Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

Ron Paul has doubts about evolution. Andrew Sullivan writes that “I could handle his legion of whacko supporters, I could handle his extreme libertarianism, but I’m afraid I can’t handle this.” Why? Because “He has now demonstrated the ability to look away from reality when it proves inconvenient to his own beliefs.” Did you get the “whacko supporters” bit? He, the great homosexual, supports Paul for good and decent reasons only. The rest of the Paulists are just weirdos, yucky people. Anyway, what could be more disrespectable than dissenting from the status quo? Everybody knows that the status quo is normal, and any questioning it is a sign of mental imbalance. Right? Give me a break. The status quo exists in order to be questioned, both in politics and science, including the theory of evolution.

I’d like to indulge for a moment in psychoanalyzing evolutionsists. I am convinced that the NT evolutionists despise the idea of design in nature, of God’s bestowing grace on biological structures in order to create the sophisticated, information-rich, elegant robots within cells and organs and so on for one reason only: they cherish their autonomy and self-sufficiency and attack anything that appears to threaten them. They trash the defenders of intelligent design, because they cannot stand the idea of depending on anything, even if the thing on which they depend is God. It’s pride and vainglory coupled with rebellion. They can’t stand the idea that unaided nature plus chance are unble to make either the body or the soul. They think of grace as violence. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth: grace perfects nature, it does not abolish or violate it. Thus, we can conclude that evolutionists are both intellectually and morally depraved people.

I started writing this as a response to Danny’s comment, but the post ended up being so long that I am making it into its own article.

“Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” (Ex 40:35) Was God glorious because He created the world or because of His nature? Was His claim to fame at that point in time creation or His essential goodness and holiness? In that particular quote “glory” indeed appears to mean holiness, such that no man could stand in the presence of God, for while on earth, one is not confirmed in goodness. Even Moses must have had something of which he was ashamed — it is written later that “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (Jn 3:19-21) But at the same time in this same quote we see a hint that glory could be taken to mean reputation: “so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God,” bestowed on the condition of deserving deeds. Aquinas apparently takes the same position as I do:

Glory signifies a certain clarity, wherefore Augustine says… that to be “glorified is the same as to be clarified.” Now clarity and comeliness imply a certain display: wherefore the word glory properly denotes the display of something as regards its seeming comely in the sight of men, whether it be a bodily or a spiritual good. Since, however, that which is clear simply can be seen by many, and by those who are far away, it follows that the word glory properly denotes that somebody’s good is known and approved by many…

But if we take the word glory in a broader sense, it not only consists in the knowledge of many, but also in the knowledge of few, or of one, or of oneself alone, as when one considers one’s own good as being worthy of praise. (ST, II-II, 132, 1)

Now one can object that glory is not reputation but rather a state of character. Good deeds, works of mercy, and so on, shape character, and so it is not the doing of good but being good that is glorious. On this view, God would indeed possess glory simply for being Himself. And we can certainly distinguish between these two meanings of our word. God is glorious for His character but is also glorious for His temporal acts of creation, redemption, and sanctification.

Now as for the division of labor between the persons, remember that human beings posit ends and seek to attain them; they have purposes or goals. In order for a goal to be achieved, exactly three things are necessary: love of the end, knowledge of the means to that end, that is, how that task can be accomplished, and power to overcome the obstacles standing in the way to the end. And since we are made in the image of God, we can ascribe to the Trinity these three aspects of our human experience. Alternatively, we can say that the Father represents the essence, the Son proceeds (from the Father) as the word of the intellect and the totality of God’s self-knowledge, and the Holy Spirit, as the love of the will and the infinitude of His self-love. In us the intellect and will are not persons, but in God they are. Which is arguably pretty remarkable. (NB: God’s interrelations within His nature and His relations with the creation are two different things, and I have a whole theory of how it works; see my earlier posts.)

Danny quotes “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Col 1:16-17) “By” Him means, with the help of His know-how. “For” Him, that He inherited the world from the Father as a consequence of the Incarnation, such that “the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.” (Jn 5:22) “In” Him, that the global and local unities-in-variety, the network of causal laws, etc., are related to each other according to the Son’s grand design. The world is rational, “rational” having the same root as “ratio”; so everything is ordered and fits together in some proportion or other.

