Defining knowledge as justified true belief with Gettier thrown in

Philosophers have been accused of using words in very unconventional ways, which is confusing for people who aren't philosophers. There's a reason they do it, though. They do it for the sake of clarity. Language, the way it is commonly used, can be very ambiguous. Since philosophers are trying to address hard questions that require a lot of precision and careful thinking, they want to define their terms in precise ways so they can understand each other and communicate clearly. This requires them to give very precise definitions to the words they use. It doesn't matter whether the definitions they give are common or not. What matters is that the reader understands what they are saying. As long as you understand what somebody means by the words they are using, you can figure out what they are trying to communicate with those words.

Words and their meanings didn't just fall from the sky. A word doesn't mean something because the dictionary says so. It's the other way around. The dictionary is an attempt to capture what words already mean. What determines the meaning of words is just how they are used. Since any given word might be used in multiple different ways, there are some ways that are more common than others. Dictionaries attempt to put the most common uses first and the least common uses last.

In the case of the word, knowledge, the definition philosophers typically use may be unusually precise compared to the way most people would definite it, but it's not an arbitrary definition that's peculiar to philosophers. Rather, it's a definition that was arrived at in an attempt to capture the common use. Let me try to show that by asking some questions.

Would it make sense to claim that you know something if you didn't even think it was true? Probably not. Wouldn't it seem odd to say, "I don't think birds of a feather flock together, but I know they do"? I suspect that would seem odd to you. At a bare minimum, then, before you can know something, you have to at least believe it to be true. To "believe," just means to think something is true.

If I believe something, is that enough to claim that I know it? We have already established that belief is necessary for knowledge, but most of us would acknowledge that belief is not sufficient. Something more is needed. After all, I might believe something and be wrong about it. People believe all sorts of things that aren't true. You can't know something is true if it's not true. So at minimum, before you can know something, it first has to be true.

Now we've shown that to have knowledge, you need at least two ingredients. You need it to be true, and you need to believe that it's true. But are those two things enough?

Well, consider a situation in which somebody, for no reason at all, or for some erroneous reason, comes to believe that there is life on Jupiter. Up until now, no discovery of life on Jupiter has been made, and no chemistry or light on Jupiter has given us any reason to think there's life on Jupiter. But then suppose that years down the road, a probe sent into the atmosphere in Jupiter found that, in deed, there is mocrobial life floating in the atmosphere of Jupiter. If that were the case, then the person who believed there was life on Jupiter would have been right all along. He had a belief that turned out to be true. Would it be fair to claim that he knew that there was life on Jupiter?

I hope you said no. The way we commonly use the word, knowledge, seems to entail that he didn't have knowledge. Rather, he just made a lucky guess, and happened to believe it. What is missing? Well, if he just arbitrarily believed something he made up, the missing ingredient seems to be justification. If he had concluded that there was life on Jupiter because he performed some spectroscopy on the planet and discovered chemicals in the atmosphere that could only be created by living organisms, then he would have some justification for believing there was life on Jupiter. Or, if he had been part of the team that sent a probe to Jupiter, and he was privy to the data the probe sent back indicating that it found life on Jupiter, then he would by justified in beliving there was life on Jupiter. Then we might say he knows there's life on Jupiter.

Now, we have established that knowledge requires (1) belief, (2) truth, and (3) justification. That is why the typical definition philosophers use for knowledge is "justified true belief." That has served as a satisfactory definition for knowledge in most cases.

Being the persnickety people that good philosophers are, though, even this definition has been probed for its accuracy. Just as in the scientific method, we test hypothesies by trying to falsify them, so also in the case of philosophy, we test ideas by trying to think of counter-examples. A philosopher named Edmund Gettier came up with some counter-examples to the definition of knowledge as justified true belief. The issue he raised has become known as "The Gettier Problem" since there is no concensus on the resolution.

A counter-example to knowledge as justified true belief would be a scenario in which all three ingredients are present, but we still don't think the person has knowledge.

When I was in middle school, I had a friend named Chad who had a girlfriend named Wendy. One day, as a joke, I told Chad that Wendy said she was going to break up with him. Chad believed me because he didn't have any reason to think I'd lie about something like that. Seeing the look on his face, I felt bad and immediately told him it had been a joke. He went about his merry way. The next day, Chad came at me angry for lying to him. It turned out Wendy really did break up with him, and he was mad at me for claimimg that it had been a joke when it was actually true.

