The Hiddenness Argument for Atheism

[durangodawood]

Are you referring to Spinoza and Hume?

God only conforms to science (not our scientific understanding which is of course always in flux but to an ultimate scientific explanation) if he is the God of deism/pantheism!

The Judeo-Christian-Muslim God is not bounded by time and also transcends his creation. He is personal so not possibly univocal to the pantheistic notion that God just IS his creation. God is not limited to space-time. He is immaterial so not part of the physical world at all. So I would need to see some reference in context before I could respond, but this is not the God of the Bible.

I dont know those guys, tho I've heard their names.

I'm just disputing the idea that unknowable "over the wall" stuff either conforms to our scientific understanding of events within the universe - or, that scientific knowledge is all invalidated.

Were it so, then theists would have to choose between A. a supernatural God or B. any scientific understanding of our natural universe.

 

[Uber Genius]

All that^^^, its about the universe itself. Thats NOT what we've been talking about. We've been talking about whats beyond the universe, be it God, or some other eternal and uncreated order from which universes emerge, or nothing.

We are talking about the conditions necessary to answer the Kalam.

Watch any William Lane Craig (originator of the modern form of the Kalam!!!!) and you will see that the way his interlocutors try to argue is the universe is self-caused in some way or that "nothing is not nothing."

Craig argues that a being God could adequately explain the creation of time, space, matter and energy from non of those qualities, given his being outside of time space matter and energy.

Science has no explanations other than arguments to ignorance.

Now you quoted me saying,
"The realm scientist agree the universe came from was:
No space, no time, to matter, no energy, no laws..."

And I said "Yes." and gave you the scientific evidence and links and then had the audacity to say ah, ah, ah,

"this isn't what we are talking about."

The second premise of the Kalam is that the universe began to exist! I just gave you the standard model of science that confirms the second premise of the Kalam.

So this is exactly the kalam.

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

You have limited options given that there is no
matter
time
space
energy
no attributes whatsoever

Out of nothing, nothing comes.

So are you proposing that out of this nothing came something?

It follows logically from the two premises that the universe has a cause. The prominent New Atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett agrees that the universe has a cause, but he thinks that the cause of the universe is itself! Are you making that claim?


That is why the Kalam argues from features of the universe we know to be true in every case any one has ever recorded. So you can say it is not compelling, which is fine. But you can't say its making grandiose claims when its claims are philosophically sound, and based on premises not denied by the large majority of atheist scientist.

 

[Uber Genius]

to our scientific understanding of events within the universe - or, that scientific knowledge is all invalidated.

Your missing the fact that current science says nothing existed before the universe.

So no matter, no energy, no space, no time, then ibso facto NO SCIENCE.

God doesn't conform to our knowledge of laws that govern a world he created.

I dont know those guys, tho I've heard their names.

Augustine and others wrote about God's transcendence of his creation 1200 or so years before the pantheistic/deistic God that spinoza and hume engage.

But we are covering too much ground to be effective. I would like us to get back to the hiddenness argument. If you are a skeptic, it is a valid argument that you can roll out to your Christian friends. They may or may not have thought out the argument as some have here. I would avoid the Kalam, Fine-tuning of universe for life, as famous atheists have claimed that these arguments were powerful enough to tip the scales in favor of theism as part of a larger cumulative case.

Problem of Evil (probabilistic version) and problem of hell have deconverted the most Christians and should be understood if you are serious about your skepticism.

 

[durangodawood]

Your missing the fact that current science says nothing existed before the universe.....

Your earlier post about current science, all that discussion about "all time & space", etc, they are talking about our time and space and making no claims about the possibilities of other universes from which ours may have emerged, or any one of the other conjectures floating around in the physics world.

Also you are totally misunderstanding the argument from ignorance fallacy, at least in the way you accuse me of it. Would you agree that its broadly stated, per wikipedia, as:
An argument from ignorance.....is a fallacy in informal logic. It says something is true because it has not yet been proved false.

If not. Then what is a proper understanding of that fallacy?

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

• 
  
  
  • If there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then

• 
  The emboldened text above is a false premise. It assumes a general atonement and libertarian free will.

• If a perfectly loving God exists, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists (from 1 and 2).

The proposition above denies the nature of finite man according to Scripture.

• Some finite persons are or have been nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.

If God exists (and He does) How can it be said a state of non-belief is not resistance considering the same God being argued against is the God of Scripture, and according to Scripture God has clearly revealed Himself even through nature?

