(according to the Christian worldview) GOD has revealed to us (thru his word) that he created an orderly, rational world and we are created in the image of GOD. Therefore, we have a justification for trusting in our rational faculties and the reliability of our sense experiences. So within the Christian worldview it makes sense to talk of laws and universals and such (and science makes sense).

But that doesn’t mean that any and all scientific claims made by a Christian are are correct, does it? You may feel justified in “trusting in our rational faculties and the reliability of our sense experiences” but that doesn’t mean you are any less likely to make mistakes in observation, draw erroneous conclusions, or espouse incomplete or incorrect theories. For centuries, Christians have been discovering new things about the universe which undercut or overturned the theories that they previously held.

So where, exactly, does God come into it? You can’t ever know if your theory really rests on the orderly foundation, or if there is another layer (or ten) between your theory and the truth.

However, if someone is starting from a non-christian worldview, how do they know that (as you put it) their standard of truth is more true than other alternatives?

Well, since you seem to think that bare assertion works for Christians, I don’t see why I shouldn’t do the same. Of course, I have the advantage in that you already share my worldview – you just add your God on top of it. You know perfectly well that you use the epistemology I’ve outlined all the time. You don’t look to God for an explanation of why your car won’t start, or why your clock is blinking 12s, or where babies come from, do you? No, you consider your accumulated experiences and observations, reason about them, and formulate theories which you choose between based on their probability, consistency with observation, and usefulness. Of course, you could be mistaken in trusting any of those theories, but you do your best.

Science is just a formalized version of that, with some additional features intended to prevent any one person’s mistakes from getting out of hand.

Adding God on top of that doesn’t get you one micron closer to eliminating the problem of induction (which might be better named “the problem of you might be wrong”). Even if your God was speaking directly to you, you wouldn’t be able to eliminate the problem of induction, because you might be wrong about whether the voice was actually God’s. Even if the Bible made reliable predictions that came true like the ticking of a clock (and it doesn’t), that wouldn’t change the fact that it could stop any time.

I’m going to continue this line of thought in a slightly different direction over on the Hume’s Argument Against Belief in Miracles, Part 2 thread.

My response: This is not an accurate description of presuppositional thought. A more accurate description is that (according to the Christian worldview) GOD has revealed to us (thru his word) that he created an orderly, rational world and we are created in the image of GOD. Therefore, we have a justification for trusting in our rational faculties and the reliability of our sense experiences. So within the Christian worldview it makes sense to talk of laws and universals and such (and science makes sense).

However, if someone is starting from a non-christian worldview, how do they know that (as you put it) their standard of truth is more true than other alternatives? To go back to my first question, what sort of justification do they have (from within their worldview) between working better and being more true?

Steve said: Check back after part 2 of Daniel Schrock’s essay discussion is posted; I think getting too deeply into Hume here would be premature.

My response: I would say OK – except that your next comment takes us directly to the problem of induction.

Steve said: …..where would that leave the order of the universe? Obviously somewhere quite different from where we thought it was.

My response: So the universe appears to be orderly based upon your experiences thus far. But your experiences only provide justification for what you have experienced, not what you have not experienced. And so your experiences provide no justification for any sort of expectation of future events. Or, for that matter, anything you have not experienced. And without that expectation there is no foundation for science. So the problem remains. That, by the way, is the problem of induction.

Pragmaticism says “it’s true because it works”. How do you know it true because it works?

I’m having a hard time responding to this question, because it doesn’t make any sense to me. First of all, I don’t think that “it’s true because it works” is quite the right way to phrase it. I would say, “It’s more true than other alternatives, because it works better.” That’s still pretty rough, but I’d be more comfortable agreeing with it. Anyway, when you ask me how I know that my standard of truth produces truth, the only way I can reply is to say that by my standard of truth, it does (this is something your presuppositionalist compatriots are also quite firm about). If you think that you have some procedure for evaluating the truth of claims about reality which does not depend on evaluating the claims’ correspondence with observed reality according to some standard of reason, I can’t stop you from relying on it… but I’d recommend against it. How would you ever be able to tell whether it’s working?