Now does this mean that the pre-incarnate Son, too, had glory (in the second sense of reputation), since He participated in the creation of the world? The answer lies hidden in the fact that the person of the Father is the “principle” of both the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the created world. He is the principle of their existence either by nature or by will, Himself unbegotten and uncreated, and so giving existence is the particular function of the Father. If in the Nicene creed we read that “through [the Son] all things were made,” then it is also true that from the Father all things were made. And it is to underscore this matter of causation (though Aquinas rightly points out that “principle” is a more general term than “cause,” because “in all kinds of causes there is always to be found between the cause and the effect a distance of perfection or of power: whereas we use the term ‘principle’ even in things which have no such difference, but have only a certain order to each other” (ST, I, 33, 1)) that we specifically call the Father the Creator.

Indeed, analogously, all three persons can be called the Redeemers and Sanctifiers. For example, the Father took part in the Incarnation by preparing the ground for it via Israel, by agreeing to send the Son, by speaking from the heavens “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Mt 17:5) and who knows what else. Jesus is also full of the Holy Spirit, and, e.g., “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” (Mt 4:1) But Christ is specifically called the Redeemer, because He is the one who suffered and died so that sins may be forgiven. And similarly for the Sanctifier.

The entire stock of money is at every point in time owned by people. In other words, for every dollar, there exists some person who owns that dollar. What, then, is “demand for money”? It is simply a way in which the purchasing power of a unit of money is altered in response to consumer demand. A greater demand for money means that people prefer to hold on to cash when prices are relatively high and are only willing to spend when prices (or the general price level, if there is such a thing) come down. A lower demand for money means that people seek to unload their balances and buy things, even at higher prices. For example, during the last stage of hyperinflation, there may occur a “flight to real values” as people seek to spend their wheelbarrows of worthless paper money on anything, even if they don’t “need” it, as long as it’s not money that’s depreciating even as they deliberate what to buy.

In The Mystery of Banking, a book that every economist or political philosopher should read, Rothbard identifies five causes of changes in the demand for money. For example, a greater number of goods and services on the market due to economic growth with a constant money stock will entail that the same amount of money will be chasing more stuff (meaning that money will be more scarce relative to goods) which will in turn cause the overall price level to fall (because if the markets are to clear given a greater abundance of goods, P = MV/T — a crude formula but one which works here — must decrease), the PPM to rise, and the demand for money to go up (because money must be “bought” by selling goods, and each monetary unit is now worth more than before, seeing as it’s capable of buying more goods). In other words, greater supply of goods leads to greater demand for money.

But isn’t demand for money in fact demand for the things one can buy with that money? Indeed so, and thus if we pierce the money veil, we will see that increased demand for money means simply that the absolute prices in terms of money change predictably; relative prices, or how much of A it takes to buy how much of B, may change in any way or even stay the same. The relative prices, then, will depend on who exactly, that is, which actors in the economy, is demanding money more or less.

So, then, what is the purpose of allowing the PPM to change in this manner? What does it matter if consumer demand for higher or lower prices is fulfilled or thwarted? Well, the problem of surpluses and shortages will come about if money markets are not permitted to clear. If the demand for money goes up, but prices are not lowered, there will be unsold goods and services and unbought money. On the other hand, if the demand for money becomes lower, and yet prices do not adjust upward, there will be surpluses of money and shortages of goods and services which this money would have been spent on if they cost more. In other words, as long as we have a medium of exchange, it must be treated as a real good for the purposes of economic analysis, though its value lies not in use but in exchange.

Is the demand for money related to the velocity of money, i.e., how fast it “circulates”? You will hear people say that velocity depends on the demand. But of course velocity is affected by the demand for money only in the short term; in the long term, when a new equilibrium, the PPM, is reached, demand will have gone up or down, while velocity may well stay the same. For velocity only the real or relative network of prices is relevant, the nominal money prices are not important.

Aquinas writes that “the love of God infuses and creates goodness” (ST, I, 20, 2), while man is drawn to love the goodness that is already there. Clearly, he is talking about metaphysical or essential goodness here. In contrast, both God and man together create moral goodness or the goodness of accidents, such as wisdom and virtue. And as for the physical goodness or the goodness of happiness, than it is fully subjective and man alone is fully responsible for it.

This word has at least two meanings: (1) “having moral desert,” (2) “entitled” or having a positive claim on something regardless of one’s merits.