Notice that when I told Chad that Wendy was going to break up with him, he had all three ingredients for knowledge. (1) He believed Wendy was going to break up with him, (2) he was justified in believing Wendy was going to break up with him, and (3) it was true that Wendy was going to break up with him. Yet because I was joking, most of us would probably agree that Chad did not have knowledge. I wasn't reporting to Chad anything that I actually knew. It was just a coincidence that I happened to be right. This scenario, then, serves as a counter-example to knowledge as justified true belief. It appears that something else was missing. What was it?

Here, philosophers give different answers. Some answers involve tweaking or qualifying the criteria of "justification" in some way. What exactly is justification? Will any ole justification do? Other answers involve adding a fourth criteria. What other ingredient is required for knowledge?

Since Gettier problems in real life are very exceptional, I think that pragmatically speaking, we can just ignore them. The definition of knowledge as justified true belief is a good enough rough definition to cover most real life cases. But when it comes to arguing the nitty gritty details of the things weirdos like you and I like to talk about (including the topic of epistemology), it might be useful to tackle the Gettier problem.

While I haven't read a whole lot of literature on how other philosophers have tackled this problem, my own unrefined view is that whatever the justification for our belief is, it must be a proper justification. That is, the justification must actually bridge the gap between the belief and the reality. There has to be a connection between the two. There is no connection between the reality of Wendy breaking up with Chad, and Chad's belief that Wendy would break up with him since I just made it up. If Wendy had told me she was going to break up with him, and I had told Chad, then there would have been a bridge from the reality to the belief. In that case, Chad would have a proper justification for his belief that Wendy would break up with him. That would give him knowledge.

While I am happy to define knowledge as justified true belief without going into the Gettier problem, if I had to nail it down more precisely, I would just add the "proper" part along with the explanation. My more persnickety definition of knowledge would be "properly justified true belief."

How would you deal with the Gettier problem? What is the missing ingredient for knowledge that is left out by the usual definition?

Libertarian free will, Frankfurt cases, and the ability to do otherwise

Anybody who believes in free will thinks the will is free from something or free to do something. Libertarians thinks the will is free from absolutely all antecedent conditions, including one's own psychological states. That means if you have free will in the libertarian sense, then for any free act, you could have done otherwise even if everything in the universe prior to and up to the moment of choice had been exactly the same, and that includes all of your psychological states, including your beliefs, desires, preferences, biases, motives, etc.

Since the ability to do otherwise is so wrapped up in the notion of libertarian free will, many have taken to defining free will as the ability to do otherwise. A philosopher named Harry Frankfurt came up with some counter-examples to show that the ability to do otherwise is not necessary for libertarian free will. These are thought experiments designed to show that one can have libertarian freedom even if they lack the ability to do otherwise.

For example, imagine you're sitting at a table with a can of Coke on one side and a can of Dr. Pepper on the other, and you are given the option to drink one or the other. Imagine that unbeknowst to you there's a guy hiding behind the curtain watching you closely, and if he sees you reach for the Coke, he's going to jump out from behind the curtain and slap the Coke away, preventing you from drinking it. That never happens, though, because you choose to drink the Dr. Pepper instead of the Coke.

Thought experiments like this are meant to show that one can make a libertarian free choice without having the ability to have done otherwise. Even though you couldn't have chosen to drink the Coke, your choice to drink the Dr. Pepper was still a free choice.

One can nit pick about the particulars of the thought experiment (e.g. if you were free, then your choice wasn't just between Coke and Dr. Pepper, but between drinking Coke and not drinking Coke, etc.), but setting those quibbles aside, I think what Frankfurt thought experiments show is that the ability to do otherwise is not what is meant by libertarian free will. It shouldn't be part of the definition of libertarian free will.

However, Frankfurt cases almost never happen in real life. In real life, we make choices continuously every day without there being Frankfurt cases. In the absense of a Frankfurt case, if you have libertarian free will, then you do have the ability to do otherwise. The ability to do otherwise, then, is a consequence of libertarian free will in the real world. So it does make sense to talk about libertarian free will as entailing the ability to do otherwise, at least in the real world as opposed to imaginary scenarios.

Trump and Harris on abortion

I watched the Trump and Harris debate tonight. I think Harris did better than Trump. I think Trump missed a lot of opportunities. I think the moderators got too involved by participating in the debate, correcting Trump and arguing with him when that was Harris's job, not theirs.

