One of several of the book's end pieces is an appendix entitled "Reasoning to Christianity from Ground Zero." This is a list of 14 arguments supported in the book that are claimed to lead in a logical chain from skepticism to the Evengelical variant of Christianity. Since this is, effectively, a summary of the book, I will use the appendix as the platform for my review.
Starting with "there are self-evident truths" at number one and ending with "Jesus (God) taught the Old Testament was the inspired Word of God and He promised the New Testament" at 13 and "therefore, both the Old Testament and the New Testament are the inspired Word of God" at 14. The middle argument, number seven, marks a split in the overall argument between ground zero and proving Christianity. With this in mind, I'll start and end my analysis with these seven arguments.
This concentration on the first seven arguments serves two purposes:
Firstly, that if I undermine these seven, I undermine the next seven since the
arguments are a chain.
Secondly, I intend to write as an atheist only. That is, to write
"a-theistically", not "a-christianically".
Number seven: "Therefore, theism is true" is based on argument five: "God is a neccessary Being" and six:"other being's existence [are] not neccessary." The first four arguments lead to number five and six is derived directly from five. The first four arguments, in fact, culminate in number four: "one can proceed from self-evident truths to the existence of God." With this stacking of the arguments in mind, I'll look at the validity of this first half of the argument chain.
"The argument from the idea of a neccessary being may not prove that God exists..." the authors write. While this sounds like capitulation our authors continue "...but it sure does tell us a lot about God once we know that He does exist"(p.27). How do we know god exists? Some theists, especially those that participate in fundametal forms of theism , think everyone knows that there's a god. Atheists are simply denying the obvious. Geisler and Brooks don't take this easy way out. God is known, they say, from creation (p.27).
Everything that has a beginning needs a cause (p.29) and the cosmos had a beginning. The evidence for this assertion are these self-evident truths:
I discuss the first two items on another page of my webspace: On Cosmogenesis. On this page I use the standard model of cosmogenesis and provide a few references. This standard model is based on what we know now and observe now. That means it is changable based on observation and assumes that what and how things happen now is what and how things happened in the past, what Geisler and Brooks (and other creation science believers) call "operations science".
But, it is objected, "operation science deals with the way things normally operate" (p.214). If you want to talk about the creation of everything, you must use "origin science" (p.215). The normal science that uses mathematical models and empirical evidences from experimentation and observation to learn about the universe, our authors argue, must give way to origins science. This "science" is Greek-like in its abhorence of empiricism, preferring instead the hands clean method of Plato and Aristotle: ratiocination and taxonomy. What did these methods (logical sentence structures and groupings by type) realize? Actually, quite a bit as long as we're concerned with the universe as it can be seen with the unaided eye. But the need for advanced tools to replace common sense increases as the landscape examined expands to the universe-sized or decreases to the sub-atomic.
Why prefer creation science to operation science (the two creation methods plus empiricism)? Skeptics argues that specified complexity indicates intelligent design, which indicates, for some reason, that one set of rules were used for creation and then were superceeded by new rules for the long run. I can only see this plea for changing the laws of nature as a way to validate a belief in the literalist interpretation of the Bible. The authors are suggesting god must be doing things by miracle and not by natural action. We're discussing argument four and miracles are a subset of argument seven, according to the book. One problem with the line of argument presented is it relys on miracles before miracles are validated three steps later. Another problem is that this line of thinking creates an arbitrary barrier beyond which research is impossible. A barrier may be unavoidable due to limitations of known or available technique, but that isn't arbitrary. The "origins science" limitation is arbitrary because it dismisses the limitations of technique to the limitation of pronouncement. At least one argument can be put forward to justify this pronouncement, however, and it is based on biological origins not cosmological origins. This is "specified complexity".
What is "specified complexity"? It is another word for intelligent design...a design so complex that it must be designed intelligently. Examples are the big bang; DNA; the origin of life; and speciation. I cannot take any of these objections seriously, and, curiously, neither does creationist Dr. William Dembski. In his paper The Explanatory Filter presented at the 1996 Mere Creation conference and linked here from the Origins' website, Dr. Dembski explains how the three step filter that validates intelligent design is bypassed by non-design scientists. In a section of the paper titled "The Relevance to Biology" Dembski writes how Stuart Kauffman's " 'autocatalytic polymer sets...are expected to form spontaneously' (The Origins of Order, 1993, p.288)" casting doubt on the Filter's relevance to biology. "Kaufmann is in effect explaining life in terms of law", stalling the filter at step one and not allowing further filtration to step two, let alone three where design is practically assured. Dr. Dembski notes that Kaufmann is not alone in defeating his filter. In sum then, these objections that are supposed to support specific complexity are theorized to have developed in natural terms, including biology's specified complexity so they do not require a new miraculous rule book. The authors' suggestion that origins science is superior to operations science (in fact, neccessary) for discussing the origin of life or the universe is currently baseless.
The last argument for cause is time. An argument is offered to "show time cannot go back into the past forever" (p.17). As I read the argument I was reminded of an argument (or was it a tease?) I'd heard in grade school. A person, the argument went, never gets where they are going. First you must go half the distance, then half the remaining distance, and so on in a series of smaller and smaller steps. But you never get where you are going! Later, I learned this was called the paradox of "Zeno's Arrow". I, however, do get where I'm going with some regularity, and it is a self evident truth that people get where they are going unimpeded by philosophical spatial considerations. Philosophical temporal considerations, likewise, are just as futile. More to the point though is the simple fact that nobody (other than creation science believers) ever said time must go back forever. This is a straw man argument our authors present because the standard model of cosmogenesis holds that time begins when a frame of reference for time begins and ends when that reference frame ends.
I think I've shown adequate reason to dismiss the first seven arguments, concentrating on numbers four and five as their keystone. I'll leave it up to the reader to judge for themselves, and write me with objections or clarifications.
Last update: 04/17/02
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