Monday, April 2, 2012

An Atheological Argument from Necessity

The follow argument has been heavily criticized by some people I know (atheists and theists alike). However, I think this argument does something rather important; it creates a sort of Euthyphro Dilemma for certain types of apologetic systems. If you have an apologetic system (like some presuppositional systems) that takes Platonic Realism about the Laws of Logic seriously, then this argument does carry some weight. In very simplistic terms, it reduces to asking the question: "Is Creation logically consistent because God chose to make it that way, or did God make Creation logically consistent because he had to?" It also leads to a common inconsistency within some of these systems. Usually, they'll say the Laws of Logic are immaterial, abstract entities that are eternal (Platonic Objects). But then they'll go on to explain how God caused Divine Creation to occur, thus creating a Universe that behaves logically. The question raised has to do with whether or not that universe behaves logically because god willed it to be so, or it behaves logically because of those eternal, abstract entities called the Laws of Logic. If it behaves as such because of the Laws of Logic, then one ought to presuppose those before any rational discourse. If the Universe behaves logically because God willed it to be so, then could he have willed it another way? If not, why not? If he could have only willed it this one way, then is he bound by the Laws of Logic? If he is bound by the Laws of Logic, is he really Omnipotent (in the normal sense of the word) ? It almost seems like we can skip the middle man (if we suppose a Presuppositionalist Epistemological System), and go just presuppose these Platonic Objects (Laws of Logic). Anyway, enough of my rambling; here is the argument.

P1: Logical Laws are necessary.
P2: If theism is true, then divine creation obtains.
P3: If divine creation is true, then all in the universe is contingent to God’s act of creation, and     nothing in the universe is necessary.
C1/P4: If theism is true, then no Logical Law can be necessary or have a necessary part. (from 2 and  3)
C2: Theism is false. (from 1 and 4)

As I said earlier, there are many ways to critique this argument. I don't actually think it shows theism to be false; but I do think it opens up more areas for objection within the theistic worldview (presuppositionalist). You may be able to open areas of objection regarding their stances on the Laws of Logic being part of God's nature, and why God's nature is as such. You could probably also open avenues of critique regarding how they know which Logical Laws obtain in their narrative of Divine Creation.  (This is not a very strong argument; but it can raise a lot of questions regarding the coherence of their worldview.)

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