Chapter 2: Philosophy

[bookhobbit]

Once again, first-paragraph nonsense. This is gonna be a rough one, folks.

 

Because it requires faith in biblical revelation, you might assume that the Christian worldview cannot possibly have a philosophy of its own. [...] How can we as Christians, who are required to postulate existence or reality outside the material realm, ever hope to prove that our beliefs are true, reasonable, rational, and worth living and dying for?

Philosophy is not about proving that your beliefs are true, I think. It is about exploring questions rather than providing answers.

While some may enjoy debating about whether or not God exists, for the average person such debate is irrelevant—he or she is aware of His existence on a soul-deep level. Even today the vast majority of people (some polls place the figure as high as 95 percent) believe in a God, a fact Paul also found to be true in the Athens of his day (Acts 17:23).

This is wild. No source given for the numbers, so let's find our own. For Americans, a Gallup poll found numbers ranging from 87% to 64%, depending on how the question is worded. But that's Americans. In the UK one study found it's about 60% for the question "Do you believe in God?" (wording that has 87% on the American poll). It's probably safe to say that a pretty strong majority of Americans would answer yes to believing in a God, but not necessarily a strong majority of all people everywhere. The pull about Athens is bizarre because just a couple of chapters ago Noebel was implying that Athens claimed to be atheistic, but also because Athenians were, again, often polytheistic. Obviously they believed in a god, but their concept of gods was not much like the Christian concept of God. So this is a weird line to draw. 

It's also interesting because Noebel keeps talking about how atheism has penetrated so far into (American, but he doesn't say that) society and destroyed so many lives. How can that be true if 95% of people believe in a god? 

The basic tenets of Christian philosophy are rational because they are held by average, rational men and women.

That's an extremely bad defense. How do we know that these people are rational? How does being a rational person prove that the views you hold are also rational? How are you measuring a "rational" person?

How can the knowledge we gain through faith in Biblical revelation compare to knowledge gained by a scientific investigation of the universe?

They don't. They're different kinds of knowledge. There's no need to compare them because they deal with different spheres.

While Marxists and Humanists wish to portray science as primary knowledge and faith in biblical revelation as blind second-class epistemology or even superstition, the fact remains that all methods of knowing ultimately rely on certain assumptions.

Oh, totally. We talk about this a lot in the social sciences -- there is no unbiased or unassumptive method of knowing. THIS IS WHY YOU CAN'T CLAIM YOUR RELIGION IS TRUE WHILE OTHERS ARE FALSE. Everyone has biases and assumptions, including you. 

Humanists and Marxists place their trust in certain findings of science and experience, neither of which can be rationally demonstrated as the source of all truth.

This is rank hypocrisy because we also can't rationally demonstrate that the Bible is the source of all truth, and Noebel really makes no attempt to do so. Noebel's arguments all rely on the idea that you are a Christian in the first place. If you're not, you have no reason to trust what he says. 

Christians also appeal to science, history, and personal experience, but they know such avenues for discovering truth are not infallible. Christians know that scientists make mistakes and scientific journals can practice discrimination against views considered dangerous. 

Did you know that non-Christians also know these things? Christianity is not likely to be the "view" considered dangerous either given that, again, almost three quarters of Americans are some kind of Christian.

Christians know that history can be perverted, distorted, or twisted and that personal experience is not a good source of fact or knowledge.

Hey Noebel. This you from last chapter? "Further, the astounding ability of the Bible to metamorphose the lives of individuals (for the better) who accept its authority strengthens its claim to be special revelation from God." That sounds like you using personal experience as a source of fact or knowledge.

On the other hand, Christians believe that Biblical revelation is true and that God would not mislead His children.

And there's no way that that belief could be fallible. Nope. It's true because you believe it. Right. What if I don't believe in God? What if I believe in a malevolent God? Seems like you're using personal experience as a source of knowledge.

Christianity says the New Testament is true because its truths can be tested.

Some of them can, certainly. "Jesus exists" is a truth that could be tested (although I don't think there's ever been any definitive answer). "Jesus is the son of God" cannot be tested. Even if Jesus existed and said everything attributed to him in the New Testament, that doesn't make his claims true, for example. Fundamentalists tend to feel that if one part of the Bible can be proved to be true, the rest must have to be true, but that's just not the case. History can be perverted, distorted, or twisted, you know.

