This past week, Dan Barker, famous atheist and apostate, debated James White, famous baby-eating Calvinist and apologist. The debate is now available for cheap from AOMin.org, so let me encourage you to take a listen. I thought it was a pretty good debate, far better than most of Barker's debates, I'll say, and I would say the frequent low quality is often due also to the theist debater on the other side.
Anyway, around minute 5 during the 2nd cross-examination period, Barker began to press White on the question of how God exists. He wisely (or unwittingly) avoided the Gordon Stein pitfall, where he, in debating Greg Bahnsen, pursued this line of questions, paraphrased:
Stein: Is God material or immaterial?
Bahnsen: Immaterial.
S: Could you define 'immaterial'?
B: Something not extended in space.
S: Could you please give me another example of something that exists and that is immaterial?
B: The laws of logic.
(Audience erupts into laughter. Point, Bahnsen.)
Barker asked White basically: If God is immaterial and, more importantly, outside time, how does He exist? In this Barker neglects the fact that part of the definition of the Christian God is that He is timeless and immaterial, so he is committing an external critique, for one thing. Further, he neglected to mention that his own "side" (ie, many naturalistic scientists) says that that which existed "before" the Big Bang is often said to be outside of the influence of time, since time "had" not "begun" to exist yet.
Anyway, Barker is fond of the FANG, the Freewill Argument for the Non-existence of God, which besides the problems listed in the linked article, also does not interact with the biblical idea that God has foreordained everything in His sovereign plan, and that plan is perfect. What need could there be for Him to decide differently than He has already done? It's not as if Barker believes that humans have freewill either. Maybe he thinks humans don't exist.
Moving on, White was answering basically along these lines and Barker produced the following gem, transcribed exactly as it was spoken on the mp3:
"The point I'm trying to get at is, things happen in our brains. I have a nightmare and there's a monster coming in the window. But there's not really out there a monster coming in the window. It's a function of my brain, my brain's telling me this. So our brains function certain ways and we put certain words on this function, we call it 'mind' or we call it 'thought', but does it really exist outside of our brain? If minds were to cease to exist, then would we even need the word 'logic'? Would we even use the word? Would it even... 'cause it's a concept and you can't have a concept without a mind. Concepts don't exist out there somewhere" (emph. mine).
Note that the Atheist Experience's Matt Dillahunty had based all of the defense that he used against Matt Slick's TAG argument on the idea that the laws of logic, which are conceptual, don't require a mind. Whom to believe - Barker or the Atheist Experience? What a quandary!
I would say the frequent low quality is often due also to the theist debater on the other side. Really? I would say in the large majority of formal debates about the existence of God or the Resurrection, the theist wins. Not because I think the theists are right of course. I actually think that the theists good track record is due to a few reasons:
ReplyDelete1) No one thinks that it is their divine calling to defend atheism. When an atheist educates themselves about arguments in favor of the existence of God, its because they find it interesting, not because they have to. Theists, on their hand, believe the creator of the Universe has commanded them to defend their metaphysical beliefs, which means they approach it with a lot more energy and enthusiasm.
2) There exists entire schools devoted to Christian apologetics. You can accuse academia of being mostly a "secular" instiutiton, which is fair (and accurate). But there aren't schools in every part of the country dedicated to dismantling the theist position point by point.
So what happens is that for every Quintin Smith or Graham Oppy, there are five William Lane Craigs or JP Morelands.
3) Practice: William Lane Craig has been honing his debating techniques since he was a teenager. James White has also been debating formally since 1990. The large majority of atheists these people debate approach debating very sloppily, and their lack of basic debating techniques (addressing points directly, speaking slowly and clearly, and ending with a conclusion that addresses your opponents main failures in their argumentation) are evident. Dan Barker has been debating for a while too, but it doesn't seem to have sunk it as well (given his bizarre attempt to keep peddling the "one god less" argument.)
Whom to believe - Barker or the Atheist Experience? What a quandary! This is a clever twist on the argument from confusion (i.e. Christians have broad disagreements on doctrines, even within Orthodox, mainstream Christianity, therefore Christianity is false.) But surely you know that the argument from confusion doesn't really count for much. As James Rachels pointed out "We cannot conclude that the world is shapeless simply because not everyone agrees what shape it has."