For example, consider the two statements: “the worker deserves his wages” and “your children deserve the best.” In the former “deserving” has the meaning (1), because there is a contractual obligation between the employer and his employee, requiring, we might argue, some reward for merit, namely, having been productive. In the latter “deserving” looks more like a metaphor and has the meaning (2), because children have done nothing to deserve anything.

In other words, children possess only metaphysical goodness, and it is that which deserves that they have the best. Surely, you wouldn’t say that a tree in your front yard also deserves the best, because the tree is lower on the metaphysical scale of values than a child. A worker, on the other hand, has in addtion also moral gooness and it is that which causes him to deserve his wages or whatever. Do not confuse the two meanings!

Meaning in general is studied by semiotics or the science of interpretation. In order to find meaning in X or of X, we must interpret X in terms of something else. Though it can be long, the process of interpretation does not proceed forever but ends with existence, the good, the true, the beautiful, the one, and culminates finally in the significance of the thing interpreted for the interpreter’s happiness.

And that is the meaning of life: to be happy. See ST, II-I, 1-5 for a treatise on happiness.

In an insightful paper on the psychological causes of the belief in immortality and the kinds of immortality, Corless Lamont argues that the most important such cause is the desire to reunite with the deceased family members and friends and, perhaps, to atone for imperfect behavior towards them. (Critiques of God, “The Illusion of Immortality”)

Thus, for most people, he says, life after death is imagined to be like the earthly life; in other words, in heaven there is natural happiness. But the Christian doctrine of immortality does not at all postulate natural happiness in the hereafter. On the contrary, death effects not a continuation of the present life, only better, but a complete transformation. As Peter Kreeft writes, “Heaven’s transformation of earth… and the new humanity… neither simply extends and perfects, nor simply transcends and abolishes, the present earth and the present humanity, but transforms it, as caterpillar to butterfly, or tadpole to frog or frog to prince. God goes around the earth kissing frogs (us) to turn them into princes.” (Handbook of Christian Apologetics, 269) It is not natural happiness that we should expect but beatitude, union with God, complete and perfect immersion in God.

That’s why we are counseled to despise the worldly things and to long for heaven, properly understood. For, again, heaven is rather unlike earth.

Ths song goes:

Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die:
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

This is incorrect. Christ had no glory before the Incarnation; in fact, He earned glory due to it. What He laid by was His omniscience, as I argue here where I ask why Christ took exception to being called “good.” Nor can you say that His goodness was glorious, for it was not yet manifested in deed before His coming. And just as a vicious habit is better than a vicious act, so a virtuous act is better than a virtuous habit (which, for completeness’ sake, is in turn better than a virtuous power). So, Christ’s glory comes from the effects He wrought through His Incarnation.

Goodness is prior to God in the understanding and experience, because one can and usually does come to know what is good and what is not good before knowing anything about God. Further, God is in the beginning of one’s education described as good; it is only later on that we draw an identity between God and goodness and say that goodness is from God and that God is goodness itself and is His own goodness.

To the old Socratic puzzle, then, whether God wills what is good or whether good is what God wills, we answer that in reality neither God is prior to goodness nor goodness, to God, but rather the two are identical with each other; nor does that make God an abstract entity, for in Him, as I have mentioned a number of times, the abstract and the concrete merge into one simple entity which is the ground of all existing things, both abstract and concrete.

In (ST, I, 19, 9, ad 3) Aquinas writes:

The statements that evil exists, and that evil exists not, are opposed as contradictories; yet the statements that anyone wills evil to exist and that he wills it not to be, are not so opposed; since either is affirmative. God therefore neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills to permit evil to be done; and this is a good.

Similarly, predestination applies not to God’s will but to His knowledge: copying Aquinas we can say that God neither wills anyone to be saved, nor wills them to be damned but wills to allow each person to determine his own destiny and either save or damn himself.

Now this is to be amplified by noting that (1) God wishes that everyone be saved; (2) He helps people with grace and therefore is not a mere passive observer; and (3) since there are no actually transcircumstantially depraved people, everyone is eventually saved.

Finally, what are we to make of the Aquinas’s idea that God’s knowledge is the cause of the thing known? Well, it is the cause only if it is joined to His will. Otherwise, if God lets things happen on their own, He knows the outcome of every event by predicting it.