If evolution crumbles (which is quite possible—Dr. Karl Popper believes evolution does not fit the definition of "a scientific theory"), Marxism and Humanism are intellectually dead.

First, that's not true, because Marxism is not founded on biological evolution. It certainly requires social evolution, but using the term "evolution" for human society is something of a metaphor. 

Second, the idea that evolution could "crumble" is...weird? That's not how scientific theories really work.

Thirdly, the guy they're citing is apparently famous for having developed the falsification view of the scientific method. That is to say, something isn't a scientific theory unless it can be tested and proved false. I would be very careful about throwing around Dr. Karl Popper's name, Noebel, when your main thesis is God Is Real And Everyone Knows It. 

This also seems to be a complete misrepresentation of Dr. Popper's own opinions on evolution. He wasn't an anti-evolutionist, he just thought that the concept of Darwinism was less of a theory and more of a framework.

So far, we have established two things regarding Christian philosophy: many hold it to be the most rational of all worldviews, 

Yes, Christians, usually. People generally believe their worldview to be the most rational. That's why they have them. Many also believe humanism to be the most rational of all worldviews. You can't use that belief to prove it is, because everyone thinks that.

and it requires no more faith than any other philosophy. Indeed, we could argue that it takes a great deal more faith to believe in the spontaneous generation of Darwinian evolution or the randomness of all nature (i.e., that the universe happened by accident) than it does to accept the Christian doctrine of Creator/Creation.

Sure, you could argue it. You could argue the other way around, too. You could argue fuckin' anything, but that doesn't make one viewpoint objectively more true.

Jean Piaget, a child psychologist, has found that a seven-year-old believes almost instinctively that everything in the universe has a purpose.

I don't know that we should be using the beliefs of seven-year-olds as proof of the most rational (if that even exists; I don't believe it does) worldview. I'm not saying seven-year-olds are stupid, just that there's no particular reason to privilege children's opinions over adults' here.

Stephen D. Schwarz cites four particular scientific discoveries that support the conclusion that God exists: the Second Law of Thermodynamics (stating that the universe is running out of usable energy and cannot be infinitely old)," the impossibility of spontaneous generation of life from non-life (verified by Pasteur over 150 years ago), genetic information theory (which postulates that specified complexity, like that found in DNA, comes from a mind, never by chance),'" and the Anthropic Principle (that the universe as well as planet earth are specifically "finetuned" to accommodate life).

FUCKING FLABBERGHASTED. Pasteur's 150-YEAR-OLD EXPERIMENTS do NOT have to do with evolution, they have to do with whether or not maggots arise spontaneously in dead meat. The anthropic principle is not a scientific theory as such and also it's NOT FALSIFIABLE, so remember you cited Dr. Karl Popper and decide what direction you really want to take this paragraph. Genetic information theory is not popular enough to be easily googleable, which tells me it's by no means accepted in all circles, and no wonder, because, again, you can't falsify it.  I'm also not positive that's a reasonable use of the second law of thermodynamics, although I'm less sure of that.

Then there's a bunch of stuff about how an orderly universe proves there's a god. It's all very watchmaker argument-y. That's certainly one perspective, and I can see why you would feel that way. No reason why it should be a personal god, though, or the Christian god in particular. 

Then we get a bunch of, essentially, defense for mind-body dualism. I will simply say I personally feel dualism has caused many fucked-up views of people and their relationships to their bodies, but that's a personal opinion. And they also keep defending "supernaturalism", the view essentially that supernatural things of some kind (God, for example) exist. It's like, sure, you can certainly believe that. I don't necessarily disbelieve it; I'm just not sure. But since it's unprovable, each person has to go with what seems to make the most sense to themselves.

In the end, you must choose between a materialist/naturalist worldview and a supernaturalist worldview

No room for "I'm not sure which is true". Typical discomfort with a situation where there are no easy answers.

Next onto Islamic philosophy. It actually talks about Islamic philosophy in relatively positive terms. No detail whatsoever, however; it just talks about the fact that Islam affirms that the supernatural exists, as Christianity does.

But it pauses to be mean and say that Muhammad (pbuh) not performing miracles means that he was not a real prophet. Well, the thing is, that's you projecting the Christian view of what it means to be a prophet on someone else's religion.

