Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 69

Links Mentioned on the 12/16/14 Show

The following are links that were either mentioned on this week's show or inspired by it, as posted live on the @STRtweets Twitter feed:

The One Minute Apologist


Bobby Conway


The Fifth Gospel by Bobby Conway


Depend on God Who Raises the Dead by Amy Hall (on suffering)


The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman


The Fallacy Detective: Thirty-Eight Lessons on How to Recognize Bad Reasoning by Hans and Nathaniel Bluedorn


The Thinking Toolbox: Thirty-five Lessons That Will Build Your Reasoning Skills by by Hans and Nathaniel Bluedorn


A Plan to Begin a Year of Learning by Amy Hall


Eternity Is Now: Just Ask Scrooge and George Bailey by Andrew Klavan

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To follow the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00–7:00 p.m. PT), use the hashtag #STRtalk.

How Science and Religion Converge Rather Than Conflict – Part 2 of 5

Yesterday, I began a series of posts aimed at demonstrating how science and religion converge to explain reality. I began by exploring the nature of explanations. Today, I will continue that exploration and then lay out the benefits of my account. 

A distinction can be made between meta-explanations and minor-explanations (I take my cue for this distinction from Del Ratzsch’s discussion of maxi-theories and mini-theories in Science & Its Limits, pp. 63-72). Meta-explanations refer to explanations that provide broad conceptual frameworks. Minor-explanations refer to more detailed or specific explanations within a meta-explanation. 

Minor-explanations are small in scope and may merely deal with explanandum within a sub-field of a particular discipline. Minor-explanations are more fluid and subject to lower levels of justification both for and against. Taken alone, their explanatory relevance may be minimal as they fail to address explicitly or adequately the most important questions within a discipline.

Meta-explanations are those which are wide in scope and may encompass a host of more narrow explanations. The justificatory requirements for meta-explanations are higher, requiring greater amounts of data and evidence than a minor-explanation. However, they also require stronger defeaters and counter evidence to overturn them. This conceptual scheme helps one see how a number of minor-explanations can be brought under the umbrella of a single meta-explanation to provide explanatory coherence and a deeper, more comprehensive explanation. 

I see two benefits to my account of explanations. First, my account has the advantage of disciplinary neutrality or cross-disciplinary applicability. Whether one’s area of study is science, philosophy, history, psychology or even auto-mechanics, explanations are sought. My second-order philosophical account of explanation undergirds all first-order claims in other disciplines. For instance, the auto mechanic will have meta-explanations consisting of minor-explanations, all the while invoking causality, which account for the proper operation of automatic transmissions in cars. In the same manner, a psychologist may employ a Jungian meta-explanation to account for human action. 

A second benefit of my account of explanation is its openness to logical contingency as well as to the logical necessity empiricists want to jettison. Again, my second-order philosophical account of explanation does not limit first-order logical claims in other disciplines. 

Tomorrow we’ll look at the nature of scientific explanation.

The Parable of the Sower and Predestination

Greg addresses whether or not the Parable of the Sower is relevant to the question of predestination.

 

How Science and Religion Converge Rather Than Conflict – Part 1 of 5

Must science and religion always be in conflict? Are they completely unrelated realms of inquiry? Or can they converge to help us discover the nature of reality? Over the course of this week, I will explore the nature of explanations and scientific explanations, and then discuss the relationship between science and theology.

Let's start with some epistemology, shall we? We need an account of the nature of explanation. Human beings are rational creatures by nature and thus have an inherent need to understand the world around them. But what kinds of explanations satisfy the human knower?

An explanation gets at the fundamental question of “Why?” While human beings ask "what" questions (“What happened in the Steelers-Bengals game yesterday?”) and "how" questions (“How did Troy Polamalu become a Hall-of-Fame caliber player?”), human inquiry almost never stops there, particularly with the most important questions of life. But merely stating that an explanation seeks an answer to why questions is much too broad to be helpful. The parent who asks why her two-year old child was lost to cancer may be looking for consolation rather than a reasoned explanation. More precision in our account of explanation is needed.