By all means engage the argument and examine whether you think its premises are more plausibly true than false and why.

For a larger discussion of the book see:

The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy's New Challenge to Belief in God // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame

What a waste of time, thought, and paper. No challenge at all.

 

[HitchSlap]

**

 

[HitchSlap]

If God exists (and He does)

What a waste of time, thought, and paper. No challenge at all.

Challenge accepted?

 

[Moral Orel]

That is why the Kalam argues from features of the universe we know to be true in every case any one has ever recorded.

This is false. There are exactly zero recorded cases of something beginning to exist.

 

[durangodawood]

This is false. There are exactly zero recorded cases of something beginning to exist.

Um what?

Pretty much everything begins to exist and then ceases to exist.

Spoiler

Spoiler alert!

This will happen to you too!

 

[Tinker Grey]

Um what?

Pretty much everything begins to exist and then ceases to exist.

Um. No. Everything we think of as beginning is a reformation of previously existing matter.

It's like the old joke: I love this axe. It's great. It just keeps going. I've replaced the handle only 3 times and the head once.

 

[durangodawood]

Um. No. Everything we think of as beginning is a reformation of previously existing matter.

It's like the old joke: I love this axe. It's great. It just keeps going. I've replaced the handle only 3 times and the head once.

Wow, its like people dont even know what a "thing" is anymore.

 

[gaara4158]

Wow, its like people dont even know what a "thing" is anymore.

Then the Kalam is arguing that the universe was arranged out of some other pre-existing material.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Then the Kalam is arguing that the universe was arranged out of some other pre-existing material.

That's getting to the flaw of premise 1 - it attempts to dress up creation ex nihilo with the inductive strength of creation ex materia, obfuscating between the two. You can't do that, unless you want to propose that matter is co-eternal with God.

Which isn't a problem, provided you're a Mormon.

Mormon view of the creation/Creatio ex nihilo - FairMormon

 

[Silmarien]

That's getting to the flaw of premise 1 - it attempts to dress up creation ex nihilo with the inductive strength of creation ex materia, obfuscating between the two. You can't do that, unless you want to propose that matter is co-eternal with God.

Which isn't a problem, provided you're a Mormon.

Mormon view of the creation/Creatio ex nihilo - FairMormon

I don't see any obfuscation. The important principle is ex nihilo nihil fit, nothing comes from nothing, which is neither creatio ex nihilo or creatio ex materia.

The whole question concerns whether matter is the sort of thing that can conceivably have eternally existed at all. I don't think there's any flaw in asking that question (well, except insofar as most people only have one theory of time in mind when they ask it).

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

I don't see any obfuscation.

Premise 1 only has inductive strength if it is referring to creation ex materia, which constitutes every known instance of things 'beginning to exist' that has ever been observed. Yet that is clearly not the type of creation proponents of Kalam are claiming of their god.

The whole question concerns whether matter is the sort of thing that can conceivably have eternally existed at all.

No one will know unless our physics are some day capable of addressing anything pre-Planck time. Whatever the case, I suspect our current vocabulary is incapable of describing it. We'll need bigger words than just 'matter' or 'energy'.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

If God exists (and He does) How can it be said a state of non-belief is not resistance considering the same God being argued against is the God of Scripture, and according to Scripture God has clearly revealed Himself even through nature?

Since there is only one person with immediate apprehension of my own thoughts, then there is only one person who can assess the truth value of the assertion that Yahweh has 'clearly revealed himself' to me.

That person is me, and he hasn't. Any other atheist can also prove this to themselves, using the same intrapersonal means.

So the best case scenario for you is that your interpretation of scripture is wrong. The worst case is that your interpretation is correct, and scripture itself is wrong.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Since there is only one person with immediate apprehension of my own thoughts, then there is only one person who can assess the truth value of the assertion that Yahweh has 'clearly revealed himself' to me.

Sorry but you're arguing in vicious circles starting with the assumption "there is only one person with immediate apprehension of my own thoughts", excluding God by default assumption. The argument I responded to at least attempted to assume the God of Christianity for the sake of the argument.

That person is me, and he hasn't. Any other atheist can also prove this to themselves, using the same intrapersonal means.

