The Antecedence of Natural Revelations, pt II
I am currently going through finals, so blogging will be limited. Once they are over, I'll write a reply to Aaron Armitage. His latest can be found here and here.
Just a few notes about it: I made a few slips in writing my last piece and Aaron called me on it. Somehow, I had managed to use "claims" instead of "would claim." A minor point, perhaps, but still significant. I thus apologize to Aaron. I will also address his last point now, regarding my belief in the conceptual antecedence of natural revelation.
I am not familiar with the specifics of the Hittite case, but it sounds to me like it is an example of bad methodology. Lack of evidence is not positive negative evidence. At the risk of revealing my ignorance of archaeology, I believe that this is the primary reason archaeology is not a science: positive negative evidence is extremely hard to come across. Aaron provides less information about camel domestication, so I will just assume that it is similar.
Independent of the specifics of his examples, I agree with Aaron. However, he has not yet shown that incompatibilism flatly contradicts Scripture. Aaron has set himself up for a tough task. He seems to imply that Joshua 10 and modern astronomy are not in direct contradiction. The definition of contradiction has been strengthened quite a bit by Aaron.
Finally, Aaron accuses human reasoning of being fallible. I fully agree. However, he doesn't say the same about sensation. In fact, Aaron seems to claim that we are more reliable about empirical matters than a priori matters. I disagree. Sensations (seeing, hearing, feeling, etc.) are notoriously misleading. A priori matters can be found through reasoning alone. Empirical matters seem to require both reasoning and sensations. The addition of a less reliable method of gathering information doesn't seem to me to help reliability. Just as (in chemistry) impurities in a sample lower its melting point dramatically, the addition of an even more unreliable method lowers our accuracy.
EDIT: 3:33am 3/5/05 - I added links to Aaron's posts. I am indeed up at 3 in the morning. I'm pretty hungry, but the roommate's asleep, so I'm afraid to get up and get food. And... I don't really have any food left in the room.
Just a few notes about it: I made a few slips in writing my last piece and Aaron called me on it. Somehow, I had managed to use "claims" instead of "would claim." A minor point, perhaps, but still significant. I thus apologize to Aaron. I will also address his last point now, regarding my belief in the conceptual antecedence of natural revelation.
This view, in my opinion, is profoundly backwards. If we believe we have a revelation from an omniscient Being who never lies (although He may reveal Himself cryptically), and we believe ourselves to be fallen and fallible, then we should go to the revelation first and make sure our philosophical speculations conform to it, not speculate philosophically and then conform revelation to our speculations.
It may be that modern research impacts our understanding of some passages, but if we see a flat contradiction, the thing to do is believe Scripture. For example, it was formerly charged that there were no such people as Hittites and therefore the Biblical histories are unreliable. Who's been vindicated, the scholars, or the "ignorant" believers who kept on thinking Hittites existed just because the Bible said so? Another example: it's been claimed -- and still is in quite a few corners -- that the account of Abraham using camels is anachronistic because camels weren't domesticated yet. Turns out they were.
And those are cases subject to empirical proof. Whether our free will is compatibilist free will or incompatibilist isn't. So Joshua is asking us to impose limits on what we'll accept from the Bible on the basis of limited, fallible human reason where we can't even check our conclusions.
I am not familiar with the specifics of the Hittite case, but it sounds to me like it is an example of bad methodology. Lack of evidence is not positive negative evidence. At the risk of revealing my ignorance of archaeology, I believe that this is the primary reason archaeology is not a science: positive negative evidence is extremely hard to come across. Aaron provides less information about camel domestication, so I will just assume that it is similar.
Independent of the specifics of his examples, I agree with Aaron. However, he has not yet shown that incompatibilism flatly contradicts Scripture. Aaron has set himself up for a tough task. He seems to imply that Joshua 10 and modern astronomy are not in direct contradiction. The definition of contradiction has been strengthened quite a bit by Aaron.
Finally, Aaron accuses human reasoning of being fallible. I fully agree. However, he doesn't say the same about sensation. In fact, Aaron seems to claim that we are more reliable about empirical matters than a priori matters. I disagree. Sensations (seeing, hearing, feeling, etc.) are notoriously misleading. A priori matters can be found through reasoning alone. Empirical matters seem to require both reasoning and sensations. The addition of a less reliable method of gathering information doesn't seem to me to help reliability. Just as (in chemistry) impurities in a sample lower its melting point dramatically, the addition of an even more unreliable method lowers our accuracy.
EDIT: 3:33am 3/5/05 - I added links to Aaron's posts. I am indeed up at 3 in the morning. I'm pretty hungry, but the roommate's asleep, so I'm afraid to get up and get food. And... I don't really have any food left in the room.
posted by Joshua Frear at 9:36 AM
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