It also stops to talk the time to talk about why Islam isn't true, unlike Christianity. This has nothing to do with philosophy. It's just apologetics. Hey, Noebel, remember when you said you were going to let the worldviews speak for themselves? There's more on "here's why Islam isn't real and Christianity is" in this chapter than there is on actual Islamic philosophy. I'm not going to spork it, because it's really just arguing about the interpretation of Biblical passages. But please note that Noebel was not interested in actually talking about the rich philosophical tradition of Islam, he just wanted to talk about why Christianity is the best religion again.

Then we go on to secular humanism, where Noebel calls naturalism "the philosophy of Secular Humanism". Here's the thing: Noebel seems to think that philosophy is a single static item of belief that you hold to. That is not...true? And he only presents naturalism vs supernaturalism. Those certainly seem to be terms in philosophy, but philosophy, again, is not about the creation of certain fixed answers to particular questions, but about the exploration of questions.

Anyway, Noebel calls the idea that the supernatural doesn't exist "dogmatic", which is rich. Then there's a bunch of stuff about naturalism and what it means. Then a bunch of cosmology and epistomology stuff which mostly just reiterates "secular humanists believe there is no god and no creator and no life after death". Again, pretty short, and not at all touching on anything in actual philosophy. I feel this chapter was badly mistitled.

Most of the Marxism stuff just repeats the Secular Humanism stuff, except they bring up the ideal of the dialectic and the concept of thesis and antithesis. I really enjoyed learning about this when I first went through this textbook because it makes so much intuitive sense to me, but of course one isn't allowed to say that because it wasn't in the Christian chapter. Then it talks specifically about dialectical materialism. 

Noebel keeps attributing things to "Marxists" when he really means, like, Engels. He has no concept that Marxism has grown and changed since then, which is extremely funny because he keeps talking about how central the concept of change and upheaval is to Marxism. He also says that Marxists assume their philosophy "entirely without rational defense" which seems unfair to me considering that Noebel's idea of rational defense for Christianity is "rational people believe it!"

Every good Marxist understands his philosophy and is prepared to act upon it, because Marx himself requires it.

Marx isn't Jesus. Marxists take his writing as a jumping-off point, not necessarily an ending point.

Unfortunately from a Marxist point of view, all such change is merely transitory, because each new synthesis (including the long-anticipated communist classless society) inevitably becomes a new thesis in the neverending process of dialectical materialism.

Why is that unfortunate? That's how life works, isn't it? Human society is never static because humans are not static. It's like language change. It happens, it just happens.

Then onto Cosmic Humanism! Noebel can't decide whether Cosmic Humanism does or doesn't include various Asian religions:

The contemporary Cosmic Humanist movement has its roots in the Romantic poets of the 1800s, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Henry David Thoreau. These men rejected the God of the Bible, instead writing at length about a transcendent quality of spirituality experienced purely through personal introspection. 

Okay, so Cosmic Humanism is transcendentalism? Also, none of those people are Romantic poets. 

These ideas did not attract a broad audience until the 1960s, when popular recording artists, movie stars, and Eastern gurus began trumpeting their New Age views across the nation. 

That's not related to the Romantic movement at all, or really the transcendentalist movement. Let's not even touch the racism of "Eastern gurus" "trumpeting their New Age views".

More recently, well-known recording artists such as Madonna and Alanis Morissette have identified themselves with Hinduism, while popular personalities such as Tiger Woods, Phil Jackson, and Richard Gere openly embrace Zen Buddhism. 

Thereby mushing Hinduism and Buddhism under the Cosmic Humanist label after claiming he wouldn't address them. Those religions are not "New Age".

Other luminaries, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, express a belief in Scientology.

Not related to romanticism OR transcendentalism OR to Hinduism OR to Buddhism.

It defines cosmic humanist philosophy as non-naturalism, the idea that everything is supernatural, in contrast to supernaturalism, the idea that there is a mix of natural and supernatural things. And again, there's a lot of quoting of mostly white mostly American New Age folks, while also just occasionally throwing e.g. Hinduism or Buddhism in, as if they're all basically different denominations of the same thing. Not good. 

Then onto Postmodernism. Given how that went last time, I am dreading this, folks.

