Can Naturalists Know Anything?

Scott Smith, from Biola, has written an important book you may never read, but the ideas are very important in understanding the debate over reason between atheists and theists.  There's a fatal flaw in atheism's worldview that undercuts their claim to know reality.

In recent years, atheists constantly claim that theism by nature is unreasonable and irrational.  Atheism, with its commitment to naturalism and science, holds the rational high ground.  Atheists who argue this way often dismiss and don't engage arguments for theism and Christianity because they think there's nothing to argue about.

But worldviews have commitments ingrained in them, and naturalism does not provide a home for knowledge and reason.  Theism does.

The irony that Scott Smith points out is that it is the worldview of atheism, naturalism, that is incompatible with reason and knowledge.  He explains it here.  He argues that features of beliefs and knowledge are intrinsically non-physical, and naturalism cannot account for these.  Knowledge requires mental states, but naturalism denies the existence of mental states and minds.  Naturalism leaves us without knowledge, only interpretations.  This is a fatal flaw for a worldview that claims to explain the world in purely physical terms and claim to be true and knowable.

Scott discussed his book with Brian Auten.

Comments

[WisdomLover]

Louis-

The issue is not whether we make mistakes (no one denies that). But whether there is some special reality other than what we have access to by observation.

LHRM-

I don't think materialism is essential to science. If anything, it is inimical to it.

[WisdomLover]

One more remark on our so-called superior knowledge of evolution.

We don't even really know what the phenomenon is that is being explained (gradual change or punctuated equilibrium or something else). We can hardly know more about the mechanism that brings about this unknown change than we can of the mechanism the drives gravity.

And if you insist that we do know what the mechanism is, and that it can drive any of the competing types of change, then I submit there's another mechanism we know nothing about. It's this unknown mechanism that, in addition to the known mechanisms, accounts for the fact that one set of phenomena occurred rather than another.

[Louis Kuhelj]

WisdomLover
"
The issue is not whether we make mistakes (no one denies that). But whether there is some special reality other than what we have access to by observation."

If one considers reflection as part of that observation, then then the answer is yes. Your statement is fine as far as it goes, but I think it needs to carefully consider the very nature of what should be considered legitimate forms of observation and not to dismiss other forms without proper justification and a bias of one form or another is not a proper justification.

[scbrownlhrm]

WL.... agree~~~

[scbrownlhrm]

Consciousness has many modes of observation. Even eyes to know a God Who is love. I'm not sure there is more "beyond" that.....

[scbrownlhrm]

If there is a God who is love then perhaps the pure materialist has more reality than that which his electron microscope will reveal to him. Whereas, to have seen Him puts one's observation on all things congruent......there are no "other" realities. Lest they forget, I remind the materialist of the Philosophy of Physicists which of late has become necessary as this universe lacks self explanatory power.

[Brad B]

Hi W/L, I've only been checking in and scanning discussions recently and dont know if this post is of interest to you, but if nothing else, it admits that you are not alone in your evaluation of the "evolution as a preeminent science" claim.

[WisdomLover]

Thanks Brad.

I want to listen to the arguments sympathetically, but guys like the Cassone fellow mentioned in the link make it really difficult. I would, at least, tend to ignore anything he had to say.

[Brad B]

Hi W/L, thats just it, there are no arguments here, just an appeal to authority with no attempt to justify the claim. This is the kind of thing that government investigations eat up without inspection as they hear testimony to become equipped to judge rightly/ineptly.

Sad to say, but it seems the public in general is equally hungry to accept bald claims if the right person is delivering the message. Doing so without so much as a second look at what was actually claimed for even minimal justification much less inspect to see if it is coherent within ones worldview.

I wonder if "Mike"[I think it was Mike] was just repeating something when he brought it up earlier when you rightly called it nonsense. It is a catchy line, gotta admit.

[ArthurK]

http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/

[Brad B]

Looks like a levelheaded appeal for unbiased investigation ArthurK, I hope the scientific community welcomes/embraces it. It would do much to lessen the growing skepticism to all things scientific because of the sloppy claims of lesser discliplined, but more vocal and visible Darwinian leaning practitioners of natural sciences.

[WisdomLover]

Brad-

Mike seemed to to be repeating the thoughts of Michael Zimmerman.