Section 1, Chapter 4 of the Logic of God
Naturalism, in all its permutations, has disastrous implications for epistemology or our justification of knowledge claims. There are two major permutations of naturalism that this chapter will focus on, both of which lead to total skepticism. There are materialism and pantheistic emanationism.
The Failure of Materialism
Materialism is the premise that all of reality consists of, or is a product of, physical matter and energy. No spiritual or non-physical reality exists outside the scope of material reality. This poses a problem of how logical reality is explained. Materialists face a trilemma, each of which is fatal to Materialism: Logical and Mathematical truths are mere physical objects or exist relative to physical reality. Logical and Mathematical truths are not truths at all, but mere conventions humans use to process information (Nominalism). Logical and Mathematical truths have a distinct, non-physical reality.
If Logical and Mathematical truths are mere physical objects or exist relative to physical reality, then they would have the same properties as physical reality. What this means is that logical and mathematical truths would have to be justified in the same way as our empirical knowledge of the physical world. We must use observations to gather information about the physical world and then test those to arrive at a probable conclusion. Because our senses are fallible, we must test those and reach a probable conclusion. This means that we would determine that 2+2 = 4 and that the sums of the squares of the sides of a right triangle = the square of the hypotenuse through testing our observations of numbers and triangles rather than constructing mathematical theorems. In other words, theorems would have no evidential value in math if Materialism is true; if materialism is true, only empirical or experiential observation can supply proof – and only give probable conclusions.
If logical and mathematical truths are physical objects, then empiricism is true. Empiricism is the idea that all knowledge comes from sense experience. If all knowledge comes from sense experience, then one must use sense experience to justify this claim. Using sense experience to prove that sense experience is a valid way of knowing is circular reasoning. If logical and mathematical truths are physical objects, then self-refuting skepticism follows.
The method of proof of the truths of logic and mathematics is not compatible with the mode of proof that would necessarily be used if logic and mathematics are physical objects or products of physical reality. Logical and mathematical truth are proved by theorems that are absolutely true and knowable without recourse to observations about the external world. The method of proof used in logic and mathematics is only valid if logic and mathematics are NOT physical objects or products of physical reality.
The idea that logical and mathematical truth are not truths at all, but mere convention humans use to process information, is an implication of a philosophical view called Nominalism. Nominalism denies that there are any universals. Three big problems arise if Nominalism is true; Language becomes meaningless. Mathematics and logic become meaningless. If language, math, and logic are meaningless, then Nominalism itself is meaningless4:1.
If there are no universals, then all statements are meaningless. This is because virtually all statements invoke universal categories in either the subject or the predicate. The sentence “Socrates is a man” is meaningless because the attribute set designated by the word “man” would not represent the universal set ‘man’ if no universals exist. If the class or set ‘man’ does not exist, then it is meaningless to assert that a particular object can be a member of that class. It is the equivalent of saying “Socrates…”Such a statement has no semantic or linguistic meaning.
If there are no universals, then laws of logic and mathematics are meaningless because they cannot be defined or have any semantic meaning except as universals. The law of non-contradiction, for example, is not a particular truth but a universal principle. It says that nothing can be true and false in the same context. It is valid in every context. No universals mean no law of non-contradiction. Mathematical theorems follow the same principle. In a world in which no meaningful statements in natural language are possible, logic and mathematics could not even apply to natural language. The fact that logic and mathematics necessarily apply to and constrain natural language proves that language, mathematics, and logic have meaning – and therefore ontology.
If logical and mathematical principles are not real, then there is no reason to believe that they have any ability or any value to describe reality. No reason to believe that natural laws exist either. Both science and everyday common sense become worthless.
If Nominalism is true, then everything is reduced to meaninglessness. Language is incapable of communicating any meaning, and logic/math and the disciplines that depend on their use are incapable of describing the real world. We are left with only a self-refuting skepticism. The meaninglessness of Nominalism is self-defeating. If Nominalism is true, then the statement affirming Nominalism is itself meaningless.
