Bill Gnade and the Origins of Existence

In a discussion that started here, Bill Gnade has asked some very good questions which bear repeating and answering...

Bill said…

If we are here by pure chance, then we are not here as a result of some Monte Carlo game. For a Monte Carlo game is a system that is itself neither random nor is it created ex nihilo; any Monte Carlo game is the result of a creating intelligence. There is nothing ultimately random either about the existence of the game or the results of the game as played. Your analogy assumes intelligence, even intelligent design. Moreover, you intend to use this analogy rationally; you don't intend to use it irrationally. Hence, you do believe that there are rational metaphysics, namely yours. You DO explain existence: we are a number that came up in a drawing, and this is a "brute fact" that prevents us from explaining existence.

Agreed. All analogies break down somewhere, and I was using words to describe something that probably cannot be described, only that we just don’t know how we got here. When it comes to why anything exists, all we have are brute facts, and I find that extremely interesting and maddening at the same time. The brute fact that will be more reasonable to accept will depend upon the one that has the fewest ad hoc hypotheses, agreed?

We either start with an unexplainable “quantum wave fluctuation” or we start (from the Christian perspective) with a triune God, even though the no sense of the trinity can be made that is both orthodox and reasonable; who as a spiritual being created matter, even though no known point of contact between spirit and matter can be articulated; who never began to exist, even though everything we experience has a beginning and an end to it; who never learned any new truths and cannot think, since thinking demands weighing temporal alternatives; is everywhere, yet could not know what time it is since time is a function of placement and acceleration in the universe; and if timeless this God cannot act in time.

Plus, depending upon what you believe in the Bible this God commanded genocide, witch, honor, heretic killings, and demanded a perfect moral life when such a life is not possible given that we are fleshly creatures with an “epistemic distance” from knowing God’s true love and power; became incarnate in Jesus, even though no reasonable sense can be made of a being who is both 100% God and 100% man; found it necessary to die on the cross for our sins, even though no sense can be made of so-called atonement; will return to earth where every eye will see him, which assumes an ancient pre-scientific cosmology; and will judge humanity by rewarding the “saints” in heaven by taking away their free will to do wrong, and punishing sincere doubters to hell with their free will intact so they can continue to rebel.

I prefer the simplest brute fact, period.

Bill again...

Moreover, since you call this existence "absurd," I am led to believe that you don't believe your own assertion, for to know what is absurd one must first know what makes sense; and since what makes sense is the rational, you must stand in the rational, or else you could not discern the absurd from what is not. Hence, you have not really shown what is your ultimate view of reality, couched as it must be in sensibility and reason (and even sanity); you have not shown us how you KNOW this existence is absurd.

What I believe, after moving off of the default position, which is agnosticism, is based upon a measure of faith.

Bill said…

Somehow, for some reason, I have not given in to my ultimate doubts.

I make no predictions about this, nor do I personally care if you do. All I’m saying is that I did, and I have offered reasons for why I did.

Bill said…

You are probably right about the Ontological Argument, though I hope you recognize that the argument is at least logically valid.

Yes it is. But what do you do when two valid arguments lead to mutually contradictory conclusions? John Hick used the same formulation of the Ontological Argument that Plantinga uses, except that he concludes that an evil Supreme Being exists.

Bill said…

But Will Hawthorne's question opens up a very important idea, namely, that the existence of the universe is not "known;" hence, at best, our acceptance of the universe as known is based on faith (forgive me Mr. Hawthorne if I've said too much). And if faith is the first principle of knowledge, then I believe any argument against Christianity as "faith" is silly.

Agreed. Reason can lead us to the default position, but reason cannot move us off it. It’s faith that moves us off of it. So the only question is which movement off of the default position entails the least amount of faith, and the least amount of ad hoc hypotheses? I think I know.

Cheers.