This time by the clever H.J. McCloskey. Consider first the following sophism: “Natural calamities do not necessarily turn people to God, but rather present the problem of evil in an acute form; and the problem of evil is said to account for more defections from religion than any other cause.” (Critiques of God, 210) But, of course, physical evil encourages 2nd-order moral goods or gives them a chance to arise; it does not guarantee them. The point is that some people turn to God in difficult situations; that others do not is unfortunate but is a price to be paid for, e.g., the salvation of the elect. Without (n)th-order evil there would be no (n+1)st-order good at all. Hence the argument fails.

But McCloskey is just getting started. He writes: “Surely, if God is all-powerful, He could have made a better universe in the first place, or one with better laws of nature governing it, so that the operation of its laws did not produce calamities and pain.” (211) Our author is equivocating on the word “better.” God could and did make a better world for humans to live: both the Garden of Eden and heaven qualify as such worlds. But God could not create a world better suited for soul-making. To claim otherwise is an empty gesture without a detailed plan of how another universe could conduce to self-making more effectively.

To the argument that evil is necessary for some greater good, McCloskey replies that it shows only that some evil may be necessary and that a “supplementary argument” would be needed which “would take the form of a proof that all the evil that occurs is in fact valuable and necessary as a means to a greater good.” (212) But if we are good rule utilitarians, we might say that only the rules according to which evil is endured and good is created in its stead are justified; particular evils may indeed be unjustified. Our author proceeds then to argue that, given the apparent desirability of evil, “it would be dangerous to eliminate evil because we may thereby introduce a discordant element into the divine symphony of the universe; and, conversely, it may be wrong to condemn the elimination of what is good, because the latter may result in the production of more, higher goods.” (213) McCloskey again confuses God’s perspective and the human perspective. From God’s point of view, evil is useful in the production of higher-order goods (as, for example, physical evil produces moral good). But humans are tasked to seek happiness and create as much good as they can. It matters who is doing good. Quoting W.D. Niven, “Which is preferable — a grim fight with the possibility of splendid triumph; or no battle at all?” (213) It just won’t do, for God or whoever, to inject people with a happiness or utility serum; happiness must be earned through struggle with adversity.

McCloskey answers that physical evil is justified only when moral good produced in response to it actually occurs and outweighs the physical evil. Otherwise the physical evil is not “absorbed.” But again, the idea is to make higher-order goods possible, not inevitable.

On pain as a stimulant to action, our author objects that “[p]ain often frustrates human endeavor, pain is not essential as a goad with many men, and where pain is a goad to higher endeavors, it is clear that less evil means to the same end are available to an omnipotent God.” (216) There is no need to reply to this in detail. Replace “pain” with “dissatisfaction” or “discontentment,” and you will obtain the axiom of human action, and we can’t imagine finite rational beings in a world with metaphysical evil who are not subject to this axiom.

We read that “[n]either all moral goodness nor the highest moral goodness is triumph in the fact of adversity or benevolence towards others in suffering. Christ Himself stressed this when He observed that the two great commandments were commandments to love. Love does not depend for its possibility on the existence and conquest of evil.” (216) Well, first, isn’t benevolence a kind of love? At any rate, love depends on good not only as possessed but also as desired. And it is the attainment of the desired goods and avoidance of the undesired evils, both of which may be arduous, that are valuable. One cannot grow in love and create one’s own personality without doing works of mercy which are driven by love and which depend on lower-order evil. For example, working to get Ron Paul elected president is a higher order moral good which is a response to a lower order moral evil of the warmongers and torturers and the facsists and socialists of all parties.

I’d like to conclude with McCloskey’s quoting Joyce: “To receive our final beatitude as the fruit of our labors, and as the recompense of a hard-won victory, is an incomparably higher destiny than to receive it without any effort on our part. And since God in His wisdom has seen fit to give us such a lot as this, it was inevitable that man should have the power to choose wrong. We could not be called to merit the reward due to victory without being exposed to the possibility of defeat.” (221) It may also be added that without any effort on a man’s part, there will be no “person” receiving the final beatitude, for it is only through effort that virtues are determined and personalities are built. McCloskey’s objections to this are not worth engaging.

John Dewey writes: “It may be asked by those who do not like to look upon the darker side of the history of religions why the darker facts should be brought up. We all know that civilized man has a background of bestiality and superstition and that these elements are still with us. … How could the course of religion in its entire sweep not be marked by practices that are shameful in their cruelty and lustfulness, and by beliefs that are degraded and intellectually incredible?” (Critiques of God, 186) This wonderful quote should alert us that religion is placed in a disadvantaged position relative to science. Scientists are never blamed for the insufficiency of their and our knowledge; they are not blamed for technological imperfections and failures to improve the world quickly enough; they are simply encouraged to continue their search for the true and the useful.

