The Evangelical Universalist Forum

JRP's Bite-Sized Metaphysics (Series 126)

Yet, I would as a sceptic also understand that most of the time when we use metaphorical language we mean more, not less, than the language indicates. The biologist who speaks of a paramecium ‘deciding’ to go thataway for food probably means less than his imagery suggests–most biologists don’t consider paramecia to be capable of conscious choices and other actions, but only capable of automatic reactions and counterreactions. But such use of metaphor (though important) is relatively uncommon. More often, we mean more than the imagery suggests. Language is necessarily reductive, so we have to use similar words for multiple meanings. For example, by ‘reductive’ in the last sentence, I don’t mean that language makes real things smaller. I mean something more complex and nuanced than my language indicates. And I would also play fairly by not requiring that people somehow abandon metaphor and ‘talk plainly’. It can’t be done; the effort to do so results in choosing other metaphors (without realizing they are metaphors) which are often less efficient at helping the idea across than the original metaphor. On the other hand, sometimes it isn’t a bad idea to restate the contention using different imagery and then using a comparison of the two images to help correct and refine the perception of the idea I am trying to communicate. This same process takes place on a somewhat larger scale when analogies are used to help illustrate a previously developed argument.

(Footnote: I would, of course, be on the lookout for the so-called ‘argument from analogy’ where the analogies only illustrate a blanket assertion–the argument only being presumed to have been made–but I would also be careful not to fall off the horse on the other side and accuse someone of arguing by analogy simply because he happens to use a number of illustrative analogies.)

As a sceptic, I would be very interested in ‘evidence’, for both my own side and another’s. But I would require the burden of proof to be on the instigator of the debate (although if I was going to counter-convince I would need to be ready to marshal my own arguments and evidence).

Also, if I was going to be fair, then as a sceptic I would recognize that a purported supernatural event would very probably leave evidence not much (perhaps not any) different from a natural event. The good news (if I happened to be a naturalist) is that this usually cuts both ways. If a city buried by volcanism is found near the Dead Sea, or another city in Mesopotamia turns up the base of a large ziggurat with attendant documents suggesting that a confusion of language prevented the ziggurat from being completed, then although I might be inclined to accept that the historicity of these accounts in purported scriptures has more strength than I originally allowed, I am not necessarily obligated to assign a supernatural cause to the natural effect–no more than I am necessarily obligated to accept the existence and character of the Greek pantheon after Troy’s existence and history are finally corroborated by archaeologists. Then again, if on other grounds I was persuaded that something exists which could be expected to exert supernatural influence to produce those effects, and if the stories tended to match in metaphysics the characteristics of the entity in question, I would be much further along the road to accepting the accounts as presented in the documents. Similarly, if the Greek pantheon could be established metaphysically, I might decide to take Homer’s stories as being even closer to history than I originally thought.

So the evidence would have to be something that didn’t depend solely on (purported) historical documents; because how I interpret those documents is always strongly affected by my trans-historical beliefs. This is true, even if that trans-historical belief reduces simply down to: “My parents and teachers (and/or preacher) told me so, and I find them to be otherwise trustworthy.”

Therefore as a sceptic, I would require that the evidence in favor of, for example, a Sentient Independent Fact (SIF) should be of a type closely related in character to the proposed SIF–and that I should be able to figure out this close relation from inferences about the evidence (not have it dictated to me as an unexaminable premise). In other words, if I thought reality had only two dimensions (length and width) and did not have depth as a third dimension, I would require evidence from the 3-D proponent that some kind of 3-D effect takes place where I can detect it.

I might possibly allow that the effects would be immediately represented in terms of a 2-D effect, and so not hold this necessarily against the 3-D proponent. (Footnote: when a sphere progressively intersects a plane by passing through it, the 2-D man would see a circle grow from apparently nothing and shrink back to apparently nothing–he would not see what we would consider to be the ‘shape’ of a ‘sphere’.)

However, I would at the same time require that this proposed evidence should not be effectively reducible (or fully explainable) in terms of 2-D causes. If the evidence can be explained that way, then although I might still allow that the evidence might perhaps still be explainable by a 3-D cause, I cannot see that I would be under any fair obligation to exclusively accept the 3-D cause over the 2-D cause. The evidence must be such that in principle it cannot be the product of 2-D causes–even if I am naturally restricted from directly perceiving the 3-D cause by being an entity with 2-D perception.

Similarly, the evidence for supernatural ultimate sentience should be such that the evidence cannot in principle be fully explained as a product of the Natural system (taking into account whatever characteristics of the Natural system we can discover, or at least agree upon). Otherwise, although I might allow that the evidence could perhaps be caused by the SIF, I would be under no fair obligation I am aware of to accept the existence of the SIF rather than accept the explanation of purely non-sentient natural causation.

I think this leaves a wide range of potential opposition to Christianity. I can see myself holding these views, and still being an atheist (of various sorts); or some type of polytheist; or perhaps a positive pantheist; or a nominal deist (God created Nature, but has never interfered with it afterwards). I could still be an agnostic (although not an ‘intrinsic’ agnostic). I think I could be a Jew or Muslim, or an adherent of any of a number of theisms which oppose (to whatever degree) Christianity. I could even be a Mormon, I think.

But I am not any of these. I am a Christian. (Or, to be fair to the Mormons and other claimants to Christianity, I am a Christian who thinks I am proposing a more proper orthodoxy.) And now the time has come for me to begin to build, if I can (or not, if I cannot), a positive argument for the existence and characteristics of God which, although some of my opponents may also find it useful, will (insofar as possible) exclusively answer the question: “Why do I think Christianity is true?”