Logical and Mathematical truths have a distinct, non-physical reality. This is the only coherent position to hold concerning the ontology or reality status of logical and mathematical truths. The fact that logic and mathematicsnecessarily apply to and constrain natural language proves that language, mathematics, and logic have both meaning and ontology. Meaning has ontology as meaning. The necessary nature of its application implies that logic and mathematics are not mere conventions but imply ontology. Logic and Mathematics are only useful for making inferences about the real world if they can tell us something about it. This, however, involves the falsification of Materialism. Material reality is not the only reality that exists – and not even the ultimate, defining reality that frames everything else.
The Failure of Pantheistic Emanationism.
Pantheistic Emanationism begins with the premise that there is a single reality from which all objects and attributes emanate. Emanation necessitates the outflow of essence of the primordial reality. The essence of this primordial reality is necessarily absolute truth. This is because the existence of absolute truth is necessary; the denial of absolute truth itself involves positing an absolute truth – that the denial itself be an absolute truth. All particular truths exist in relation to absolute truth.
In an emanationist metaphysics, particular truths are just an emanation of absolute truth. Since emanation involves an outflow of the essence of the primordial reality which has now been established as absolute truth, then all particular truths are themselves absolute truth. Absolute truth cannot be false, cannot be corrupted, and cannot NOT exist. As such, everything exists, everything has necessary existence, self-existence, and therefore eternal existence. If everything necessarily exists, then nothing can be falsified, and no temporal events ever occur.
If nothing can ever be falsified and no temporal events can ever occur, then there would be no contradictions in all of reality; everything and everyone would exist eternally, and everyone would have all of the powers of absolute truth. As applied to me, it follows that I should be able to have everything anyone could want, simply by willing it into existence: money, power, glory, fame, pleasure. In fact, I wouldn’t even need to since I would already have everything anyone could need. I could do these things and you could too – if Pantheistic Emanationism is true.
Needless to say, it doesn’t take very long to falsify Pantheistic Emanationism. Religions that teach emanation generally take one of two paths to evade falsification:
One is to assert imperfect emanation where the emanation is an imperfect or corrupted outflow of the essence of primordial reality as an explanation of an imperfect and corrupted reality. Because absolute truth cannot be falsified or corrupted, the existence of an imperfect emanation represents a fundamental contradiction that falsifies the entire emanationist worldview.
The second option is to conclude that the totality of their perceptions is delusion.The consequences of this type of thinking are that one would have no basis to believe that any of their perceptions tell them anything about the real world. Their perception of causality of space-time events is an illusion. Their perception that they are limited is an illusion. Their perception of contradictions, corruption, and death is an illusion. This option is self-contradictory as it asserts that primordial reality, absolute truth, produced delusion. It is logically impossible for absolute truth to produce or imply delusion.
Emanationist philosophy often retreats into mysticism as the preferred way of dealing with the logical difficulties that are inherent in this philosophy. In this view, logic is indicted as being incapable of comprehending the ways of the primordial reality.
Because of the absolute truth claims of logic and the universal scope of its claims to necessary truth and logical impossibilities, logic is not selectively valid. If logic is instantiated once, then it is instantiated as a whole and applicable to the whole. This is where mysticism ultimately fails. It is impossible for anyone to consistently live in a mystical world. At some point, the logic of the real world comes crashing in on everyone, regardless of whether they believe in logic or mysticism. The act of attempting to be and acting in aconsistently mystical manner actually presupposes logic. If mysticism were really true, there would be no need for consistency, as consistency is a property of logic; if logic is false, one could act both mystically and non-mystically/logically without consequence.
Naturalism, in all of its permutations, leads to either self-contradictory consequences or to self-defeating total skepticism. Naturalism is not an adequate basis for our knowledge of the world, of life, or of ultimate meaning. Naturalism is not an adequate framework for understanding truth in its totality.
Chapter 4 References
1. Meaningless is a term that can mean one of two different things in philosophy.
It can refer to Existential meaninglessness. This refers to the dissonance between the human experience and the logical consequences of Materialism
Or it can also refer to statements that cannot have any semantic or linguistic meaning because of how they are constructed or because their truth value is not definable