Religion, on the other hand, is expected to be perfect. If people sin and teach untruth or not the whole truth about the ultimate reality, eschatology, moral theology, and other sides of religion, then “God is not great.” Theology must have all the answers; otherwise, off with its head.

It should be made clear that the study of God and related matters is a branch of human knowledge at least equal in importance and dignity to any other branch. There is progress there, but there may be regress, if true beliefs are renounced in favor of falsehoods. As Rothbard writes,

Bringing the word “paradigm” into intellectual discourse, Kuhn demolished what I like to call the “Whig theory of the history of science.” The Whig theory, subscribed to by almost all historians of science, including economics, is that scientific thought progresses patiently, one year after another developing, sifting, and testing theories, so that science marches onward and upward, each year, decade, or generation learning more and possessing ever more correct scientific theories.

On analogy with the Whig theory of history, coined in mid-nineteenth-century England, which maintained that things are always getting (and therefore must get) better and better, the Whig historian of science, seemingly on firmer ground than the regular Whig historian, implicitly or explicitly asserts that “later is always better” in any particular scientific discipline. The Whig historian (whether of science or of history proper) really maintains that, for any point of historical time, “whatever was, was right,” or at least better than “whatever was earlier.”

…

There can therefore be no presumption whatever in economics that later thought is better than earlier, or even that all well-known economists have contributed their sturdy mite to the developing discipline. For it becomes very likely that, rather than everyone contributing to an ever-progressing edifice, economics can and has proceeded in contentious, even zigzag fashion, with later systemic fallacy sometimes elbowing aside earlier but sounder paradigms, thereby redirecting economic thought down a total erroneous or even tragic path. The overall path of economics may be up, or it may be down, over any given time period.

Exactly the same conclusion applies equally well to theology as to economics. It is a most remarkable achievement of the Catholic Church that for 2,000 years it has in general, and despite numerous setbacks, preserved and increased the deposit of faith.

We can only hope that we can understand God better as time goes on, and the articles of faith are deepened and explicated with ever greater precision and scope. It is not God, therefore, who is not great; it is our knowledge of Him. But, just as scientists calmly develop theories and technologies, often against hostile paradigms, so must philosophers be permitted to work to improve our understanding of God. It is simply unfair to demand perfection from religion; it is, in fact, even less rational to expect perfection from religion than to expect it from science, for science deals with the finite and therefore potentially comprehensible world, while one of the objects of study of theology is the infinite God Who, to boot, is unseen and can be known, outside of direct experience, only through His effects. One encounters here all manner of pitfalls.

It may, of course, be objected that the demand that a scientist makes on theology, either natural or revealed, is merely that is be purged from inconsistencies, contradictions, and conflicts with mature sciences. And that sounds entirely reasonable. But accomplishing this goal, again, takes time. And we must be patient, even as we try our best to succeed.

Erich Fromm accuses many strands of the modern Christianity of being “authoritarian” rather than “humanistic.” An authoritarian religion depreciates the individual; it makes him weak, unloving, insignificant, even as it glorifies God. “The essential element in authoritarian religion and in the authoritarian religious experience is the surrender to a power transcending man. The main virtue of this type of religion is obedience, its cardinal sin is disobedience. … Submission to a powerful authority is one of the avenues by which man escapes from his feeling of aloneness and limitation. In the act of surrender he loses his independence and integrity as an individual…” (Critiques of God, 164) It is in this very act of adoring the infinite God that the human dependence and irrelevance are made manifest. “He projects the best he has onto God and thus impoverishes himself. … In worshipping God he tries to get in touch with that part of himself which he has lost through projection.” (172) This results in a man’s “alienation” from himself. Devotion to such a God is masochistic in nature, because the believer hates and despises himself in order the better to contrast the greatness of God with his own worthlessness. There is in him an “unconscious desire to be weak and powerless.” “We find furthermore that this masochistic tendency is usually accompanied by its very opposite, the tendency to rule and to dominate others…” (174)