True on the argument from confusion.
ReplyDeleteBut it is a common skeptical objection to Christianity - "why can't you get it all together?" Barker himself used that in the debate with White. Sigh.
So it's just a counterpunch. It's also interesting that Barker walks right into the flak from Slick's TAG howitzer. Either Barker's not paying attention (and thus missed the talking points memo) or he realises the stupidity of the idea of the conceptual without a mind and neglects to remember or ignores the implications over there for TAG.
Barker himself used that in the debate with White. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteWell, I wouldn't exactly put Barker high on the list of intellectual atheists. I think he was debating someone more on his level when he debated Todd Friel. Of particular embarassment was when he debated Paul Manata. I'm a little stunned that someone who spent decades as a Pastor didn't understand that the Free Will argument is completely impotent against a five point Calvinist.
Fair enough.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy that part of the Friel debate when Friel kept asking "what evolved first, the __ or the ___ or the __?" It was cheeky. Friel is quite cheeky, to be sure.
MD via Rho:
ReplyDelete"Logic is purely conceptual and is contingent upon a mind to use...They (the laws of logic) don't depend on anything...Reality depends upon them."
DB via Rho:
Would it even... 'cause [logic's] a concept and you can't have a concept without a mind.
Don't see the conflict, both are talking about logic as conceptual.
Listen to the AthExp shows where Slick participates. MD vociferously denies that logic is conceptual. That's his whole defense.
ReplyDeleteAtheist Experience's Matt Dillahunty had based all of the defense that he used against Matt Slick's TAG argument on the idea that the laws of logic, which are conceptual, don't require a mind. I listened to that one, twice, and I still could not make any sense of what Matt was trying to say. Concepts outside of minds are like high yellow aorist low blue infinitives.
ReplyDeleteAs to the laws of logic, I cannot see why one ought to consider them anything more than linguistic conventions. Perhaps others do.
I agree Damion. I found his rendition of TAG kinda weird, as I said in the original "talking points" post, but now I understand it a bit better.
ReplyDeleteI link to Slick's version of TAG in the talking points post - that might help.
Point of clarification - I meant the other Matt, but frankly I did not think either one was making much sense. Do you play TAG, Rho?
ReplyDeleteI do. It's fun.
ReplyDeleteAnd if conventions, at what time did the law of non-contradiction come into existence?
ReplyDeleteAround the same time as propositions and negations, that is, around the same time that humans developed language and syntax.
ReplyDeleteSo before that time, was it both true and untrue that the law of non-contradiction did not exist?
ReplyDeleteSo before that time, was it both true and untrue that the law of non-contradiction did not exist?Before that time, the question did not even make sense. It's like asking whether the color red existed before anybody was there to see it; the physical properties that cause us to see the color red existed, but the color red itself did not. To talk of red where the relevant perceptual apparatus does not exist is impossible; to talk of the law of non-contradiction where the relevant conceptual apparatus does not exist is equally impossible.
ReplyDeleteSo it's impossible to answer the question, is what you're saying?
ReplyDeleteIs it both possible and impossible to answer the question? How about before the law of n-c arose?
Before it arose, did the Earth both exist and not exist?
Dillahunty was right about one thing - Statements and being are not identical. I think you're confusing them here.
So it's impossible to answer the question, is what you're saying?No. I'm saying that it's meaningless to ask the question. Is the sky blue when nobody is looking at it?
ReplyDeleteSo before that time, was it both true and untrue that the law of non-contradiction did not exist?
ReplyDeleteTo say that a proposition is true is to say that there exists a mind which has a model of the world which is essentially accurate, at least for some purposes. That said, the LNC was neither true nor untrue in the absence of minds capable of grasping propositions about the world.
The thing is, I think that's the point of Slick's argument. The STATEMENT is impossible w/o a mind. Dillahunty kept missing that and was referring to the logical property of things, and I agree with him that far. Whether a mind exists, the bare fact that something exists and doesn't not exist remains true.
ReplyDeleteWhether a mind exists, the bare fact that something exists and doesn't not exist remains true.
ReplyDeleteI must respectfully disagree. To say that something is true is to say that a proposition is true which is to say that a mind exists which is capable of assenting to propositions. Hence it is literally nonsense to speak of truth apart from minds.