The philosophical ideas of Postmodernism divide modem-day academia. Today's college students will find Postmodernism ruling the day in their humanities and social studies courses, but will also find Modernism still prevalent in their science, engineering, and mathematics courses.

Modernism is a philosophical and critical movement, so no, you will not find it in your science, engineering, and mathematics courses. I think he's trying to get at the dominance of empiricism in STEM, which of course is an underlying assumption that ought to be addressed, but that's not what Modernism is.

For example, the statement "God so loved the world" is nonsensical to Postmodernists for two reasons: (1) they deny the existence of God, and (2) statements reflecting the whole world (metanarratives) are impossible.

Postmodernists don't deny the existence of God! And they don't deny the existence of statements reflecting the whole world. They just deny that any one is more true than any other. 

Their story that explains the world is that there are no explanations of the world, only local stories told by various cultures.

I think a Postmodernist would actually say that there are explanations of the world, they're just all equally true and all equally untrue. Noebel seems to really struggle to grasp this, because he keeps making this mistake, over and over and over. That would be understandable if he was a student and not a man writing a textbook.

For example, a reader may feel that a particular text really means an author is racist, even though the written text makes it clear that the author deplores racism.

Mhm. I knew we were coming here. "I'm not racist, because I said racism was bad!" Implicit bias is a thing, and you can deplore racism and still be racist, because white people are not always aware of what is and is racist. 

Traditionally, Truth (with a capital "T") was understood as the relationship between the real, objective world and statements that correspond to the real world.

Traditionally by who? And I note the passive voice. Define your terms, please.

There's a bunch of stuff defining anti-realism, which is okay, broadly. 

Postmodernists have difficulty living with their view of reality.

Do they? Have you asked them? Once again I have to remind you that Postmodernism is a critical position, not necessarily an all-encompassing personal philosophy for everyone who works in it. 

Likewise, we recognize a dilemma with the well-worn Postmodern slogan, "That may be true for you, but not for me."

He calls this "well-worn" twice, without explaining when and where he's seen it. I would not expect to see it in an actual Postmodernist critical text, just going off Postmodernist critical texts I've read. I think what he means here is it's something people who think that truth is subjective say, which is not necessarily the same as postmodernism per se.

If you try to apply the Postmodernist view of truth in day-to-day life, the result is a total breakdown of your ability to communicate.

Yes. Because it's not a religion. So you don't have to be able to. It's a framework for doing certain types of analysis, not a precept to live your entire life by.

Another serious problem arises from a Postmodern philosophy of language: if each community determines what is true through its use of language, which community gets to decide between rival communities when it comes to conflicting ideas? [...] Since no community can claim to be "right" on these or other issues, the result is an increased competition for which group will dominate the others.

First, that's not really what constructing the world through language means.

Second, no community can claim to be "right" AND BE BELIEVED anyway because both communities already believe they are right. Nothing changes.

Yet far more significant than these criticisms is the negative consequences of a Postmodern approach to language. For a telling example, look at the results of applying deconstruction to law revealed by the 1973 Roe v. Wade case. In handing down their decision, the majority of the Supreme Court justices chose to look at the Constitution as a "living document—that is, open to many interpretations (polysemy). As a result, they invented new meanings from the original text—meanings that were not openly stated—and came up with a novel interpretation regarding a woman's reproductive rights that has apparently gone unnoticed for almost 200 years. 

Mmmhmmmmm. And the Constitution specifically, textually forbids gay marriage, does it? Or are you reading new meanings into that text when you say it should be illegal? 

One consequence of that reinterpretation is that since 1973 over forty million unborn children have been murdered at the request of their mothers.

The thing is, Noebel is here constructing his views through language by choosing to use the words "children" and "murdered".

Finally, there's the conclusion, which just reiterates that Christians believe in Truth.

God's words do not depend upon a reader's interpretation. Instead, the reader is to interpret the Bible according to God's intention.

Interesting. And how do you know God's intention without reading the Bible?

All in all, this chapter completely failed to really be about philosophy, and mostly insisted on being about more theology. This is a problem with fundamentalism: because there is no room for unanswered questions, fundamentalists cannot understand disciplines in unanswered questions are valuable exploratory opportunities, not causes for unease.