“Humanistic” religion, on the other hand, is concerned with man’s own perfection, of power, knowledge, love and whatever else is required for happiness: “Inasmuch as humanistic religions are theistic, God is a symbol of man’s own powers which he tries to realize in his life, and is not a symbol of force and domination, having power over man.” (165) There is a difference between humility which results from knowledge of one’s own abilities and potentialities and “self-humiliation” of authoritarianism. “God is the image of man’s higher self, a symbol of what man potentially is or ought to become…” (172) There is a strand of process theism, in that “God needs man as much as man needs God” (171)

Alright, the first question I want to ask is, who psychoanalyzes the psychoanalyzers? Is Fromm an NT Rational rebelling against the SJ Guardians? His notions, though many, are not worth a penny. For example, in (ST, I, 6, 4) Aquinas writes that “everything is called good by reason of the similitude of the divine goodness belonging to it, which is formally its own goodness, whereby it is denominated good.” (italics added) So, all things possess goodness and are good in and of themselves; they are not, for example, modes of a pantheistic God. In (I, 90, 1) he writes that “Augustine mentions certain opinions which he calls ‘exceedingly and evidently perverse, and contrary to the Catholic Faith,’ among which the first is the opinion that ‘God made the soul not out of nothing, but from Himself.’” Aquinas repeatedly states that man’s task is to imitate God, e.g., “[c]onsequently both angel and man naturally seek their own good and perfection.” (I, 60, 3)

Those who say that Christianity (or Catholicism) is authoritarian fail to realize that insofar as it prescribes duties and virtues, it prescribes them according to the natural law: if or since, it says, you want to be happy, do this and that or be such and such. The Church cannot be accused of arbitrarily and incorrectly telling people how to live.

As Pope Benedict XVI said in an interview, “Christianity, Catholicism, isn’t a collection of prohibitions: it’s a positive option.”

Then there is the charge that submission to God entails a renunciation of a man’s dignity, rationality, individuality, etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. If indeed there is any submission, it means preferring the best good, which is the fullness of truth, beauty, etc. which is God to any temporal good. To be sure, winning against the flesh, the world, and the devil is difficult and can involve unpleasant experiences, such as penances. But the end is communion, righteousness, comprehension, and joy, precisely what Fromm prefers in a religion.

In other words, the case against Christianity from “psychoanalysis” is fully dismissed.

“For the principle task of civilization, its actual raison d’être, is to defend us against nature.” (Critiques of God, 144, “The Future of an Illusion”) You hear that, you tree huggers? When was the last time a tree hugged you? (Yes, the fruits and lumber and oxygen that trees produce are a boon to mankind. But all such trees are privately owned. You want more of them? Privatize all land and everything on it.)

Following Thomas Aquinas, I define faith as the assent of the intellect to the revealed knowledge of God. It is an act of choice.

Aquinas writes that faith stands between science and opinion. In what way does it so stand? It does if we compare the relative strengths of the influences that impel the intellect to assent to the truth of the corresponding propositions. Thus a scientific demonstration of a conclusion will move the mind to accept the conclusion as true inexorably. Scientific evidence is seen and hence has intrinsic power to convince. For example, seeing chlorine produced from salt is sufficient to persuade anybody of the correctness of the chemical reaction

2NaCl + 2H₂O → Cl₂ + H₂ + 2NaOH.

On the other hand, faith requires an act of choice to give in to God-given disposition to believe and to accept the unseen knowledge revealed to one by God — knowledge that cannot be obtained by scientific investigation. (This knowledge is both generally available in the form of the religious doctrine, as well as special and personal that is infused into a person by an act of God. Although some aspects of the divine reality can be grasped with the help of reason and philosophy, more can be known about God than by use of only these tools. Philosophical and scientific knowledge can nevertheless assist one in keeping faith by making the task of the intellect easier.) One can go either way, but when the assent is given, the falsity of the propositions opposite to those that are the object of faith is not in doubt, precisely as is the case with scientific demonstrations.

Note also that faith and science are similar in the sense that assenting to true beliefs and rejecting false beliefs, as a rule, leads to happiness, while the opposite actions lead to unhappiness, for “to faith those things in themselves belong, the sight of which we shall enjoy in eternal life, and by which we are brought to eternal life.” (ST, II-II, 1, 8)

By contrast, opinion is changeable and readily accepts the possibility of the opposite and so can at any time be swayed by new arguments. Of course, science, too, is amenable to new evidence. But then so is faith.