And pragmaticism doesn’t even begin to answer the problem of induction (see David Hume).

I don’t think anything really answers the problem of induction when it’s put forward by a radical skeptic, but since you’re not a radical skeptic, and neither am I, I don’t see where bringing it up gets you. Check back after part 2 of Daniel Schrock’s essay discussion is posted; I think getting too deeply into Hume here would be premature.

Ultimately, there can be no rational justification for trusting in laws or universals unless the universe is (at bottom) orderly.

Our trust in laws and universal claims has nothing at all to do with whether “the universe is (at bottom) orderly” (whatever that means) for the simple reason that we have no idea whether our laws and universal claims correspond to the putative underlying order. Assuming that our current laws correspond to the underlying order of the universe would be foolish, as you point out, because “the scientific theories we are using today may no longer be accepted 100 years from now”, and where would that leave the order of the universe? Obviously somewhere quite different from where we thought it was. No, all we have is the amount of order and law that accounts for the observations we have already in our possession.

Steve

But the sort of pragmatic justification you are referring to isn’t an adequate justification. A pragmaticism justification simply begs the question. Pragmaticism says “it’s true because it works”. How do you know it true because it works? I can think of scientific theories that worked just fine – until they didn’t work so well. They were overturned – just as the scientific theories we are using today may no longer be accepted 100 years from now.And pragmaticism doesn’t even begin to answer the problem of induction (see David Hume).

Ultimately, there can be no rational justification for trusting in laws or universals unless the universe is (at bottom) orderly. And the only way we can know that is if GOD chose to create a universe that is orderly and comprehendible by the mind of man and GOD chose to revealed this to us in his scriptures.

Scientists assume that laws apply to all times and places. I think most people who study the early history of the universe agree that we can’t make claims about what the laws where before a certain point slightly after the singularity, most physicists agree that we don’t know what laws hold inside black holes, and everyone who accepts the possibility of multiple universes (at least a sizable minority) believes that different laws may apply within them. So Poythress’s claim is trivially false, in that scientists believe there are different problem domains or regimes, where different laws are in effect. More seriously, of course scientists assume that laws apply everywhere in the same domain! Poythress actually explains why scientists make this assumption in the clip: “A law that would change would actually not be the deepest law, but you’d look for an explanation of what generates the changes.” That’s exactly correct. As soon as observation shows that a law does not hold in a certain place or time, scientists look for an explanation of why that domain is different from this domain. But until observation shows that a law fails to hold somewhere, the simplest assumption is that it holds everywhere, so that you don’t need to start making additional assumptions about an unobserved and unneeded “deeper” law. The assumption that a law holds everywhere is pragmatic, not Platonic.

Scientific laws presume an originating person. Poythress seems to hang this position on a couple assertions: that laws are rational, and that they are”language-like” – he thinks that these characteristics indicate that scientific law must have come from a person. He then concludes that this person is God. This non sequitur is especially peculiar because Poythress is perfectly aware that scientific laws are periodically questioned, found to be irrational, and abandoned by the persons who devised them – that is, humans. In fact, we have some theories right now which individually seem to have attained a stature where they might be called laws – relativity and quantum mechanics – but which together are irrational, in that they appear to contradict. It may be that the contradiction will never be resolved, or someone may prove that it cannot be resolved. What then would happen to Poythress’ argument? In fact, what happens to it right now? It’s all well and good for Poythress to claim that there is an underlying rational law, but all scientists are doing is trying to find it. They aren’t assuming it’s there. Poythress is the one bringing in his extra assumptions.

This becomes more and more evident as the book progresses. There’s a repeated pattern where Poythress gives us a solid exposition of the development of a particular scientific theory or mathematical system, then
puts in God – even claims that an appreciation of God is necessary to understanding the concepts – even though he has just explained how the thing developed without any reference to God. Even in within his own book, he can’t make the case that God is intrinsic to these concepts, because he does a great job of making them make sense without God.