Dr. Greg Bahnsen was one of the great modern apologists for the Christian faith. He engaged in a number of debates with unbelievers prior to his death in the 1990's. Probably the most famous of these is "The Great Debate" with Dr. Gordon Stein on the existence of God.
While working late tonight, I was listening to that debate. Dr. Stein, a scientist, found himself forced to deny the absolute and consistent character of the laws of logic in order to maintain the notion that the concept of immateriality and existence are mutually exclusive. Not to mention that he was completely unprepared for Bahnsen's "Transcendental" argument for the existence of God. The debate contains this memorable exchange:
B: I heard you mention logical binds and logical self-contradictions in your speech. You did say that?
S: I said it. I used that phrase, yes.
B: Do you believe there are laws of logic then?
S: Absolutely.
B: Are they universal?
S: They are agreed upon by human beings. They aren't laws that exist out in nature.
B: Are they simply conventions, then?
S: They are conventions, but they are conventions that are self-verifying.
B: Are they sociological laws or laws of thought?
S: They are laws of thought which are interpreted by men and promulgated by men.
B: Are they material in nature?
S: How can a law be material?
B: That's a question I'm going to ask you. (Laughter)
S: I would say no.
Moderator: Dr. Stein, now you have an opportunity to cross-examine Dr. Bahnsen.
S: Dr. Bahnsen, would you call God material or immaterial?
B: Immaterial.
S: What is something that is immaterial?
B: Something not extended in space.
S: Can you give me an example of anything other than God that is immaterial?
B: The laws of logic. (Laughter)
- G.K. Chesterton
Trackback URL: http://thinklings.org/bloo.trackback.php/3069.
I'd hesitate to go where he went. The "laws of logic" exist only in our minds. The atheist could have turned that one back around and bit the Christian pretty handily.
Do the laws of logic exist only in our minds?
I'm not sure quite what you mean by that. Obviously the laws of logic are immaterial, and that was his point.
But to say they only exist in our minds is another claim altogether. If there were no minds, would there be no laws of logic? That doesn't seem right.
And if they only exist in our minds, how is it that they exist in all our minds simultaneously, without variation?
We certainly apprehend them with our minds, but they are not dependent upon our minds for existence.
Now, I don't want to stray too far from the main point. And that is that Bahnsen was debating a materialist. He was committed to the idea that anything that exists, exists in the material world. So the point was to demonstrate that existence does not depend on materiality.
Offensively, he was demonstrating that Christian theism, based as it is on a transcendent, immaterial God who created and sustains the world, can account for the laws of logic, which are constant and immaterial, whereas materialism cannot, having to go down some absurd road such as labeling them conventions of men.
Hello, I'm Doctor Stein, "a scientist."
What? What does that even mean? Just a scientist in general? What does he do for living?
Anyway, basically the guy is just doing cocktail-party Kuhn, strongly suggesting that he comes from the squishier side of the sciences. Here is a decent article about Kuhn and his influence.
I think Bahnsen is to an extent just talking past his debate partner. The idea that logic is culturally based isn't really part of a "materialist" worldview--in fact it's part of a worldview that denies the reality of empirical data, which is held to consist of nothing but bias and interpretation.
Brilliant!
Where could I find a copy of that debate?
dbd:
Stein apparently was some sort of biologist who decided to devote himself full-time to defending atheism and attacking all forms of spiritual/paranormal type claims.
I don't know exactly what areas he focused on, but one of the funnier momemts in the debate is when, in his opening statement, Bahnsen states that he conceds to his opponent all matters pertaining to the ovarian maturation of Japanese quail, which was the subject of Stein's doctoral dissertation.
Simon:
Just follow the link in the text of my comments prefacing the excerpt. There you'll find a .pdf transcript and a link to the site where it is available on mp3 for a few bucks.
Weekend Fisher:
I'd hesitate to go where he went. The "laws of logic" exist only in our minds. The atheist could have turned that one back around and bit the Christian pretty handily.
Even if that were true, you could still make the argument for the mind that contains those laws. But if those laws only existed in peoples' minds, then they would have no correspondence to reality and could not, even in contrivance, be called "laws."
dbd:
The idea that logic is culturally based isn't really part of a "materialist" worldview-in fact it's part of a worldview that denies the reality of empirical data, which is held to consist of nothing but bias and interpretation.
Those two worldviews are merely transitional states of the same line of thought. Modernism deconstructed all things "archaic," latching on to science and the autonomous force of "reason" to construct a new worldview/"religion of science" to put in its place. Postmodernism is merely modernism carried to its logical extreme, ultimately deconstructing itself.
dbd, Kuhn was a positivist (of the instrumentalist variety; cf. Koyre, Duhem) and in no way would he ever deny "the reality of empirical data." I don't know of anyone in the "squishier" side of science studies, the sociology of science, or the history and philosophy of science that would defend such an extreme claim as "empirical data (...) consist of nothing but bias and interpretation." The "strong program" of social constructivism is the closest you would get to such a view, and, as far as I know, none would make such a ridiculous claim. They (and Kuhn) would say that empirical data are theory-laden, that one cannot eliminate bias [from] interpretation. Another common motto you will hear is that "theory is underdetermined by the data," meaning that empirical results do not exclusively specify one theory; one has to bring one's pre-interpretive grid to bear on the data.
