comprehensive william lane craig debate list

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Faith - A Hebrew Perspective (thanks to Dwight Pryor)

We are 'justified by faith' (Romans 5:1). But what does the term faith mean? Is it just 'firm belief'?
The first appearance of the word faith (Hebrew 'emunah') in the Bible is to be found in Exodus. The Israelites have just come out of slavery in Egypt by the power of God's saving acts, lead by Moses and Aaron, when they are suddenly attacked by Amalek. Joshua leads the host of Israel into battle while Moses stands by with his staff raised towards heaven.
Exodus 17:1-2: 'Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat upon it, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.'
The word 'steady' here in 17:2 is 'emunah' or faith. His hands were 'emunah' until the sun went down. Obviously to translate the passage his hands were faith until the sun went down makes no sense. The meaning of the word emunah in Hebrew is firmnness, steadfastness, fidelity. It is better translated not as faith but faithfulness. Matthew 17:29 - when Jesus talks of the faith of the mustard seed He's speaking of the seed's determination and persistence to grow in even the most barren climates - its faithfulness.

Romans 1:17 says: 'For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed … that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” '
When Paul states that from first to last the gospel is about faith, he has in mind firstly the faithfulness of God in keeping covenant promises to the patriarchs, then the faithfulness of Jesus in His atoning death on the cross and the faithfulness of those who believe this good news and walk in it's light. The text quoted in 1:17 is originally from Habakkuk and is literally translated: 'the righteous shall live by His faithfulness.'

If we read the word faith in the New Testament as the Hebrew 'emunah' it gives a much fuller meaning to certain passages. For example:

But now [the mystery] is disclosed
… to all the Gentiles, according to
the command of the eternal God,
to bring about the obedience of
faithfulness — to the only wise God,
through Jesus Christ, be the glory
forever! (Rom 16:26)

Without faithfulness it is impossible
to please God. (Heb 11:6)

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision is of any
avail, but faithfulness working
through love. (Gal 5:6)

Look to Jesus the pioneer and
perfecter of our faithfulness. (Heb
12:1)

This is the victory that overcomes
the world, even our faithfulness. (1
Jn 5:4)

We give thanks to God always for
you all … remembering your work
of faithfulness and labour of love
and steadfastness of hope in our
Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thes 1:2-3)

When the Son of Man comes, will
he find faithfulness on earth?" (Lk
18.8)

Here is a call for the endurance of
the saints, those who keep the
commandments of God and the
faithfulness of Jesus. (Rev 14:12)

Biblical faith signifies more than intellectual assent to true propositions - it encompasses this, obviously, but goes beyond it. Remember that even the demons believe in God (James 2:19), but they do not have faith. It is when our faith leads to faithfulness that we truly honour the God of Israel.

the psychological relevance of logical laws

In his excellent little book C.S. Lewis' Dangerous Idea Victor Reppert outlines several different versions of the 'argument from reason' against physicalism. Besides some of the more well known ones, such as the problem of mental causation and Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (see here for a Plantinga lecture outline on the topic), there's an interesting one to do with the psychological relevance of logical laws. In essence what Reppert argues is that rational inference involves employment of the laws of logic, something which the physicalist cannot give an account for. These logical laws aren't physical (they pertain across all possible worlds, including ones with no physical objects) and they tell us what must be true in every possible world (i.e. the law of noncontradiction holds in all possible worlds). If this is the case then it appears one who accepts the laws of logic (which has to be done if you're to rationally infer one belief from another) must then accept some kind of non-physical, non-spatial, non-temporal abstract entities (at the very least some kind of Platonic forms).
It also has to be assumed we know these laws. But the physicalist can only accept some kind of causal interaction between the brain and the objects of its knowledge. If this is the case then the laws of logic must be physical (or how else can the brain causally interact with them?). But this can't be the case if these laws are, as already argued, non-physical, non-spatial, non-temporal entities. As Reppert points out some philosophers have given this kind of argument as to why we should be non-realists about numbers - we cannot be causally connected to them in a physical way either (numbers are prime examples of abstract objects). If we take this argument and apply it to the laws of logic neither should we be realists about them. But if we are going to contend that the laws of logic do not exist the glaring problem is, as Aristotle pointed out millennia ago, we cannot coherently assert that this is so without presupposing the laws we're trying to deny the existence of (i.e. the law of noncontradiction). So, to quote Reppert: "philosophical naturalism undermines the laws that are presupposed in the very assertion of philosophical naturalism."
More on this later.

