Faith and Science – Part 3

With God’s help

On Certainty and Rationality: Mysticism, Science, and Logic

The principle of sufficient taste

The last column ended with a discussion of the claim that the physico-theological argument presupposes what is wanted. I showed there that every valid logical argument presupposes what is wanted, and therefore the only remaining question is whether we agree with its premises. In other words, the question is whether we accept the principle of sufficient reason, which is the assumption that everything must have a cause (a cause, or a factor that created it), or not.

We have seen that an atheist must choose between adopting infinite regression as a sufficient reason, and holding the position that not everything needs to have a cause, that is, believing (!) that there are things that occur or exist without a cause.

I have already noted that infinite regression is not a rational reason. Here I will add that the principle of causality is one of the cornerstones of science and our thinking. All science is based on the assumption that if we observe something, it probably has a cause, and this is the scientific motivation to search for it. On the other hand, even in the scientific context, as Yom has already established, this assumption has no empirical basis. This is a fundamental premise of rational thinking, and therefore it is puzzling that someone who advocates such a position accuses the believer in God of irrationality.

The physico-theological argument is uncertain.

In the logical world, arguments are divided into valid and invalid. Valid arguments are arguments whose conclusion necessarily follows from their premises, the others are invalid arguments. Therefore, those who are accustomed to logical thinking examine arguments in terms of validity and invalidity.

Many raise the argument against the physico-theological consideration that it is not necessary, that is, that it is an invalid argument (this is already inherent in the Kantian objection). The fact that the world around us is complex and appears to be designed does not necessarily mean that it has a designer and a component.

First, I will note that this conclusion is the opposite of the previous one. If in the previous column we dealt with the accusation that the physico-theological argument assumes what is wanted, and we showed that this means that it is a valid logical argument, here the argument is accused of the opposite accusation: that it is not valid. Let us examine this claim a little.

The validity of the physico-theological argument depends on how it is presented. This can be done in two formulations:

Formulation A: The world around us is complex, sophisticated, and coordinated, and therefore it probably has a creator.

This is of course not a valid argument, since it has a single assumption (that the world is complex, etc.), and the conclusion that this world has a creator does not necessarily follow from it. This is the formulation that is accused, and rightly so, of invalidity.

Wording in: The world is complex, etc., and nothing is complex without a component, hence our world has a component/creator.

This is, of course, a strictly valid argument, and it is one that is accused, unjustly, of assuming the desired result.

These two formulations are nothing more than two different perspectives on the argument. The bottom line is that the conclusion is not necessary, since its premises (i.e. the principle of sufficient reason) are not necessary. Maybe not everything really has a reason, or sufficient reason? On the other hand, I mentioned that this is a basic premise of rational thinking. Therefore, the physico-theological argument is not necessary, but those who oppose it are still thinking irrationally.

A Look at Certainty: Logic and Science

It is important to understand that uncertainty does not constitute a challenge to the physico-theological consideration. Every claim, and certainly a generalization, factual, is uncertain. Therefore, every scientific law is also exposed to the same attack, since it too is uncertain. Even eminent empiricists who advocate the certainty of direct observations will agree that the generalizations based on them are uncertain. The inductive inference that takes us from premises to conclusion is never certain.

In the first column, I argued that belief in God is a claim of fact. This position denies me the (so convenient) option of arguing in favor of belief on the strength of emotions, mystical experiences, or various religious exceptions, which are supposed to give me certainty 'beyond reason'. If so, belief should be examined with the same tools that handle claims of fact. The other side of the coin is that belief also suffers from all the limitations of factual claims, and is therefore truly uncertain.

A valid logical argument links a conclusion to premises. The derivation of the conclusion from the premises is certain, and this is a property of logic and mathematics. But usually the premises themselves, and therefore the conclusions, are not certain. Certainty exists only with respect to a derivation, and never with respect to a particular factual claim (at least one that is not the result of direct observation).

Anyone who is prepared to accept only certain claims will remain a complete skeptic. He will not be able to accept the laws of science either. Even someone who compromises and is prepared to accept directly observed facts will have to reject all the laws of science outright. If so, the conclusion of the physico-theological argument is in the same logical position as any scientific generalization. As Kant himself wrote, the physico-theological argument is based on observational facts, and draws an abstract theoretical conclusion from them, just like science. Of course, I do not intend to claim that faith is a scientific claim, as I will explain later.

God is not an explanation.

I will describe this common argument in a formulation taken from an article by Elia Leibowitz (see the appendix to my book). God plays dice):

The main weakness of the intelligent designer idea is that it cannot be seen as any explanation for the phenomenon it purports to explain. The central argument underlying it can be presented as follows: No reasonable person would think that the wonderful paintings painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were created as a result of random processes, without intention and without intelligence. The same goes for the F-16 aircraft. All the more so since such an explanation is required for biological systems in the world, whose complexity is unimaginably great.

However, this conclusion is based on sheer nonsense. The idea that an intelligent being designed the F-16 is indeed a plausible explanation for the existence of this complex system, because we know of the existence of aeronautical engineers, independently of our knowledge of the aircraft itself. The idea that an intelligent human hand painted the Sistine Chapel can explain the paintings only because we have prior knowledge of the existence of beings who can design and execute such paintings.

Regarding the natural world and the universe, we have no prior knowledge of the existence of an intelligence capable of designing it. Inferring from the existence of the complex and wondrous world the reality of an intelligent designer is not an explanation of the phenomenon, but a psychological consequence of it.

