Tag Archives: Knowledge

Commentary

MUST-READ: What’s the difference between science and scientism?

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Here’s an article by Edward Feser at Public Discourse. (H/T via ECM)

What is scientism?

Scientism is the view that all real knowledge is scientific knowledge—that there is no rational, objective form of inquiry that is not a branch of science. There is at least a whiff of scientism in the thinking of those who dismiss ethical objections to cloning or embryonic stem cell research as inherently “anti-science.” There is considerably more than a whiff of it in the work of New Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who allege that because religion has no scientific foundation (or so they claim) it “therefore” has no rational foundation at all.

What’s wrong with scientism?

Despite its adherents’ pose of rationality, scientism has a serious problem: it is either self-refuting or trivial. Take the first horn of this dilemma. The claim that scientism is true is not itself a scientific claim, not something that can be established using scientific methods. Indeed, that science is even a rational form of inquiry (let alone the only rational form of inquiry) is not something that can be established scientifically. For scientific inquiry itself rests on a number of philosophical assumptions: that there is an objective world external to the minds of scientists; that this world is governed by causal regularities; that the human intellect can uncover and accurately describe these regularities; and so forth. Since science presupposes these things, it cannot attempt to justify them without arguing in a circle. And if it cannot even establish that it is a reliable form of inquiry, it can hardly establish that it is the only reliable form. Both tasks would require “getting outside” science altogether and discovering from that extra-scientific vantage point that science conveys an accurate picture of reality—and in the case of scientism, that only science does so.

What else is wrong with scientism?

The irony is that the very practice of science itself, which involves the formulation of hypotheses, the weighing of evidence, the invention of technical concepts and vocabularies, the construction of chains of reasoning, and so forth—all mental activities saturated with meaning and purpose—falls on the “subjective,” “manifest image” side of scientism’s divide rather than the “objective,” “scientific image” side. Human thought and action, including the thoughts and actions of scientists, is of its nature irreducible to the meaningless, purposeless motions of particles and the like. Some thinkers committed to scientism realize this, but conclude that the lesson to draw is not that scientism is mistaken, but that human thought and action are themselves fictions. According to this radical position—known as “eliminative materialism” since it entails eliminating the very concept of the mind altogether instead of trying to reduce mind to matter—what is true of human beings is only what can be put in the technical jargon of physics, chemistry, neuroscience and the like. There is no such thing as “thinking,” “believing,” “desiring,” “meaning,” etc.; there is only the firing of neurons, the secretion of hormones, the twitching of muscles, and other such physiological events.

Scientism can’t even ground our own experience of 1st-person consciousness.

News

MUST-HEAR: Brian Auten explains why Christians ought to learn apologetics

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A super 20-minute podcast from Apologetics 315.

The MP3 file is here. (20 minutes)

PDF Transcript here.

Topics:

  • what is the definition of apologetics?
  • what do you mean by defense? a testimony?
  • what is the goal of apologetics?
  • does apologetics create belief? should it?
  • what are offensive and defensive apologetics?
  • should Christians fear intellectual opposition to Christianity?
  • is apologetics good for believers?
  • does apologetics help you to be more confident when witnessing?
  • what was the role of apologetics in the Bible?
  • what was the role of apologetics in the early church?
  • was apologetics central or peripheral to Paul’s ministry?
  • does the Bible present Christianity as personal preference or public truth?
  • did Jesus appeal to objective evidence to get people to believe him?
  • is there a requirement for all Christians to make a defense of their faith?
  • should Christians care if non-believers have false beliefs about God?
  • does the Bible need to be defended? What does the Bible say about it?
  • Is an intellectual approach to evangelism antithetical to faith?

My posts on apologetics advocacy are here:

    These were all quite popular when they were originally posted, so it’s good to re-post them.

    Actual arguments and counter-arguments are here, if you want to know the basics. Debates and lectures are here to see how this gets used. Most Christians never even dream that their faith can be debated at Harvard or Columbia or Oxford!

    Christianity is a knowledge tradition. It’s not a feelings tradition.

    UPDATE: If you’re really good at apologetics, you can debate the top atheists in public, and say things like this:

    (The full debate is here)

    Mentoring

    How an interest in apologetics is a sign of a friendship with God

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    Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason wants Christians to be “ambassadors for Christ”. What’s that?