monty python's classic philosophy football match

kripke's modal argument for (substance?) dualism

Im going to outline Saul Kripke's modal argument for a dualism of the mind and body. I've just started reading his famous book Naming & Necessity (based on a series of lectures he gave in the 1970's) for university, so perhaps all of the details I'm about to relay aren't one hundred percent accurate, but this is the general gist of what I think he's getting at.
His argument comes at the end of the book and it relies on the theory of names he'd already developed earlier on in the first chapter which, due to space, im not going to go into in any great detail. Essentially before Kripke (Frege & Russell being the two most prominent proponents) names were thought to be synonymous with a (cluster of) descriptions - for example 'Aristotle' would have been synonymous with 'teacher of Alexander the Great, student of Plato, writer of the Metaphysics etc.'. If this is the case then names are 'non-rigid' designators (to use Kripke's terminology) - the name 'Aristotle' thus considered in another possible world may not apply to the man who it actually designates in this the actual world, because in some other world Aristotle may have done none of the things he is famous for doing in this world. In some other possible world 'Aristotle' may pick out a totally different person who does all of the things Aristotle in this world is known for doing. For Kripke, however, proper names like 'Aristotle' turn out to be 'rigid' designators - they pick out the same person in all possible worlds, which means they aren't shorthand for a cluster of properties after all. Without going over his arguments as to why (I'll perhaps save them for a later blog), it also turns out that not only are proper names rigid designators, but also 'natural kind' terms are rigid designators - terms like 'gold', 'water', 'tiger' etc. pick out the same kind of thing in every world in which that thing exists.

The upshot of all this is that theoretical identity statements become necessary (they hold across all possible worlds in which those entities exist). So, for example, if 'lightning' and 'electrical discharge' pick out the same thing in this world (i.e. lightning just is an electrical discharge) then, necessarily, they pick out the same thing in every possible world - there cannot be a possible world in which lightning isn't an electrical discharge. Maybe in another world there is something like lightning which isn't an electrical discharge: something that has similair effects and a similair look to lightning, yet it just wouldn't be lightning. Why? Because, again, if the terms 'lightning' and 'electrical discharge' are 'rigid-designators', picking out the same thing in all worlds, and they are identical in at least one world then they must be identical in every world.

So how does all this relate to the contemporary mind-body problem? Well, the mind-body identity thesis is a form of materialism that holds that mental sensations just are physical brain processes. For example pain just literally is a c-fiber firing in the brain somewhere - it isn't anything over and above the physical process, it is identical with it in the same way lightning and electrical discharge or water and h20 are the same entity. So if the natural kind terms 'pain' and 'c-fiber' pick out the same thing in this world then necessarily pain must be a c-fiber firing in every possible world there is pain. This seems a strong claim, but the identity theorist may be willing to say this is just how it is. Kripke's argument against this conclusion is simply that we can conceive of a world in which there was a c-fiber firing without the corresponding feeling of pain (and vice versa, a pain with no c-fiber firing). The identity theorist may wish to explain this away by appealing to something like heat being identical to molecular motion. In some other world we can imagine the feeling of heat that we have now identified with molecular motion not existing - perhaps we have evolved in such a way that we can't feel this heat 'qualia' (sensation). In this case, though, it would appear we could still detect heat through detecting molecular motion. So the actual qualitative feeling of heat becomes a 'non-rigid' designator we use to pick out the phenomena of heat in this world - it is an 'accidental' property of heat (not necessary/essential to its nature of being heat), while its being molecular motion is essential to it. This means that if there were no molecular motion then there would be no heat, but the converse doesn't hold - if we (or any other observer) cannot experience the qualitative feel of heat there still could be heat if there was the required molecular motion occuring in that world. Kripke, however, thinks we cannot do a similair thing with pain and c-fiber firings. The felt quality of pain isn't something accidental to its being pain in the same way the felt quality of heat is accidental to it's being heat - if there is no felt quality of pain, yet a c-fiber still fires, we are compelled to say that it's not pain. In essence what is being said is that when we think of pain we don't think of a c-fiber firing as being something essential to it while its raw felt quality is something accidental to it's nature in the same way we see molecular motion being essential to heat while its felt quality is accidental. In that world where there is a c-fiber firing with no corresponding pain qualia and molecular motion with no corresponding heat qualia it appears we would be forced to draw two different conclusions: firstly that there is no pain in that world and secondly that there is still heat there.

Because the identity theorist cannot account for the above the identity theory of the mind and body is false and the mind really is distinct from anything physical. The identity theorist may reply that despite appearances it really isn't possible that a pain could be anything other than a c-fiber firing - which brings us into an area explored by the likes of David Chalmers and Stephen Yablo on whether sheer conceivability entails possibility (for a future post methinks).

Simple eh?