What, then, is responsible for the certainty that Christians, say, feel that the articles of faith are true? It is the combination of (1) the historicity of the key events that gave rise to said articles; (2) the lack of any conflict between reason and faith; (3) the actual ability of the revealed facts to solve problems that unaided reason cannot solve, such as whether and in what sense God is a Trinity and a Unity; how the perfect God as an aspect of charity, and such like; (4) the ability of Christianity, rightly understood, to bring the best out of people; (5) the inner witness of the Holy Spirit which testifies as to which doctrines are to be believed; (6) the infallibility of the Pope on matters of faith and morals.

To sum it up, faith presupposes an act of choice that transforms a mere opinion into a belief whose veracity is not subject to doubt. Faith is thus hostile to opinion and is complementary to science.

Wallace I. Matson considers the following two arguments equally weak:

I. Natural objects share with artifacts the common characteristics of adjustment of parts and curious adapting of means to ends.

II. Artifacts have these characteristics because they are products of design.

Conclusion. Therefore natural objects are probably products of a great designer.

and

I’. Natural objects share with artifacts the common characteristics of being colored.

II’. Artifacts are colored by being painted or dyed.

Conclusion’. Therefore natural objects are probably colored by a great painter-dyer. (Critiques of God, 84ff)

But of course they are in no way equivalent. For we do not infer that an object is intelligently designed from its being colored. But we can so infer this from its having adjustment of parts and curious adapting of means to ends. In other words, it is true that everything that exhibits curious adaptation of means to ends and is such that we know whether or not it was the product of intelligent design, in fact was the product of intelligent design. But it is not true that everything that is colored and is such that we know whether or not it was the product of intelligent design, in fact was the product of intelligent design.

Our author, of course, disagrees: “Proponents of the design argument take it for granted that the properties according to which we judge whether or not some object is an artifact are accurate adjustment of parts and curious adapting of means to ends. But that is not the way we judge, even provisionally, whether something is an artifact or not. This is clear from our being able to tell whether something is an artifact without knowing what it is for or whether its parts are accurately adjusted.” (88) But of course, these criteria are sufficient for correct identification of intelligently designed objects; they need not be necessary, as well. For example, specified complexity is another general algorithm for inferring design which does not reference means and ends. As I point out here, purpose of design is a different measure than complexity of design. And irreducible complexity is a mark of design which is specifically aimed at countering the possibility of undirected Darwinian evolution of biological structures.

Purpose of design, however, is linked to complexity, and complexity, to purpose. For specified complexity requires “conditionally independent patterns.” As Dembski writes,

Crucial here is that patterns not be artificially imposed on events after the fact. For instance, if an archer shoots arrows at a wall and we then paint targets around the arrows so that they stick squarely in the bull’s-eyes, we impose a pattern after the fact. Any such pattern is not independent of the arrow’s trajectory. On the other hand, if the targets are set up in advance (”specified”) and then the archer hits them accurately, we know it was not by chance but rather by design (provided, of course, that hitting the targets is sufficiently improbable). The way to characterize this independence of patterns is via the probabilistic notion of conditional independence. A pattern is conditionally independent of an event if adding our knowledge of the pattern to a chance hypothesis does not alter the event’s probability under that hypothesis. (The Design Revolution, 82)

And the purpose of design is one such independent pattern. For example, getting a royal flush in poker is the specification of an event, precisely because there is a purpose to getting it, namely winning the game. Victory in poker is an example of a pattern which is indeed not imposed after the fact but is “conditionally independent.” Or, a biological system is specified, because it is essential for the organism to survive and prosper, also a clear purpose (for the organism).

On the other hand, specified complexity ministers to purpose. As I write elsewhere,

What’s more, “In order to be a candidate for natural selection a system must have minimal function: the ability to accomplish a task in physically realistic circumstances.” (Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, 45) This is an additional requirement to IC, which merely lists the parts that are jointly necessary for any function, even that below minimal. Minimal function demands that, even if all the parts are present, they be such as to 1. enable the molecular machine to do its job with at least minimal competence; 2. make the machine be not less efficient than can be achieved with simpler means. The proper function is one that requires “the greatest amount of the system’s internal complexity. … The function of a system is determined from the system’s internal logic: the function is not necessarily the same thing as the purpose to which the designer wished to apply the system.” (Behe, 196)

But, we might say, any machine worth building is inevitably going to be complex, even irreducibly complex. Thus, if a system (such as a computer or the immune system) is to fulfill its function, its specified complexity must needs be very high.