    Here is a dictionary definition of ambassador:

    1. a diplomatic official of the highest rank, sent by one sovereign or state to another as its resident representative (ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary).

    2. a diplomatic official of the highest rank sent by a government to represent it on a temporary mission, as for negotiating a treaty.

    3. a diplomatic official serving as permanent head of a country’s mission to the United Nations or some other international organization.

    4. an authorized messenger or representative. Abbreviation: Amb., amb.

    Greg Koukl says that a good ambassador needs 3 things: knowledge, wisdom and character.

    Greg writes:

    I’ve heard it said that sometimes you will be the only living Bible that anyone can read. Well, that’s what it means to be an ambassador. You will speak for Christ. One way or another, for good or for ill, you will speak for Him if you are a follower of Jesus Christ. So we want to strengthen good representatives, and we know that takes emphasis in three areas.

    One are to strengthen as an ambassador is knowledge. In other words, you’ve got to know a few things that your sovereign wants you to represent to the rest of the world. So you’ve got to have this knowledge base.

    Secondly, you’ve got to communicate that knowledge in a way that is sensitive to the people that you’re sent to. You need to understand their way of thinking. You need to understand their language after a fashion. You must be diplomatic, tactical after a fashion. So there is a certain wisdom, the right use of knowledge, that’s necessary for you to be an effective ambassador.

    A good ambassador, any ambassador, packages that knowledge and strategy in the manner of delivery in himself or herself. It’s all wrapped up in an individual, and if that individual is offensive, if that individual is a bad representative, it doesn’t matter that the knowledge and tactics are sound. If the individual is wrong then the message loses its force. This is why we emphasize not just knowledge, not just wisdom, but also character. You must package the entire message in you personally so that you can be an effective, accurate, and virtuous representative or ambassador for Jesus Christ.

    I think that a good ambassador for Christ needs to be motivated, as well. A good ambassador is concerned when some people have false beliefs about God’s existence, character and purposes. An ambassador cannot stand by and do nothing while God’s reputation is diminished in public. It is this concern for God as a friend that drives people to study apologetics, as well as theology,science, history, etc. We want to know what God is like, what he’s done and how we can show these things to be true.

    The mission of Christian ambassadors

    Consider 2 Corinthians 5:11-21, especially verses 11 and 2:

    11Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.

    12We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.

    13If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

    14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

    15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

    16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

    17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

    18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

    19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

    20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

    21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

    This passage about reconciling God and man is one of my favorites in the Bible.

    God has chosen us to communicate on his behalf to people who don’t know him. An ambassador doesn’t treat God as a means to achieving happiness, security, health and wealth in this life. Nor is the ambassador’s job to let other people be happy without a relationship with the real God who is really there. The ambassador has a responsibility to explain God’s existence, character and purposes to those who are still ignorant of him. And that takes effort. God is not interested in making his human “pets” happy. He’s given us a task to accomplish – a task that may well consume a good deal of time, effort and money. A task that may diminish our happiness by making us different and unpopular.

    Apologetics demonstrates your friendship with God

    I often think about how to test others to see whether they are genuine Christians or not. This can be done for friendship or even when testing a prospective mate. A subjective “Christian” who invents their own view of God subjectively, using intuition and emotions, is not going to put themselves second for God and serve him as an ambassador. Instead, they’ll think that a relationship with God really means projecting their own desire for happiness onto God. “God” is there to make them feel happy, not to make demands on them.

    And if a person doesn’t want a relationship with God as a real person, they won’t relate to you as a real person, either. If a person doesn’t think that God has purposes and feelings distinct from their own, they won’t think you have purposes and feelings distinct from their own. If a person thinks that God’s purpose is to make them happier, then they’ll think that your purpose is to make them happier. If a person is not willing to sacrifice their interests for God’s interests, they aren’t going to sacrifice their interests for your interests, either.

    am⋅bas⋅sa⋅dor

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    // ]]> [am-bas–uh-der, -dawr] Show IPA

    Use ambassador in a Sentence

    –noun

    1. a diplomatic official of the highest rank, sent by one sovereign or state to another as its resident representative (ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary).
    2. a diplomatic official of the highest rank sent by a government to represent it on a temporary mission, as for negotiating a treaty.
    3. a diplomatic official serving as permanent head of a country’s mission to the United Nations or some other international organization.
    4. an authorized messenger or representative. Abbreviation: Amb., amb.