I wasn't expecting much from this book - I was expecting a rehash of tired old design arguments and intelligent design bullshit. In many aspects it was just as I expected - Lee Strobel interviewed only people who agreed with what he was setting out to prove (meaning he ignored the fact that the vast majority of scientists would disagree with much of what the interviewees were saying). He interviewed people like Mike Behe and Stephen Meyer of the intelligent design movement. This was all quite boring and old, making the majority of the book just difficult to get through.
However, there were a couple of bits which perked my interest.
The first of these interesting bits was in chapter 5, where William Lane Craig is interviewed. I knew that Craig was a big proponent of the first cause argument, but I never really understood how he could possibly make it a sound argument. Even if you grant that everything that came to exist has a cause, and the universe came to exist, all that leaves you with is some unnamed cause which you know nothing about. How could anyone possibly use this to argue for the existence of a personal, intelligent, eternal cosmic mind?
Imagine you walked into the kitchen and saw the kettle boiling on the stove. You ask, 'why is the kettle boiling?' Your wife might say 'Well, because the kinetic energy of the flame is conducted by the metal bottom of the kettle to the water, causing the water molecules to vibrate faster and faster until they're thrown off in the form of steam.' That would be a scientific explanation. Or she might say 'I put it on to make a cup of tea.' That would be a personal explanation. (page 135)Craig goes on to explain that since whatever caused the universe can't be given a scientific explanation in the terms of the events leading up to it, the explanation for the universe must be a personal one (i.e. the cause must be a personal being).
Craig also argues that there are two types of things which are timeless and immaterial: abstract objects like mathematical entities, and minds. Since the cause of the universe must be immaterial and timeless, and mathematical entities cannot create the universe, a mind must have.
Finally, he argues that if there was a mechanistic cause for the universe, there would be no reason for the universe to be finite - the sufficient condition for the universe to be created would be eternally fulfilled, meaning the universe should have been created an eternity ago. Only an agent with freedom of will could choose when to create the universe.
I was pretty amazed to read these arguments. I imagine even most theists reading them would cringe. The first argument relies entirely on a strange dichotomy. What exactly are "personal explanations"? Explanations at the level of a person's desires and preferences. This doesn't make them magical entities to be set aside from scientific explanations. Psychology is in the business of trying to understand how people work, and so this science's explanations would be personal explanations. We could make a dichotomy between baking explanations ("baking soda makes baked things fluffier, so that is why this cake came out so fluffy") and scientific explanations ("The chemical reaction between baking soda and the acids in the other ingredients are catalyzed by the heat of the oven..." etc). This would not mean that the ultimate cause of the universe must be a baking explanation, and thus the universe was created by an eternal oven.
The second argument is just silly - it first begs the question by assuming dualism. Second, it assumes this dichotomy that timeless and immaterial things must either be minds or mathematical entities.
The final argument seems pretty much incoherent, but I suppose the response to it would be that as far as we know, time started when the universe did, so in no sense would there have been conditions which were satisfied for a time before the universe. I won't touch Craig's childish notion of free-will, in order to keep things concise.
The second thing which surprised me about this book was chapter 10: Evidence of Consciousness. The chapter is full of bad arguments, doesn't bother to define what the soul is (even though it is touted as the solution to all the philosophical problems of consciousness) or how it works, and doesn't tackle any of the traditional problems with dualism. There is an appeal to near death experiences (which reminds me of The Spiritual Brain), but the real argument is that if the universe didn't start with any minds, a mindless universe couldn't create them. Consider the analogous argument: if the universe didn't start with snowflakes, there is no way it could have created them.
Well, that's it. This is probably the last Strobel book I'll read. I have now read all of the books which our local Campus for Christ group hands out. I hope they start giving out different ones - reading these Christian books can be quite fun, but I would never want to support the author.
1 comment:
You might like to consider the idea of progression of design by advanced science.If our scientists can artificially create life they will surely progress through to eventually creating man 'in their own image'.This is against a backdrop of there having been millions of human races on this very ancient planet, which have disappeared for the reasons we can see today,namely nuclear war and over-population. If we can create life why should there not be other more advanced scientists in other solar systems.Here we have a solution which allows not only all the worlds religions to have a sensible explanation but at the same time a key to the current Ufo debate and what the agenda is behind their appearances over the millennia but especially since 1945 -the oh my god the kids have found the matches!! It is hardly rocket science, the fact that we have been in a potentially state of self-destruct, since that date and Hiroshima.This first use of nuclear technology in weapons of war is, a unique and predictable phase, in the development of a human race. The sooner the scientific community starts to take this more seriously the better for all of us. We are on our own but not alone.
Post a Comment