In other words, you cannot decide, because you go back and forth between notions of relative and absolute truth, without justification for the absolute. I can gladly agree you have your own subjective opinion on the matter, but when and where you say such as "he hasn't", you're not being consistent and this is not consistent in a world without an eternal, immutable, omniscient Creator of other minds providing the faculties necessary for interpretation, Himself alone being the final authority of knowledge, given His attributes, knowing everything exhaustively. He made us dependent upon Him, in our natural state we desire independence, or autonomy, that is self-authority. By your own standards, what makes your self-authority any more authoritative than any one else's? You say "any other atheist", well does your apprehension of reality, not allow for non-atheists to come to different conclusions?

So the best case scenario for you is that your interpretation of scripture is wrong. The worst case is that your interpretation is correct, and scripture itself is wrong.

And by what standard do you measure your interpretation of my interpretation? Simple, by your basic assumption of human autonomy, self-authority, which is no real authority at all in an absolute sense, closer to subjective opinion, perhaps grounded in experiences which conditioned and developed even from a young age, and while there is to an extent some validity to such an answer, by no means does it begin to answer the basic philosophical question "what is truth?".

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Sorry but you're arguing in vicious circles

I am stating a basic fact - only one person has immediate access to my thoughts. That person is me.

starting with the assumption "there is only one person with immediate apprehension of my own thoughts", excluding God by default assumption. The argument I responded to at least attempted to assume the God of Christianity for the sake of the argument.

I can assume it, for the sake of argument. In that case, if there is a god with access to my thoughts, then he knows what I know - that he hasn't revealed himself to me. So your interpretation of scripture is still wrong, or else scripture itself is.

In other words, you cannot decide, because you go back and forth between notions of relative and absolute truth, without justification for the absolute.

Nope. As I am in immediate apprehension of my own thoughts, and your assertion is predicated entirely on my thought content, I am in a position to know, with absolute certainty, that your assertion is false.

It is extremely unwise to predicate an assertion on information you have no access to. I suggest you don't do it.

I can gladly agree you have your own subjective opinion on the matter,

It is a fact, not an opinion, that you have no access to my thoughts.

but when and where you say such as "he hasn't", you're not being consistent and this is not consistent in a world without an eternal, immutable, omniscient Creator of other minds providing the faculties necessary for interpretation, Himself alone being the final authority of knowledge, given His attributes, knowing everything exhaustively. He made us dependent upon Him, in our natural state we desire independence, or autonomy, that is self-authority.

You need to update your script, van Til. I'll say the same thing I told you last time we went through this,

If all of reality were subject to a supervening 'god-mind', then reality itself would be subjective. You could not possibly rely on any apparent uniformity in such a reality, because any aspect of it could be altered or destroyed an any second, and you would have no means of gleaning how or when that might manifest.

I am glad there is no good reason to suspect we live in such a reality as that.

By your own standards, what makes your self-authority any more authoritative than any one else's?

The fact that I have access to my own thoughts, and no one else does. And since your assertion is predicated on the content of my thoughts, that makes me the authority on them.

You say "any other atheist", well does your apprehension of reality, not allow for non-atheists to come to different conclusions?

It doesn't matter what you believe. Nothing is going to magically give you access to my thoughts.

And by what standard do you measure your interpretation of my interpretation?

The fact that I have access to my own thoughts, and you don't.

Simple, by your basic assumption of human autonomy, self-authority, which is no real authority at all in an absolute sense, closer to subjective opinion,

Nope. Sorry, but it is an inescapable fact of reality, not an opinion, that you do not possess magical mind-reading powers. I know that's a terrible inconvenience for your apologetic, but that's your problem. Maybe you should abandon it and find a different one.

perhaps grounded in experiences

It's grounded in the fact that I have access to my own thoughts, and you don't.

which conditioned and developed even from a young age, and while there is to an extent some validity to such an answer, by no means does it begin to answer the basic philosophical question "what is truth?".

Truth is that which comports with reality.

As such, the statement 'I have access to my own thoughts, and you don't', is a true statement.

 

[durangodawood]

....No one will know unless our physics are some day capable of addressing anything pre-Planck time. Whatever the case, I suspect our current vocabulary is incapable of describing it. We'll need bigger words than just 'matter' or 'energy'.

Yep.

People are arguing based on assumptions about whats on the other side of a wall we currently cant look over.

 

[jayem]

If there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.

OK, I'm nitpicking, but some things bother me. Like the triple negative in that proposition.

Expository writing should be lucid. Thoughts should be expressed simply, coherently, and above all, in an easily comprehensible manner. I can't believe any editor would allow such an awkwardly phrased sentence to be published.