The hidden premise

Alvin Plantinga

In previous posts in this blog I have mentioned that atheists sometimes try to justify their beliefs by using hidden premises in their reasoning, the most important of which is this:

God does not exist

At the end of their line of thought, they usually conclude that God does not exist, or some equivalent statement. As the starting premise is hidden, they probably don’t notice that they have incurred in circularity, one of the best-known fallacies since ancient times, which tries to prove the truth of a statement, by assuming from the beginning that the same statement is true.

In the introduction to his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx writes this:

Atheism, theism and science

Today, the world’s population is divided between two competing, irreconcilable systems: atheism and theism. They are irreconcilable, because they start from opposite fundamental axioms (God does not exist and God exists). The approximate distribution of the population is this:

• About 10% convinced atheists, willing to defend their ideas.
• 10-20% convinced theists, who try to live according to their beliefs.
• 10% agnostics, who in theory don’t accept either of the two axioms, although in practice they tend to approach one of the two opposite poles.
• 60-70% indifferent, either because they don’t care about the debate; or because they live as if God does not exist, without considering whether He exists; or because they have beliefs, but don’t let them affect their way of life.

The theological multiverse

In other posts in this blog (see one of the thematic threads at the end of this post) I have talked about various theories of multiverses and asserted that none of them is scientific, as it is impossible to prove that they are false. In fact, I doubt if they can even be considered philosophical. I consider them imaginative fantasies: science fiction, rather than science.

The funny thing is that the idea of the multiverse is not new. I’ve mentioned before that its first appearance in science fiction was in a novel by Clifford Simak (Cosmic Engineers, 1950) that develops a short story published in 1939 by the same author.

But Simak’s novel also has precedents; quite old, by the way. Chapter 21, verse 1 of Revelation, a book written towards the end of the first century, says this:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more. 

A new heaven and a new earth. What is this talking about? Obviously about another universe, where we are supposed to go, after our death. It seems, therefore, that in the Christian vision of the cosmos, God has made at least two universes: ours, and another one for the next life. This would be the theological multiverse, a name I’ve just invented.

When physicists talk about other universes, they often give free rein to their imagination. I’ll do the same.

The second universe would have its own time, independent of ours. If we want them to be related somehow, I’d say that the two axes of time are orthogonal (perpendicular to each other). Christ (God incarnated as a man), in his death, leaves our time and passes through to the other time. On his way, he captures all the human beings that have ever existed or will exist, and drags them to the other universe. We all reach the other universe at the initial moment of its own time. We all arrive at the same time. No one must wait for anyone in the next life.

I will add two additional considerations:

• Some atheist cosmologists cling to the various theories of the multiverse to safeguard their atheism. They seem to believe that, if the multiverse were proven to exist, this would show that God does not exist. I can’t see why. If God has created a universe, what can prevent him from creating two, one hundred or one hundred thousand? The discovery of a multiverse would do nothing but expand our field of vision, pointing out that there are more levels in the universe than are dreamt of in our philosophy, paraphrasing what Hamlet told Horatio. But this has happened before: Until the beginning of the 20th century, it was believed that the universe consisted just in the nearby stars. Later it was discovered that these stars make a galaxy, and that there are billions of galaxies, separated by huge empty spaces. This enormous increase in the size of the universe posed no problem for the faith of believers. If it were discovered that there is a multiverse (in other words: that the universe is even larger and more complex than we thought) it won’t be a problem either.
• I’d never dare to present my theory, described in this article, as if it were science. As things stand just now, none of the theories of the multiverse is science. There are several, most of them incompatible with the others. If an unexpected scientific advance were ever to take place, proving that one of them were true, that theory would become science. Just now there are no signs that such thing can happen. As for my theory, I am afraid we won't know whether it is true until after our death.

The same post in Spanish 

Thematic Thread on Multiverse and Fine Tuning: Previous Next

Thematic Thread on Science, Faith and Atheism: Previous Next

God’s action in the light of science

Cover of the book
Divine action & modern science
by Nicholas Saunders

As I mentioned in previous posts, neither the existence nor the non-existence of God can be proved by science. God, if He exists, cannot be the object of scientific knowledge. Consequently, from the rational point of view, the problem of the existence of God is philosophical rather than scientific. Several solutions have been proposed for this problem:

• Atheism: According to this solution, followed today by many, God does not exist and the existence of the universe would be a consequence just of chance. An additional problem, suggested by this theory, is that we really don’t know what chance is (see this post). Like dark matter and dark energy, it is just a name that tries to hide our ignorance.
• Pantheism: According to this solution, proposed by such distinguished names as Spinoza and Einstein, God is the universe. In other words, there is something in the universe that we cannot discover through scientific analysis, which explains in some way its own existence and ours. The contrast of this theory with the previous one is clear in Einstein’s words against the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics: God does not play dice. With those simple words, Einstein declared his disbelief regarding the concept of chance, used by many atheistic solutions to the problem. In this theory, the action of God in the world would take place only through natural causes, without any alteration (by means of compatibilist action).
• Deism: According to this solution, God exists and created the universe, but then He left it evolve alone. Originated in the eighteenth century, many French thinkers of the time (and a few later on, until today) adopted this theory. From this point of view, the problem of the action of God in the universe does not arise, because it denies that God acts in the universe.
• Providential Theism: According to this solution, God exists and created the universe, but then He doesn’t forget about it, but interacts with it in some way, directing its evolution. The problem of divine action only arises in the framework of this theory.

