect to others, and the points on which you disagree constitute a way forward for evolution?

To be honest I have not read any of Plantinga's primary texts on this topic, but I assume that the same holds true for you. What I assume he is saying is that "You can't get there from here." Evolution is survival-based, not truth-based. Truth (in the form of reliable cognitive faculties) may have some correlation to survival, but it may also deviate in substantial ways. The level of trust we place in our faculties and in the notion of truth is therefore disproportionate to a solely evolutionary account. It doesn't make sense to value truth over survival when our capacity for truth is reducible to survival.

I think it's an interesting argument, but it may be too complex for an internet forum. ...And in order to take up a defense of something like that I would have to spend more time here than I'd like.

 

[zippy2006]

Can we tell by looking at the output whodunit? Can we tell by looking at the output those inner machinations?

Sure, we reason from effect to cause all the time. This is the scientific modus operandi. Reality is not stipulative, as is a computer program. There is always the possibility of error, but in principle there is no reason why we cannot look at creation and glean knowledge about the creator.

 

[Moral Orel]

Well, that would be to assume that whatever was spoken by multiple people in the biblical writings is just 'all' rot.

No, I'm only assuming that it might be, I'm not assuming that it is "all rot". If you're questioning whether the Devil is deceiving us on a massive scale, isn't everything up for grabs? I think I don't understand the framework you're trying to lay out. What are you requiring us to assume is true? What am I allowed to question? I get the feeling I'm supposed to assume the Bible is accurate (both the OT and the NT), and then ponder about how much we might be deceived given all that information. Is that accurate?

 

[Moral Orel]

Sure, we reason from effect to cause all the time. This is the scientific modus operandi. Reality is not stipulative, as is a computer program. There is always the possibility of error, but in principle there is no reason why we cannot look at creation and glean knowledge about the creator.

Imagine that you come home to a mess in your kitchen. Someone has scrawled the words, "Wash me!" in mud on your floor. How old is the person that did it? Sure, we can tell that the cause was a person because mud doesn't just splash around in the shapes of letters, but how much do you know about the person? Not much at all.

That's what I'm talking about here. We look at the world and see good things and bad things. Is the creator good or bad? Maybe he's somewhere in between. I dunno. How do you tell?

 

[Silmarien]

I'm afraid your terminology here is just a notch too technical for me Is this a criticism of the soundness of my response to Plantinga, or is it a redirection to a more important aspect of his argument?

Neither, really. I haven't actually read Plantinga's book firsthand, so I can't really comment on it--I'm more familiar with the work that a handful of atheistic philosophers have done to show the problems inherent in materialism. I don't think that rationality itself is as big a problem for naturalism as Plantinga seems to, but I do think that intentionality and sensory experience in general are.

Quoting from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, intentionality is the power of minds and mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs. A difficult question for the naturalist is to explain how utterly non-intentional physical states can somehow produce intentional mental ones. How do representations arise? (I have seen it claimed that neurons actually are in some sense intentional, which I find really interesting, but not much of a solution if you're trying to explain away teleology. Either neurons are exhibiting genuine, irreducible intentionality, even at a more basic level, or the intentionality we're seeing there is illusory, which means that ours is as well. A whole bunch of illusions put together never build up to something real, so I generally think the choice between intrinsic teleology and eliminative materialism is binary. Granted, this doesn't mean that neurons are thinking, but that something we might call "about-ness" is built into the fabric of reality. 0+0+0+0 never equals 1, but .001+.001 eventually can.)

I was considering your comment about Plantinga not ruling out natural processes that could lead to reliable cognitive faculties. It is true that a lot of theists do jump right over that, and they shouldn't. But at the same time, you can't just say, "Well, there must be some sort of "good" natural processes that would lead to reliable cognitive faculties" without really exploring what cognitive faculties are and what might be required to produce them instead of merely the illusion of them. (Unless you are the sort of committed materialist who does hold that the mind is ultimately illusory. I know that you're leery of that solution, though.)

 

[Moral Orel]

0+0+0+0 never equals 1, but .001+.001 eventually can

.999... repeating equals one

 

[Silmarien]

.999... repeating equals one

Yeah, but .9 repeating isn't 0. It actually is 1.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No, I'm only assuming that it might be, I'm not assuming that it is "all rot".

Alright, that leaves things open for discussion and I think that's a reasonable position to be in.

If you're questioning whether the Devil is deceiving us on a massive scale, isn't everything up for grabs?

No, I don't think 'everything' is up for grabs. If it's up for grabs then we're kind of back to the Matrix or Evil Scientist type scenario which isn't really equivalent to the epistemic challenge we would find ourselves in IF the Bible just happens to be correct. In my thinking, if the Bible is true at some substantive level, even if not at an inerrant level, then this would imply that Satan is limited in power and in implementing his deceptive opportunities. Granted, what that limit would be is something about which I have no exacting knowledge, but surely we can glean some indications from the Bible on this matter.

I think I don't understand the framework you're trying to lay out. What are you requiring us to assume is true? What am I allowed to question?

That's because, so far, I've haven't laid out any kind of framework, nor have I expressed that there is some one specific epistemic protocol by which we all must build an understanding by which to evaluate our possible delusion or our being deceived, nor will I attempt to do so in some systematic manner. Besides, to do so would take me outside of my Existential tendencies. I like to leave it open, not only to allow continuous exploration of various thought projects we each may have, but also because my overall epistemic approach to the Bible is not systematic and I don't think it can be. The upshot for you and all of our friends here is that this also means............I don't have all of the answers. So, unlike some of my Christian brethren, I won't pretend that I do.

I get the feeling I'm supposed to assume the Bible is accurate (both the OT and the NT), and then ponder about how much we might be deceived given all that information. Is that accurate?

Nope, that wouldn't be accurate. I'd suggest that you lower your guard a little and maybe worry less about my psychological propensities or about what I might "really" be up to. While I admittedly do try to be creative in my communication, I'm anything but attempting to be crafty; and I'm sure not here to win debates.