You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
I've had enough. You've pushed me over the edge. I pull out the NRO.44 Automag of philosophers: Ed Feser. The comment thread is 62 comments long, the text is a couple of thousand words but I thought I'd introduce you all to the Thomistic critique of Paley's design argument and have you toss around the possibility that there's a 3rd way of looking at the problem:
From an Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) point of view, one of the main problems with “Intelligent Design” theory is that it presupposes the same mechanistic conception of nature that underlies naturalism. (See here, here, and here for some of my earlier remarks on this and other problems with ID.) ID theorists sometimes object to this characterization of their position, as William Dembski does several times in his book The Design Revolution (e.g. at pages 25 and 151).
I'm not going to reproduce the whole thing here, but you can read it at your leisure and chime in in the comments.
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Nov '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Ed Feser has been on my mind for days now -- been hoping you or somebody would mention him re ID. Ordered his The Last Superstition a week ago, and looking forward to reading it.
Feser has been one of my great contemporary heroes ever since eight years ago he gave Brian Leiter -- perhaps the greatest Leftist thug in all of academia (and, to one's great horror, now ensconced at U Chicago) -- a complete smack-down.
Sep '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Feser is very, very good. The Last Superstition is not to everyone's taste. He really, really lays the nasty down on Dawkins, Hitchens et al. He pulls their pants down around their ankles and gives them the spanking their potty mouthed antics deserve. Feser is a former atheist who completely drank the Koolaid of secular, atheist contemporary analytic philosophy so he's a potent critic.
Two other books you should pick up when you're done with TLS (as Feserites call it) are his Philosophy of Mind and Aquinas. He also did the Cambridge Companion to Hayek and Locke.
Sep '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
You'll get a good guffaw when he shows how all the New Atheists criticize Aquinas by reading a few quick passages from the Summa Theologiae without realizing they have to read the Summa Contra Gentiles for the actual detail. If my memory serves me correctly, the proper explication of one of the 5 Ways requires 36 pages of text in SCG.
Whoops.
Aug '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Well, having read the article and skimmed the comments, I can't say I understood it. But then I know practically zilch about formal philosophy.
I will say, though, that viewing God as a designer who modifies pre-existing matter the way a sculptor sculpts a sculpture is absurd, if that's indeed what IDers claim. If God truly is God of all, God doesn't "sculpt" matter that just happens to be lying around somehow: God is the source of that matter -- it wouldn't exist in any form (heck it wouldn't even exist "formlessly") if God had not made it be.
Was that what Feser was getting at? Kinda sorta?
Because the form and matter stuff, and the efficient causes, were way over my head.
Sep '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
MFR,
Give it time. It takes awhile. And Feser's Beginner's Guide to Aquinas is really an intermediate level text. Start with Fr Ed Oakes, SJ book review The Wedge of Truth in the January 2001 issue of First Things. You could say its a mini-essay subtitled: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism. Then, read the letters in response a few months later and you'll have the sketch outline of the arguments.
Dec '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Fascinating. One of my hang ups with ToE (and many other things) is the absolute commitment to a solely materialistic view of being. It's way too limited of an outlook.
Nov '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Pseudodionysius: Feser is very, very good. The Last Superstition is not to everyone's taste. He really, really lays the nasty down on Dawkins, Hitchens et al. He pulls their pants down around their ankles and gives them the spanking their potty mouthed antics deserve. Feser is a former atheist who completely drank the Koolaid of secular, atheist contemporary analytic philosophy so he's a potent critic.
Two other books you should pick up when you're done with TLS (as Feserites call it) are his Philosophy of Mind and Aquinas. He also did the Cambridge Companion to Hayek and Locke. · Jun 29 at 9:14pm
Mentioning Hitchens's pants around his ankles is a grotesque violation of the CoC.
Nov '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
I need to pick up Feser's Aquinas book as well. I read his Philosophy of Mind a few years back. Superb.
Are you familiar with James Chastek's website, Just Thomism? Chastek is an acquaintance of mine from when I was at Claremont. Smartest person under the age of 40 I've ever met.
I'm not exactly at Thomist myself -- I'm certainly inclined to it, and want to explore it more. I've been reading more and more of Aristotle in the last few years...
Oct '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Isn’t Creationism simply a reaction to the increasing use of Darwinism as an argument for the godless creation of the universe or the rebuttal of those who believe in a literal Bible? Creationism for me lacks a philosophical and theological basis. Aristotle’s argument for an unmoved mover and St. Thomas elaboration of it are very compelling. Personally, I believe in a single Creator and that Darwin taught us many insightful things. I don’t feel schizophrenic or that I hold contradictory beliefs.
Jan '11
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
The conversation is very interesting, entertaining, and instructive, but what troubles me about all of this "speculation" is that we have not yet perceived the depths of our ignorance with respect to natural phenomena. Once we have unambiguous knowledge, well understood, perhaps we can speak with greater authority about these things.
Until then, faith, and only faith will be satisfying. That goes for both tails of the speculation curve.
May '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Don't confuse a commitment to finding natural explanations for things with a commitment to denying theism. Saying "anything can happen if God wills it", while true, is not very useful as a scientific approach, because it tosses all the laws of physics out the window and leaves you unable to conclude anything.
Nov '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Clarification please on your sentence that I have placed in italics particularly with respect to theological. Theologically, the Bible assumes God as the eternal omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent uncaused Causer of everything. If that is not a theological basis for creationism, I guess I don't know what one is. It's all in His name YHWH (Yahweh, Jehovah) which in Hebrew is simply "He is". It's is describing in language the ever-present One. Since He dwells in eternity there is no other way that He could be named and that's theological.