The problem of standing on the unknown

His claim is apparently correct. How can we regard the argument that proposes unknown beings that cause known phenomena as an "explanation"? When we want to explain something incomprehensible, we try to place it on familiar things. But here we place the familiar (the world) on the unfamiliar (God).

First, I would like to point out that we are not looking for explanations. The physico-theological argument draws from the facts the conclusion that there is an intelligent agent in the background. Even if there were no explanation for reality here, this is a conclusion that arises from it.

However, Leibowitz's more fundamental error lies in his failure to distinguish between two types of explanation. An explanation in an everyday context (and sometimes also in a scientific context) is indeed a position on the familiar. When we want to understand why a plane crashed, we look for some malfunction in its systems. If there was a crack in the wing, this is an explanation for the crash, since the incomprehensible phenomenon (the plane crash) is explained by a familiar phenomenon (the laws of nature). The same would be true of an explanation of the tides in terms of the force of gravity.

In contrast, when Newton first explained the tides, he did not yet know the force of gravity. He needed the kind of explanation that reveals a new scientific law, and such an explanation by its very definition is the superposition of the known over the unknown. The philosopher of science, Karl Hempel, describes the construction of a scientific theory in the deductive-nomological scheme, according to which a scientific explanation of a phenomenon will contain a general law from which it can be derived using deductive tools. This is precisely the superposition of the unknown, which is the lifeblood of science.

When we explain the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by saying that someone painted it, this is the position on the known. We know that there are people who have the ability to paint, and therefore we manage to place the phenomenon before us on a known law. But if we did not know any painter, what would we do? Should we assume that these paintings were created by themselves? Of course not. In that case, we would assume that there was an unknown factor who painted them. This is an explanation that places the phenomenon on the unknown.

Explanations from the position on the familiar characterize a situation in which the inference does not add new knowledge to us. In the terms of Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science, this is a situation of 'standard science', in which the existing paradigm dominates, and it manages to provide explanations for all relevant phenomena. In contrast, at a stage when the existing paradigm fails, we look for a new paradigm (a scientific revolution, in Kuhn's terms). In such a situation, only explanations from the position on the unfamiliar can succeed. We look for a new paradigm that will explain things for which the existing paradigm has failed. This is exactly how science progresses, from the familiar to the unfamiliar. The question of whether the atheistic paradigm does indeed fail will be discussed later in the series.

Comparison to scientific explanation

The physico-theological argument is structured as follows:

Assumption A: The world is complex.

Assumption B: No factor known to me can create such a world.

Assumption C: A complex world did not create itself.

Conclusion: There must be another entity, unknown to me, that created it. Let's call it "God."

A parallel argument regarding gravity (when it is not yet known) is structured like this:

Assumption A: I see before my eyes phenomena such as tides, or objects falling to Earth.

Assumption B: No force or factor known to me can cause these phenomena.

Assumption C: Physical phenomena must have a cause (they do not happen by themselves).

Conclusion: There is probably a factor that I am not yet familiar with that is causing these phenomena. Let's call it "gravity."

In Leibowitz's view, the second argument is an explanation and the first is not. However, he is wrong. The logical structure of the physico-theological argument meets the same logical standards as a scientific theory. It too goes from the known (the world) to the unknown (God). I will repeat again, just to be clear, I am not claiming here that belief in God is a scientific theory.

Between rationality and rationalism

Many say that they are not willing to accept metaphysical explanations such as belief in God, and they prefer to say that they do not understand. In their opinion, such a metaphysical explanation is like throwing sand in the eyes, or saying 'I do not understand' in other words. This is a reflection of the claim of standing on the unknown, and therefore I will answer it in a similar way. My argument is that such an approach is rationalistic but not rational.

In the yeshiva where I studied, there was a young man who fell ill with jaundice. After about six months of hospitalization for a short time, they brought him a 'sorcerer' who placed pigeons on his umbilical cord. The pigeons died immediately, and, miraculously, after a few days he returned to the yeshiva healthy. When I told my parents this, they mocked the mysticism of yeshiva students, and strongly advised me not to abandon rationality. Indeed, to this day, their recommendation is a candle to my feet, except in this case they were wrong.

It is important to distinguish between rationality and rationalism. A rational person is supposed to accept claims that have a reasonable factual basis, even if he does not understand them theoretically. If I am convinced that reasonable people who are not liars have seen the phenomenon with their own eyes, I should accept their claim and then look for an explanation for it (why do pigeons die, and how, if at all, do they cure jaundice). In contrast, the rationalist is not willing to accept facts that do not fit his paradigm. This is metaphysics, he claims, or the position on the unknown. He is not willing to accept metaphysical explanations even where they are required, even though he has no other explanation. We have already seen above that for the sake of 'rationality' he is also willing to believe in events and phenomena without reason and without sufficient reason.

If Newton or Einstein had been such rationalists, instead of being rational, we would never have discovered new scientific worlds. We would always demand explanations of the position on the familiar, and persist in the existing paradigm without being willing to deviate from it. Such conservatism and mental fixation are usually attributed to religious thinking, but it turns out that they appear no less, and perhaps more, in the fields of the atheist.

Interim summary

So far we have seen three similarities between faith and scientific theory: 1. In the first column we saw that both deal with statements of fact (that have not been directly observed). 2. In the second and current column we saw that for this very reason, both are uncertain. 3. And now we have added that both are built on explanations of a kind of stance on the unknown. In the next column I will explain why, despite the similarity, faith in God is not a scientific claim. In the column after that, we will finally arrive (with God's help) at evolution.