The foundations of a Theological Debate: Part 1 – Epistemology

How do we know what constitutes evidence?

I suppose I take it for granted that most, if not all atheists are empiricists, but the position has been… not bothering me, but a gentle insistent pressure has made itself aware. How do we justify empiricism as the basis for evidence?

It would seem that before we can even begin to engage in a theological debate, we must first justify our position as empiricists as a rational position.

We must make certain assumptions in order to navigate the world, that the information provided by our senses accurately relays reality to our minds for informed decisions but are these assumptions rationally based?

I am not an eloquent person, so forgive me if my rhetoric seems very rambling but I have come to the conclusion that the very foundation of any theological debate is the assumptions and positions we take regarding epistemology.

Epistemology relates to the “study of human knowledge”. It is essentially the philosophy dedicated to the idea of “How do we know what is true? How do we discover the truth?”

There are several schools of thought in the philosophy of epistemology which offer avenues for how to discern the truth. These are: empiricism, rationalism, historicism and idealism.

• Empiricism – The view that knowledge is gained via experience which is gained in turn by the senses. Starting with the assumption that we can trust what our senses tell us, empiricism emphasises the role on evidence and experience in discovering the truth.

 

• Rationalism – The view that knowledge may be gained through logic and reason alone, without the need for experience or evidence. Although of course, there are different degrees of the position, a moderate position can be defined as “reason has a precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge”".

 

• Historicism – The view that specific contexts (period of time, culture or place) should be regarded in a central and significant manner. Based primarily on contextualised interpretations and concerned with traditions.

 

• Idealism – The view that, in the context of explanations of reality or human experience, ideas and spiritual elements are central. It places great significance on abstractions and laws, positing that they are more fundamental than sensory experience. Epistemological idealism is opposed to realism, which holds that in human knowledge, objects are seen and grasped as they exist in independent reality.

In our day-to-day lives, we act as empiricists. We trust our senses to relay correct information about to the world to us, and use that information accordingly (assuming an illusion of free will here). Empiricism is the foundation of science, that truths can be discerned objectively through experience and evidence; I would expect most here to be epistemological empiricists.

However, we are all aware of those who are rationalists. It would seem to me, that the vast majority of arguments we see for the existence of God/s are of the philosophical kind, such as The Ontological Argument and, to a lesser extent, the cosmological and teleological argument (along with Aquinas’ Five Proofs). It is held in these cases that a certain knowledge, that God exists, can be arrived at through deduction, reason and logic alone, with little to no appeal to sensory experience.

So I ask you,what do you think:

Do these arguments come from a rationalist epistemology?

If they do, do you consider a rationalist epistemology adequate for gaining knowledge in this specific instances (that “God” exists”)?

If you agree that it is adequate, what is your defence of rationalism in this case? If you do not agree, what is your argument against rationalism in this case?

Intuitively, I feel I cannot accept that rationalism is justified in deriving knowledge, through reason and logic alone, as to me, that would imply logic and reason (as processes) are transcendent of human experience and comprehension. This is a position for which I have no seen an sufficient defence and nothing that I have read has convinced me that using logic and reason alone are enough to deduce innate knowledge.

Pascals Wager.

It’s a common enough argument from those who talk to theists. In it’s most basic form it is the argument that, by being a believer, they aren’t losing anything. If they are wrong and the atheist is right, only oblivion waits for them after death. If they are right, they gain eternal bliss whilst the atheist is thrown into the pits of hell (depending on the religion being discussed).

Viewed like this, this argument almost seems persuasive. By just believing in a deity, then the believer believe’s they are in a win-win situation.

Once you actually begin to dig the surface though, the veneer of this argument is worn away and you can see it for the pathetic reasoning that it actually is. For one thing, it assumes that someone can literally choose to believe, whilst the vast majority of us know that a deity is not something we could just choose to believe in.

Perhaps the most glaring hole in this argument is that it assumes a simple dichotomy. Either the believer is right or the atheist is right. They make the assumption that their deity is the only option. What this argument doesn’t allow for is the situation where both the atheist and the believer are wrong. It is some other deity which in reality exists, not Yahweh but Allah. Not Allah but Hades ad verbatim…

This creates a seemingly infinite number of possibilities, which very quickly squashes and dwarfs the win-win situation that has been proposed. Perhaps it is the case that there is a god, but it only rewards disbelief…

Macro-Evolution vs. Micro-Evolution

One of the most annoying arguments that intelligent design advocates/creationists throw up is the “Macro vs. Micro”. Essentially, in this context the world microevolution would be changes at the protein level, whereupon a point mutation produces an observable effect in the organism. This observable effect is called a phenotype, and phenotypic changes have been repeatedly observed in a huge number of organisms, most notably with the model organism: Drosophila Melanogaster – The Fruit Fly. Breeding experiments have shown that you may select for different phenotypic types, such as eye colour.

Macroevolution is equivalent to speciation, whereupon one species diverges into two, defined when members can no longer interbreed and produce viable/fertile offspring. The main cause of speciation would be geographic separation, but it can also occur when a single species adapts to fill a niche in the environment not previously filled and adapts to an extent where it cannot breed with members of what are now another species.

Many intelligent design/creationist advocates will accept that microevolution can and has been observed to take place. They have no problem in realising that proteins do mutate and these mutations produce observable effects. They will then state that macroevolution cannot take place because protein mutations could not give rise to the species/diversity we see today.

First of all, a point should be made. Evolution is the change across an entire population,not change at the individual level. We cannot track back the evolution of one dinosaur and it’s descendants directly into birds today. The fossil record does not allow it, and it is irrelevant anyway. We can view the change across the entire species/population and track the evolution on that scale.

There is no difference between micro and macro evolution. Microevolution is the process by which macro occurs, it is merely a difference in scale. The best way, of course, to convey this point is a picture.

An image demonstrating that microevolution is the process by which macroevolution occurs