At the most basic level, an explanation has two components: the explanandum and the explanans. The explanadum is that which needs to be explained, such as an event or object, and the explanans is that which does the explaining, such as sentences put together in a coherent form. For instance, let us take event E to stand for my 3-year-old son’s act of hitting my 7-year-old daughter (note the frequency of E has no bearing on my illustration). E constitutes the explanadum and as even philosophically untrained parents know, requires an explanans. Why did my son Jonah hit his sister? The explanans, L, may come in the form of a carefully constructed linguistic utterance. Jonah may say (and actually has said!), “Daddy, I hit Ella because she is a bad guy.” A satisfactory explanans ends further analysis. Given L, my need for an answer to why E occurred is satisfied and my investigation ceases (Of course, proper moral justification for Jonah’s actions is another question altogether).

Again, our account of explanation cannot stop here or else it is too minimal. A further question arises. What amounts to an adequate explanans? Explanations are often framed in terms of causes. A cause can be defined minimally as something’s bringing about an effect and is an important explanatory feature. Any explanans must appeal to some form of causation.

We can distinguish between two types of causes, as another illustration about my children will demonstrate. Let us take explanadum MR to stand for my 11-year old daughter’s messy room. What explanantia are live options? It seems to me I have two. When I ask Paige why her room is messy, she may reply that a magnitude 7.0 earthquake caused all of her clothes to fly out of their dresser drawers and land on the floor in chaotic piles. Thus, an adequate explanans for MR could be an event. However, my daughter may confess she was the one who threw her clothes into chaotic piles on the ground. Thus, a second explanans for MR could be the actions of an agent. Either event-causation or agent-causation provides sufficient explanantia.

It is important to note my brief discussion of causation does not limit causality to a relation between events. Rather, I am open to causality entailing dispositional states within a rational agent. I grant that a key distinction can be made between causes and reasons (for further analysis of reasons and causes, see Robert Audi’s book, Practical Reasoning, or William Alston’s article, “Wants, Actions, and Causal Explanations” in Intentionality, Minds, and Perception). However, reasons can provide a causal account of some explanadum. A dispositional state, such as believing cleanliness is not a form of godliness, can causally motivate the actions of an agent and thus, be causally sufficient. I resist all such moves to push causality outside of the realm of agency and confine it to a relation between events.

Third Week of Advent

Tomorrow begins the third week of advent. Each weekend, I’m posting verses from Angie Mosteller’s “How to Do an Advent Wreath” (available on her Celebrating Holidays website) for you to meditate on throughout the week. The third week is about “joy and the proclamations regarding the coming Savior.”

(3.1) Angelic Proclamation About John the Baptist: The angel Gabriel proclaimed to Zechariah that his son, John the Baptist, would prepare people for the coming of Jesus. “Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:16-17).

(3.2) Angelic Proclamation About Jesus: The angel Gabriel proclaimed to the virgin Mary that she would give birth to the Savior Jesus. “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end” (Luke 1:31-33).

(3.3) Elizabeth’s Proclamation About Jesus: Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, proclaimed that Mary carried the Lord in her womb. Even before his birth, John the Baptist made a unique proclamation about Jesus by leaping in his mother’s womb. “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed:“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:41-44).

(3.4) Mary’s Proclamation About God: Mary proclaimed the great thing God had done in choosing her to give birth to Jesus. “And Mary said: ‘My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name’” (Luke 1:46-49).

(3.5) Zechariah’s Proclamation About Jesus: Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, proclaimed his praise that Jesus would be the Redeemer and Savior. “‘Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago)’” (Luke 1:68-70).

(3.6) Angelic Proclamation About Jesus: An angel proclaimed to Joseph that Jesus was conceived from the Holy Spirit and would save his people. “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins’” (Matthew 1:20-21).

(3.7) Prophetic Proclamation: Over 700 years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah announced that the Holy One of Israel would one day be among the people. Let us sing for joy that Jesus did indeed come to live with man! “Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you” (Isaiah 12:6).

Here to Help in the Battle for Your Mind

Here’s a year-end message for you from Stand to Reason. Thanks for all your support, your conversations, your challenges, and your encouragement.

I pray that we’ve been a help to you this year.

