Me and Copan take on the Naturalist
- Tony Vance
- Dec 2, 2015
- 7 min read
Is naturalism the prevailing thought in science today? Yes, it most certainly is. The following is a fairly representative website:
“Naturalism is a worldview grounded in a scientific, evidence-based understanding of the universe and our place in it. Science and critical thinking in public education and public discourse should replace non-empirical justifications for beliefs. In advocating science, naturalism supports the teaching of cosmology and evolution as essential elements of the epic story of life, in the universe and here on earth. A key point of this section is to demonstrate that science itself doesn't presume naturalism, rather naturalism is a well-supported hypothesis given scientific methods of deciding what's true” (http://www.naturalism.org/applied-naturalism/science)
Paul Copan has an article (http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201201/201201_108_Naturalism.cfm) that deals with a naturalistic claim, and I want to unpack some ideas from this article to help explain why theism (especially the Christian version) is a BETTER explanation of our universe. Copan is a philosopher and he is professor and Pledger family chair of philosophy and ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida, in addition, he is also president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, from Marquette University. Some of his books include; When God Goes to Starbucks; True for You, But Not for Me; That’s Just Your Interpretation; Creation Out of Nothing; Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God; and, The Paul Copan Apologetics Collection (6 Volumes). His philosophical works are heralded for their clear thinking and strong arguments.
Copan breaks down naturalism into 3 distinct characteristics; epistemology, etiology, and ontology. These are classic philosophical and scientific areas. Simply, epistemology is the theory of knowledge, and how it is acquired. Etiology is the study of causes and reasons. Finally, ontology is the study of being, or the nature of being or mere existence. Theism and naturalism both propose ideas for these three areas. If we dissect, as Copan has so eloquently done (and I will rely HEAVILY on his work), we can see a Naturalists idea in these areas. We will take each one, break it down, analyze it, and see what the logical conclusion is. It is my hope that as you encounter atheistic-naturalists, this information will give you an arrow for your quiver as you are challenged to defend your belief in God.
EPISTEMOLOGY
Epistemology or how do we know things, is based on a simple fact- TRUTH. Truth must relate to reality. Something that is false is not reality; the Earth is flat or there are married bachelors, for example, are things we know are false because the reality of these things correspond to the things we CAN know. Copan said, “Despite this commonsense insight, naturalists are increasingly tempted to deny that truth is necessary for knowledge.” I am a firm believer in common sense apologetics (see here), and Copan’s use of the word is delightful to me. He goes on to say, “Warrant: If naturalists are right, it seems we are just biological organisms whose beliefs are pumped into our brain by physical forces beyond our control; so, if one’s survival-producing beliefs are true (they match up with reality), it’s purely accidental— not rational. We might believe humans have intrinsic dignity and rights, and this may help us as a species to survive, but this belief would be completely false.” Think about it this way, if we are mere atoms, randomly acting, in random ways, we are not able to truly KNOW anything. C. S. Lewis, the great thinker, of Chronicle of Narnia fame, said:
"Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God."—C.S. Lewis (The Case for Christianity, p. 32).
Interestingly enough, Charles Darwin echoes the sentiment:
“With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” (Letter to William Graham Down, July 3, 1881, in ‘The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin In-cluding an Autobiographical Chapter,ed. Francis Darwin -London: John Murray, AbermarleStreet, 1887)
ETIOLOGY
Etiology is interesting in the naturalist’s point of view. Determinism is the prevailing thought. Copan explains, “Naturalism’s grand story of origins is that our universe had physical, impersonal, mechanistic beginnings, and this physical cause-and-effect scenario describes all events since the Big Bang — including my choices and beliefs. So the historical string of physical causes from the Big Bang until now implies determinism. No room remains for free will, which enables an agent to rise above purely physical influences.” I a simple way, a naturalistic worldview think there is no free will; everything is determined by the natural forces that control EVERYTHING. Richard Dawkins explains, “Determinism does not mean “unalterable”; it means that what happens obeys the laws of physics” (https://richarddawkins.net/2015/04/misunderstandings-about-determinism/). Most naturalist see free will as an illusion, as Dawkins explains, the laws of physics (and all other physical laws) ‘determine’ your actions.
ONTOLOGY
Then there is ontology. Naturalist are simplistic and materialistic, Copan explains their view as, “Entities that exist (ontology) are based on the assumption that only physical things exist. That is, if something is not strictly physical (e.g., a mind), it necessarily depends on the physical for its existence; so, in the case of the mind, it would completely cease at death. God or angels (spirit beings) do not fit anywhere in the naturalist’s radar screen of reality. Yes, naturalism is tied to physicalism; reality is comprised of matter.” Only what is ‘touchable’ is real, according to naturalist. Atoms, molecules, and the things we call matter, are the only real things in the world. Interesting, energy, a staple and necessary component of our universe is neither physical or matter, and is unable to be explained by scientist, in 1964 a Nobel Prize winner said the following, “ It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way.” ( volume I; lecture 4, "Conservation of Energy"; section 4-1, "What is energy?"; p. 4-2 Richard Feynman) Physics (and science) still does not know what ENERGY IS.
Here is a useful chart for breaking down (and again I am indebted to Copan for this tool) the difference between theistic and naturalistic views:
SMLXL
Copan’s argument comes down to what John Lennox calls the, “best explanatory power.” Does Naturalism MAKE sense (and again-I say-commonsense) or theism (especially Christianity). Copan fine tunes his argument toward Christianity in various clear arguments, such as, “By comparing contexts, we see that theism repeatedly makes the best sense, offering a better, more natural fit than naturalism. Furthermore, when people ask, “Why theism? What about all the other religions?” we can suggest this: If a personal God exists, then this would rule out not only naturalism, but Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism, Confucianism, Shintoism, and certain versions of Hinduism. A personal Creator immediately simplifies things.” A personal creator, capable of self-determination (truly free of any other influences) is a better explanation than other theistic models. This would rule out the Thor’s (he is one of many gods), the flying spaghetti monster (he is a part of creation-bound by physical laws), or any other lesser god.
Copan dissects the naturalistic arguments in clear and concise ways. His use of logic is useful to the scientific thinker as science deals with ‘how’s/what’s’ but very rarely the ‘why’s’. Naturalism falls flat, in my opinion, as you breakdown the areas that theism and naturalism can try to explain. One of the arguments Copan pulls apart, in very clear arguments, is the idea of reducing the problem down to simplicity. Science, as a common practice, eliminates the more complicated for the simpler explanation, as a rule. Called the principle of simplicity or economy, science would have us rid ourselves of the more complicated entity of theism for the simpler ideas of naturalism. If we use the philosophical argument ‘ab reducto absurdum’ (taking the argument to its absurd conclusion) we see this argument falls apart. As Copan points out, “Yes, it is numerically simpler to say that nothing caused something than that one thing caused something. Zero entities are simpler than one entity. But to explain events without any sufficient reason — that they “just happened” — is clearly inadequate.”
I’ll let Copan conclude, “Naturalism is “simpler” in that it involves fewer entities within its system. But that does not help in accounting for the universe, its major features, and key aspects of human experience. To get rid of God means losing significant explanatory power. A theistic context helps us make sense of many important characteristics of the created order. Resorting to beliefs such as the universe came from nothing or the universe caused itself flies in the face of the very “scientific method” naturalists so heartily applaud. Theism guides us to a clearer explanation of things, shedding light in otherwise dark places. As C.S. Lewis put it: ‘I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.’”