Edited on June 30, 2011 at 6:30pmDec '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Mark Wilson
Don't confuse a commitment to finding natural explanations for things with a commitment to denying theism. Saying "anything can happen if God wills it", while true, is not very useful as a scientific approach, because it tosses all the laws of physics out the window and leaves you unable to conclude anything. · Jun 30 at 9:21am
I'm not really even referring to theism with this critique. My concern is more that science seems to believe that there exists only natural explanations and only natural things. It comes off as denying any immaterial existence. If the manifest world is all there really is to reality then bring on the bourbon and buxom beauties! Science, while useful, is still inadequate to guide a proper existence. It has no place for beauty, ethics, or hope.
May '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
The King Prawn
I'm not really even referring to theism with this critique. My concern is more that science seems to believe that there exists only natural explanations and only natural things. It comes off as denying any immaterial existence. If the manifest world is all there really is to reality then bring on the bourbon and buxom beauties! Science, while useful, is still inadequate to guide a proper existence. It has no place for beauty, ethics, or hope. · Jun 30 at 9:49am
I mistook materialism in your original comment to mean the denial of anything non-material. I'm not sure if you can say "science believes" anything in particular, because scientists consists of a mix of atheists and religious believers of various faiths. I agree with your last sentence, there is more to human experience than that which science can observe or explain.
Nov '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Mark Wilson
I mistook materialism in your original comment to mean the denial of anything non-material. I'm not sure if you can say "science believes" anything in particular, because scientists consists of a mix of atheists and religious believers of various faiths. I agree with your last sentence, there is more to human experience than that which science can observe or explain. · Jun 30 at 9:56am
So, being picky, there is more than what humans have experienced and more than that which humans, through science, have observed or explained.
Further pickiness, science does not believe anything just as a shovel does not believe that it should dig holes. Science is an inductive reasoning process of examination of the particular and extrapolation to the general by which humans arrive at beliefs.
Edited on June 30, 2011 at 8:55pmOct '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Robert Promm
Clarification please on your sentence that I have placed in italics particularly with respect to theological. Edited on Jun 30 at 09:30 am
Robert, I was just reflecting my own personal knowledge. The philosophers and theologians I studied in college did not discuss Creationism as I understand it. I do believe that God created the universe, but I don't consider myself a Creationist.
Jun '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Al Kennedy
Robert, I was just reflecting my own personal knowledge. The philosophers and theologians I studied in college did not discuss Creationism as I understand it. I do believe that God created the universe, but I don't consider myself a Creationist. · Jun 30 at 5:46pm
That makes sense, because in common parlance "Creationist" means one who believes in the literal interpretation of Genesis: a six day creation, a young Earth, etc.
Every orthodox Christian is a creationist In the broader sense of believing that God created the universe. It's spelled out explictly in all the oldest Christian creeds, for instance: "I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth."
Jun '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Midget Faded Rattlesnake:
I will say, though, that viewing God as a designer who modifies pre-existing matter the way a sculptor sculpts a sculpture is absurd, if that's indeed what IDers claim. If God truly is God of all, God doesn't "sculpt" matter that just happens to be lying around somehow: God is the source of that matter -- it wouldn't exist in any form (heck it wouldn't even exist "formlessly") if God had not made it be.
I don't think that's what IDers claim. For one thing they usually avoid identifying the designer, it could be God or aliens or a supercomputer.
But presuming the designer is God, I think that ID claims that God created us in a necessarily two-step process: first He created matter, and then He intervened to sculpt that matter into life. He didn't just sit back after the Big Bang and watch the universe unfold, because if He had there would be no life in it today or ever. I think the fundamental claim of ID is that no purely physical or material process could ever produce the species we see today.
Apr '11
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Just a question-What is it that so upsets people about a purely materialistic view of life? I don't ask that in a snarky or sneering way,as I am genuinely interested in understanding the objections people have to it.
I am an atheist and a materialist, of the most uncompromising sort. I do not believe there is anything out there except what can be accounted for by the laws of physics and chemistry (whether science could ever explain it or not is a different question; it is all probably too vast for human intellect to ever comprehend).. To complete the caricature, I even got that way largely by reading Pinker and Dawkins. Yet, I don't feel that my life is meaningless, and I am not immoral. And my materialistic leanings have made me more politically conservative, not less.
So, what is it about the proposition of there being no nonmaterial existence that is so bothersome to so many, yet not to me? What am I missing?
May '10
Re: You Asked For It. You Got It. ID Versus Thomas Aquinas Smackdown
Joseph Stanko
But presuming the designer is God, I think that ID claims that God created us in a necessarily two-step process: first He created matter, and then He intervened to sculpt that matter into life. He didn't just sit back after the Big Bang and watch the universe unfold, because if He had there would be no life in it today or ever. I think the fundamental claim of ID is that no purely physical or material process could ever produce the species we see today. · Jun 30 at 7:02pm
I think there's even more to it than that. Not only did God create the universe and breathe life into the first living organism. Proponents of ID typically claim there is irreducible complexity in certain biological system. They grant that evolution may occur in general, but they assert that certain features, like the eyeball or the central nervous system, are too impossibly complex and interdependent to have evolved from a natural process obeying the laws of physics. They say that in these instances, God directly intervened with an intelligent design for these biological systems. Who knows how many times this happened along the way.