Crude Apologetics

In the blog post that inspired my prior piece on physical and mental worlds, Jeffrey Jay Lowder refers to an exchange between he and a Dangerous Idea commenter “Crude” about the nature of Naturalism, and it’s efficacy in explaining the world. The Dangerous Idea thread can be viewed here, while the prime mover for all this was at Axis of Jared.

I often find these exchanges interesting as much for their similarity to other blog/Twitter/Facebook dialogues as for any novel new apologetics that I might encounter. In this instance, “Crude” switches between criticisms of naturalism and atheism often enough to give me the impression that he (or she) couldn’t quite zero in on exactly what in Lowder’s comments was worthy of criticism. But he had sound bites, and wasn’t afraid to use them.

I'll apologize in advance for using soooo muuuuch of the material on Dangerous Idea in this post. It's for my benefit - to condense and focus the flow of arguments so that their strengths and weaknesses can be observed close up.

To give some context, this Lowder reply to Dangerous Idea commenter Legion of Logic gets Crude's attention :

Metaphysical naturalism entails that there is a physical universe, whereas theism does not. So the fact that matter exists is evidence favoring metaphysical naturalism over theism.

Crude engages with Lowder:

That doesn't seem right at all. First, it seems trivially false when we see the list of theisms on offer (polytheism of the sort that involves Zeus, etc, would swing right against it - those gods were apparently physical beings), and second, 'naturalism' is notoriously hard to define (I always refer to the SEP entry of naturalism to illustrate this.) Third, you'd need to define 'matter' and 'physical universe'.

Crude’s claim that “the list of theisms on offer“ is a counterargument to naturalism sounds like he accepts “the list of theisms on offer” at face value - that they are a real part of the physical world. This is completely off-the-wall. If this is supposed to serve as a counter-argument to naturalism, it's utter nonsense.

Crude’s criticism of Krauss is equally unclear:

it seems like if it were in fact the case that 'physical universe' was required by naturalism, then Krauss' speculations - even such as they are, non-ultimate - would seem to strike against *naturalism*, not theism. After all, there'd be a point at which there was no physical universe, just laws or a system or a force. But if the mere existence of laws or a system or a force is compatible naturalism, then it's hard to see what isn't - you can even get classical theism under an umbrella that big.

I’ll take a guess that he’s reducing Krauss’ conception of the universe at the absolute beginning to “mere existence of laws or a system or a force“ without explaining how he arrives at this. So, it's a straw man, or a guess, maybe something else. I don't see what his point is, so I can't accept it as a counterargument either. Wasted words.

...then...

[Lowder]:

Assume for just a moment that the universe is factually necessary (as opposed to logically necessary, metaphysically necessary, or factually contingent). How do you go from "the universe is factually necessary" to "atheism is still out in the cold."

[Crude]:

A brief googling tells me that you're talking about a Swinburne conception here, with the 'factually necessary' being a brute fact. If that's accurate, then you're right on back to inexplicable magic, and the issues of metaphysical necessity and contingency are left unresolved.

Again, it appears Crude reduces this rather hastily, to bad effect (“you're right on back to inexplicable magic“). In any discussion, the participants will rely on some axioms that they hope are generally accepted by all. In this exchange, Lowder assumes physical entities that we know about, or can eventually know about, are all that exists. By extension, any originating cause of the world would be physical (my words, not his). Crude (I assume he’s taking the Theist position) assumes God in place of the physical things that Lowder presumes. Crude attacks Lowder by ridiculing the axioms for natural explanations as “magic”, while ignoring the fact that magic is the essence of the Theist project. The irony is deep here.

Bottom line? Crude doesn’t like Lowder’s axiom(s), while privileging his own with no justification. He can't make a persuasive argument that way.

Bonus gripe: the “Atheism is still out in the cold” claim is off-topic. The contention between these two is (my words) "Naturalism vs. Theism as an explanation for the world". Atheism (the broadly defined lack of belief in theism) is a natural byproduct of Naturalism, but only addresses a single topic - god. We know (kinda sorta) what Crude means - he doesn't like the general non-belief position - but it's a distraction when he himself appears to be unclear what the topic is.

....more....

[Lowder]:

I agree with that there are theisms on offer which entail the existence of gods (lower case 'g') who are/were physical beings. But that point is not of obvious relevance to my argument, which was an evidential argument against God (capital 'G'), not those other types of supernaturalism.

[Crude]:

Well, yes, I think it's entirely relevant to your argument - since it runs against atheism. I also pointed out the problems with your view re: the God of Classical Theism.

Finally, why are these even 'types of supernaturalism'? I think the natural/supernatural distinction is almost entirely arbitrary here.

I get what Lowder says, and don't get what Crude is saying. He says (simplified) "oh yes it does" without elaboration, then appears to play dumb regarding "those other types of supernaturalism", which are the "the list of theisms on offer" that he just got done touting as a counterargument to Naturalism.

[Lowder]:

This revised version of the argument brings out the problem for S even more clearly.

[Crude]:

Not really. In fact, it just highlights the problems you're getting at each and every step.

Sheesh ... "I know you are, but what am I?" That's not a counterargument. Again.

[Lowder]:

1'. E is known to be true, i.e., Pr(E) is close to 1.

[Crude]:

First, we're right on back to needing to explain what counts as E. Second, if you define E in a restricted way, idealism still exists as a live possibility. Third, I pointed out that if E is defined as matter, etc, then we're in the situation of atheists arguing that naturalism was out and out false in the past.

Crude's throwing out a hypothetical that Lowder didn't make ("if you define E in a restricted way"). Twice. "if E is defined as matter, etc, ". It appears that Crude is going off on a tangent. Whether he's doing so purposely is not clear.

[Lowder]:

2'. S is not intrinsically much more probable than N, i.e., Pr(S) is not much greater than Pr(N).

[Crude]:

And now we're back to the issue of 'N' being pretty vacuous as a definition, and very little principled difference between S and N in the relevant senses.

Taken out of context here, Crude has a point. If N and S are equally probable, then neither interlocutor has an advantage. But it's not meant to stand alone. Lowder presents 4 statements, with the first three as premises to a conclusion. So Crude missed the point.

[Lowder]:

3'. Pr(E | N) =1 > Pr(E | S).

[Crude]:

A view I've called into question on multiple fronts.

Crude failed to address the conclusion (4) of Lowder's original comment. He just really missed the point. Here's what Lowder said:

Let E = the existence of physical entities, N = metaphysical naturalism, and S = metaphysical supernaturalism.

1'. E is known to be true, i.e., Pr(E) is close to 1.
2'. S is not intrinsically much more probable than N, i.e., Pr(S) is not much greater than Pr(N).
3'. Pr(E | N) =1 > Pr(E | S).
4'. Other evidence held equal, S is probably false, i.e., Pr(S | B & E) < 1/2.

What Lowder could have said to clarify was that premise 3 indicates a) all the evidence we have is expected on N, b) little or no evidence we have is expected on S. Crude did not understand the notation, or chose to ignore it.

In conclusion, it appears that these two were talking past each other. I don't think that Lowder was as concise as he sometimes is - a plain English explanation of the above argument may have helped, for example - but Crude seemed to willfully miss the point more often than not.

Another worthy example of bad apologetics.