Interview with Manuel Alfonseca in a Spanish Newspaper

On February 23, 2018, a Spanish Newspaper (La Opinión, El Correo de Zamora) published this interview with me, performed by Ana Arias, which I am now translating into English. The interview was re-published a few days later (March 10) in the website ReligionEnLibertad (ReligionInFreedom). This is the translation of the interview:

He took an interest in science since he was quite small, as he says. At age 16 he wrote a book of zoology in two volumes that was never published. Anyway, whenever he has to consult information about some little known animal, he consults his book. "And I can find almost everything there," he adds. Now, at 71, he is an honorary professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

He believes in science. And also in God. Under the sponsorship of the Caja Rural Foundation and the Science-Religion University Forum held yesterday at the University College, Manuel Alfonseca gave a lecture about The Faith of Contemporary Atheist Scientists.

What is the faith of those scientists?

That God does not exist.

One hundred years since The Decline of the West

Oswald Spengler

This year it will mark one century since the publication in 1918 of the first volume of the book The Decline of the West, by Oswald Spengler. The second volume was published five years later, in 1923. This book was the first to raise the idea that our famed Western civilization is in decline. What can we say about it, a hundred years later?

The great historian of the twentieth century, Arnold J. Toynbee, agreed with Spengler on his fundamental idea, although not in the details. For Toynbee, Western civilization collapsed in the twentieth century, when the two world wars proved its inability to face new challenges. Of course, for Toynbee, the collapse of a civilization does not mean its disappearance, it does not even prelude it. We still have ahead - according to him - a few centuries of what Toynbee calls the Universal Empire, linked, however, to a certain cultural stagnation.

The first thing we have to notice is: if Spengler actually managed to detect the decadence of our civilization, it means that the decline had begun much earlier. Evolutionary movements, both biological and cultural, are imperceptible at the beginning. When they become visible, they are quite advanced in their development.

Who is to blame for human atrocities?

Dr. Thomas A. Dooley

The following paragraph was written by Dr. Thomas A. Dooley in his book Deliver us from evil (1956). After several months in medical command of the camp for the refugees who fled North Vietnam after the partition of the country, at the end of the French colonialism in Indochina, Dr. Dooley provided medical aid in Laos and was a founder of MEDICAL (Medical International Cooperation), a department of the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

Having set up their controls in the village of Haiduong, Communists visited the village schoolhouse and took seven children out of class and into the courtyard. All were ordered to sit on the ground, and their hands and arms were tied behind their backs. Then they brought out one of the young teachers, with hands also tied. Now the new class began. In a voice loud enough for the other children still in the classroom to hear, the Viet Minh accused these children of treason. A "patriot" had informed the police that this teacher was holding classes secretly, at night, and that the subject of these classes was religion. They had even been reading the catechism. The Viet Minh accused the seven of "conspiring" because they had listened to the teachings of this instructor. As a punishment they were to be deprived of their hearing. Never again would they be able to listen to the teachings of evil men.

Happy anniversary

Tomorrow August 12th is the second anniversary of the opening of this blog on popular science. The Spanish version of the blog appeared a little earlier, on January 15th 2014. In these two years I have published over 100 articles, usually one per week, although I have interrupted publication during the summer, and slowed it somewhat in Christmas.

In this anniversary I want to take stock of what has been done so far, and the goals I imposed myself when I started this activity. The decision on whether I have achieved any of these goals is left open to the consideration and critical judgment of the readers.

Inside Out

The materialist atheist philosophy has a problem: it cannot explain human free will, the existence of which has been a universal consensus among philosophers and individual human beings. So, they are bent on denying its existence. Is there an easier way to solve a problem that deny there is one? Thus they offer a number of theories to explain it away. I will cite a few:

• Free will is just an appearance. We are really the toy of our feelings (joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust...). The Disney-Pixar film Inside Out could be an example of this philosophical stance.

Questions for materialist atheists

Steven Weinberg

There is a website (10 questions Christians must answer) that offers 10 questions to believers in Christianity. If they consider and meditate these questions deeply, they are supposed to convince themselves that their religious beliefs are absurd, that the best they can do is convert to atheism. This website (and others like it) gave us the idea that these contributions are double-edged, as the same procedure can be used for the opposite purpose: one can also be skeptical towards materialism. Therefore we are proposing here a few questions and offer a link to the atheistic page to give the reader the chance to compare both approaches impartially and draw their own conclusions.

1.      Consider this assertion: Nothing exists but those things with which science can experiment. Do you believe this because of scientific reasons, or it is a dogma for you?