Bahnsen's argument here doesn't work. All he's doing is pushing a weak opponent to confront the weakness of his ontology with a false dichotomy. It isn't at all clear that Bahnsen himself can escape some form of Platonism or Kantianism. Reminds me why I dislike apologetics so much. Sorry :-)
David, I don't at all agree.
Joel, listen to you! I could just go hide my patchily-read self, but instead I'll point out that I did keep on the safe side by specifying cocktail party Kuhn (or more likely these days, internet Kuhn), which is the kind I myself am most familiar with, and in which just that ridiculous claim is made all the time.
Joel, I'm not going to claim that Bahnsen is above criticism, but I think you might be over-thinking this one.
You basically have a materialist scientist who wants to make his claims based upon logic and reason. Yet he has no way to account for these phenomena. He is driven into arguing that the laws of logic are conventions agreed upon by men, and that somehow other communities can have different laws of logic, like Zen Buddhists, that don't intersect with ours.
I don't see the problem with making the fairly straightforward point that this is hardly a compelling account of the human experience and understanding of logic.
"Those two worldviews are merely transitional states of the same line of thought. Modernism deconstructed all things "archaic," latching on to science and the autonomous force of "reason" to construct a new worldview/"religion of science" to put in its place. Postmodernism is merely modernism carried to its logical extreme, ultimately deconstructing itself."
"The "strong program" of social constructivism is the closest you would get to such a view, and, as far as I know, none would make such a ridiculous claim. They (and Kuhn) would say that empirical data are theory-laden, that one cannot eliminate bias [from] interpretation. Another common motto you will hear is that "theory is underdetermined by the data," meaning that empirical results do not exclusively specify one theory; one has to bring one's pre-interpretive grid to bear on the data."
Turn these comments into posts, have them read top to bottom, and we're the Boars Head Tavern!!
[De realizes that he's too stupid to understand a word of this, gets himself a bowl of cereal, and sits down to watch an episode of The Simpsons]
Edit:
"Turn these comments into posts, have them read top to bottom, get them good and drunk, and we're the Boars Head Tavern!!"
I could just go hide my patchily-read self...
dbd, I didn't mean to take a switch to you if you weren't agreeing with the cocktail Kuhnians. Sorry, I blame the meds. :-)
which is the kind I myself am most familiar with, and in which just that ridiculous claim is made all the time.
Exactly. Very annoying.
*turns to Alan*
I think you might be over-thinking this one.
Uh, yeah. So?
I don't see the problem with making the fairly straightforward point that this is hardly a compelling account of the human experience and understanding of logic.
I don't fault Bahnsen for shredding his hapless "debate" partner. Most scientists are very uncomfortable in a philosophical debate. If it doesn't stay on the script, they will not be able to formulate sensible, reflective thoughts. (By about his fourth response in the Q&A you posted, you can tell that Stein is giving answers about which he is entirely clueless and is wandering about in a cognitive fog).
My complaint, which I am making too much of, is that Bahnsen can feign an immaterialist ontology because he has a more sophisticated knowledge of the weaknesses of materialism. Bahnsen has a victim that cannot mount anything but a sophomore-level defense, much less a riposte against him. That's all nice and cute for the show, but it is hardly an even match. You don't put Aunt Pattie in the ring with Dusty Rhodes.
So Bahnsen's immaterialism (at least in the snip you've posted) is at best a feint to allow his opponent to trip over his own feet. Funny, but hardly impressive.
Apologetics. Meh. I do like Ravi, though.
Jared made choke on my Diet Dr. Pepper. :-) I do like Shankar, but sitar gets old real quick. Zacharias, on the other hand, makes my head spin around in circles. We got to hear him speak in Missouri back in January, and it was fabulous.
But if those laws only existed in peoples' minds, then they would have no correspondence to reality and could not, even in contrivance, be called "laws."
That doesn't follow. Many of the things that exist in peoples' minds exist only by correspondence to reality. The "laws of logic" are on the next level up: the "laws of logic" have as their aim making sure the contents of our minds correspond to reality. But the "laws of logic" have no existence outside this framework. If there is no mind to reflect reality, then there is no "law of logic" about how minds should reflect reality.
How so?
Sorry to leave this sitting for so long. I meant to give it a proper answer, but we've already seen what happens when I try to sound like I know what I'm talking about.
Basically I don't think the modernist period was all that materialistic either--it began a reaction against empiricism and in favor of the mythic and subjective in a number of ways, from Freud to Picasso to Joyce to Eliade.
The huge exception is of course Marxism, but Marxism, while aggressively materialist in its program, is faith-based at its foundation, with mystical ideas of "inevitability" and so on, so I think it's fake materialism.
I should cop to being pretty pro-materialism! Empirically-based reasoning, if it's really done consistently, just has nothing to say on questions of faith, and is a useful guard against mysticized forms of "science" (like new age stuff) and superstitious forms of "religion."
This is priceless. Will you be treating us to more?