 

"Training ambassadors who can think clearly, answer accurately, and stand courageously—all with grace. That’s our vision for every follower of Christ."

Challenge Response: There Would Be More Life if the Universe Were Fine-Tuned for Life

Here's my response to this week's challenge:

New Evidence Quantum Events Are Not Uncaused?

When people try to refute William Lane Craig’s first premise of the kalam cosmological argument (“Everything that begins to exist has a cause”), they sometimes cite quantum mechanics as proof there are uncaused events. As part of his response, Craig will often explain that the idea that there are uncaused events at the subatomic level is merely one interpretation of the data. And in fact, he says, there are other interpretations that also fit the data:

There are at least ten different physical interpretations of the equations of quantum mechanics, and they’re all empirically equivalent, they’re mathematically consistent, and no one knows which, if any of them, is the correct physical interpretation. I’m inclined to agree with philosophers of science who think of the traditional Copenhagen interpretation [which includes uncaused events] as really just quite unintelligible, and I’m therefore more inclined to some sort of deterministic theory of quantum mechanics…. It remains a matter of deep debate as to how to understand it.

Now there’s been an interesting development on this subject, according to an article in Wired titled “Have We Been Interpreting Quantum Mechanics Wrong This Whole Time?”

For nearly a century, “reality” has been a murky concept. The laws of quantum physics seem to suggest that particles spend much of their time in a ghostly state, lacking even basic properties such as a definite location and instead existing everywhere and nowhere at once. Only when a particle is measured does it suddenly materialize, appearing to pick its position as if by a roll of the dice.

This idea that nature is inherently probabilistic — that particles have no hard properties, only likelihoods, until they are observed — is directly implied by the standard equations of quantum mechanics. But now a set of surprising experiments with fluids has revived old skepticism about that worldview. The bizarre results are fueling interest in an almost forgotten version of quantum mechanics, one that never gave up the idea of a single, concrete reality. 

The experiments involve an oil droplet that bounces along the surface of a liquid. The droplet gently sloshes the liquid with every bounce. At the same time, ripples from past bounces affect its course. The droplet’s interaction with its own ripples, which form what’s known as a pilot wave, causes it to exhibit behaviors previously thought to be peculiar to elementary particles — including behaviors seen as evidence that these particles are spread through space like waves, without any specific location, until they are measured. 

Particles at the quantum scale seem to do things that human-scale objects do not do. They can tunnel through barriers, spontaneously arise or annihilate, and occupy discrete energy levels. This new body of research reveals that oil droplets, when guided by pilot waves, also exhibit these quantum-like features.

Rest the rest here.

Links Mentioned on the 12/09/14 Show

The following are links that were either mentioned on this week's show or inspired by it, as posted live on the @STRtweets Twitter feed:

Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl


The Enemy Within: Straight Talk about the Power and Defeat of Sin by Kris Lundgaard


I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Frank Turek


Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions – Edited by Arthur Bennett (leather bound version here)


Christian Theology by Millard Erickson


Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich by Dean Stroud


Donate to Stand to Reason (Our thank you gift this month is the book Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas)


Listen to Annabeth Koukl read Luke 2 when she was 5


Grace Community Church Christmas Concert


Free Advent Devotionals


Dislike Is Not Intolerance by Robin Sible


Is Christmas Pagan? by Greg Koukl


Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas by Ace Collins


Do Our Prayers Make a Difference by Amy Hall


How God Answers Our Prayers by Amy Hall


Not Always Bread, Just No Stones by Amy Hall (on prayer)

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To follow the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00–7:00 p.m. PT), use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Challenge: There Would Be More Life if the Universe Were Fine-Tuned for Life

Today’s challenge is from a comment we received on the blog:

You've got the fine tuning thing wrong. The universe is not fine tuned for life. Your God is an incompetent designer if it takes that volume of universe to create this insignificant volume of life. Seriously, life is so rare in the Universe it's astonishing.

This isn’t just a scientific question, it’s also a theological one, so I’m interested to see the range of your responses—leave them in the comments below! Brett’s video response will be posted on Thursday. (If you’d like to see some hints as to how I’d go about answering this one, see here and here.)

[Explore past challenges here and here.]