Though Rothbard savaged poor Mr. Hook, the latter, nevertheless, presents a startling description of suicide in the rather dated anthology Critiques of God: Making the Case Against Belief in God: “Now the act of suicide is an act of radical destuction, which destroys at one stroke the possibility of any kind of personal experience. ‘I am not destroying something or other in the world (by my act of suicide), I am destroying the world as a whole.’” (28, referencing William Poteat) It supports the saying that whoever saves one life, saves the world entire (which by the way is a line in the movie Schindler’s List, also savaged by Rothbard!). Hook’s point is to elucidate somehow the idea of creation ex nihilo; the disappearance of the self is inconceivable; being born, the emergence of an “I” is also highly peculiar; so creation is an act that may be compared to both of the above.

Can we say that (1) the four moral virtues are in us from the animal part of our nature, (2) the three intellectual virtues are in us from the angelic part of our nature, and (3) the three theological virtues are in us from our nature made deiform? In other words, moral virtues (a) came about by gradual evolution of species and (b) evolve or increase step by step in the individual; intellectual virtues are (a’) “intelligently designed” in the species, though still (b’) evolve in the individual; theological virtues are 100% designed, both (a”) in species and (b”) in the individual.

… the first time as a tragedy, the second time as a farce. Have the Jews become the PC Nazis, committing the contradictory sins of policing thoughts and deathly fearing the pogroms, in the US and theocratic nationalists (who have, I so heard, learned a great deal about military strategies from Hitler) in Israel? Come on, folks, stop telling people what to think, stop being afraid (”The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” (Prov 28:1)), and, for goodness sake, go before a judge and resolve your ridiculous real estate disputes you are having in the Middle East. (Here is a key to success in this endeavor: private property.)

HT: lewrockwell.com

Swinburne’s point is that being too close to God will make one’s choices of good as versus evil too easy. If one is convinced that God will disapprove of his behavior or that He will punish him in the afterlife, then we will “have less opportunity for serious good actions. That will make our commitment to the good a less serious one.” (The Existence of God, 270) “If God’s existence and intentions became items of evident common knowledge, then our freedom to choose between good and evil would be vastly curtailed.” (293) Think of the consequences of this view. Is our author saying that God reveals Himself to the sinners and avoids revealing Himself to the naturally virtuous? “Agnosticism allows the agnostic to make a more serious commitment to the good than he would be able to make if the presence of God were more obvious.” (271) (Here we may ask whether if there is no God, then everything is permitted; or whether, on the contrary, virtue is its own reward, vice, its own punishment, and the fruit of natural virtue is imperfect happiness in this life, as Socrates would surely argue.) So, agnosticism is a both a precondition and consequence of natural goodness! It was said about someone (though I can’t recall where I read this) that his natural righteousness and imperviousness to vice and sin impeded his religious progress.

But, Swinburne continues, “[o]nce he has become committed to the good, the advantage of agnosticism in helping him do it with great seriousness disappears.” Apparently our author recommends the following practice of spiritual progress in life: you start out as an unbeliever, practice natural virtues, such as fear of the law, fortitude, …, wisdom. Then you examine the evidence of the existence of God and become a natural theist. Finally, God uplifts you into supernatural fellowship with Him via grace, and you become a Christian and, hopefully, a hero and a saint. And you can’t skip any of the steps of this journey.

It might be asked, doesn’t studying philosophy (such as our friend Socrates), for example, make the choosing of good easier? Is practical wisdom, too, to be hidden from people so that it does not influence their actions? Will the “seriousness” of their decision to do good be diminished? If they know that they will be unhappy if they do evil, isn’t that an incentive to do good? How is it different from the incentive that theism or Christianity also provides? One possible answer is that God is an external incentive, while a man’s own happiness is an internal incentive. But is not fear of God a virtue, the beginning of wisdom? Perhaps Swinburne’s position can be defended simply by noticing that everyone is born an agnostic and remains this way for some time, e.g., at least for the remainder of his childhood. But eventual conversion is to follow, for grace requires nature, and one must at least have reached the age of reason and accomplished something worthwhile and attained a certain amount of inner goodness on his own powers in order to be able to believe the articles of faith and accept God’s other gifts. Hence, for example, the sacrament of confirmation.