Speaking of missed opportunities, Harris articulated her pro-choice views very clearly. She thinks the right to abortion is rooted in a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body. Trump, however, did not articulate his point of view very clearly or respond to Harris' argument, and so missed an opportunity. This is what I think he should have said in his two minutes:

If abortion were justified on the basis that women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies, then abortion would be justified through all nine months of pregnancy. However, most people, including pro-choice people, do not think abortion is justified through all nine months. Consistency demands that abortion is not justified on the basis that women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies.

Why is it that even pro-choice people are against late stage abortions? It's because the more developed the unborn become, the harder it becomes to honestly deny that it's a living human being. The fact that it's a living human being is the reason even pro-choice people oppose abortions in the third trimester in spite bodily rights. That means whether it's a living human being is the real issue, not bodily rights.

There is no stage of development in which something that is non-human turns into a human. The unborn is human through all stages of development. It's alive through all stages of development, too, because otherwise there would be a miscarriage. That means it's a living human being through all stages of development. If we oppose abortion in the latest stages of pregnancy because it's a living human being, and if it's a living human being through all stages of pregancy, then to be consistent, we must oppose abortion through all stages of pregancy.

I don't know whether Trump is really pro-life or not. I've never seen any evidence that he really understands the issue. I get that same impression with a lot of republicans who claim to be pro-life. I think they claim to be pro-life because they think they have to in order to get elected. Fewer of them are doing that these days because the tides are turning.

I have thought for a long time that pro-lifers needed to focus more on the moral question of abortion rather than the legal question. I've expressed this point of view to a lot of pro-lifers who have disagreed with me. Since Roe v. Wade got overturned and a few states have banned or limited abortion, there has been a huge backlash. There are more pro-choice people now than there were before. I think this is owing to the fact that the law was changed before hearts were changed. The law was changed before moral points of view were changed. I think I was right that pro-lifers should have focused on the moral question before the legal question and that the moral question should have had the greater emphasis. I said more about that here.

Questions for God

If you could interview God and ask him anything, what questions would you ask? Here are some things I'd like to know. Feel free to leave a comment sharing your own view, even if speculative.

1. How big is the universe?

2. Are there other universes?

3. How much life is in the observable universe?

4. How much life is in our galaxy?

5. How much intelligent life comparable to our own is in the universe/galaxy?

6. Where is the closest extraterrestrial life?

7. Where is the closest civilization of beings comparable to us?

8. What is the most intelligent being in the galaxy/universe?

9. What is the most advanced civilization in the galaxy/universe?

10. What is the biggest sentient being in the galaxy/universe?

11. Is there a limit to how intelligent a physical being can get?

12. What is really going on in the quantum world?

13. How do general relativiy and quantum mechanics actually fit together? What is the correct theory? Is there a theory of quantum gravity? If so, what is it?

14. What is dark matter?

15. What is dark energy?

16. What's going on inside a black hole?

17. What is the correct theory of time? Is it static, dynamic, or something else?

18. What was the universe like in its earliest stages? Was there an inflationary period? If so, what made it stop?

19. How does the soul interact with the brain?

20. What's it like to be a disembodied spirit?

21. How should we interpret the creation account in Genesis? What really happened literally? How should that inform our theology?

22. What happened to Jesus' body after the ascension?

23. Who is right? The Calvinist or the non-Calvinists?

24. Who is right? The protestants, Catholics, or Eastern Orthodox? What are the major things that each of them get right or wrong?

25. Who would win in a debate between Jonathan Edwards and William Lane Craig if each were in their prime, and they were debating Calvinism vs. Molinism?

26. What did the dinosaurs really look like? What colour were they? What sounds did they make? How did they hunt? (Hopefully God would show me some picures or a video or something.)

27. How did life begin on our planet?

28. What role did you play in the evolution of life, especially human life?

29. How massive is the most massive black hole in the universe, and where is it?

30. What's the best design for a fusion reactor that could actually be useful to humans?

31. Why does the New Testament give the impression that the second coming of Jesus was right around the corner when it still hasn't happened after 2000 years?

32. Are there any Dyson spheres in the galaxy/universe?

33. Why do you allow there to be so much suffering in the world?

34. What's the longest a human could live given optimum conditions but without altering the current genome?

35. What happened to that pocket knife Glen gave me?

36. What should I do with the rest of my life?

37. What are the top ten most important theological truths?

38. What should I know that I haven't asked?

39. What's something I would find really interesting but that I haven't asked about?

40. What's the best way to treat cancer?

41. Besides earth, where is the most habitable planet for humans in terms of atmospheric composition, gravity, etc.?

42. What is the oldest organism in the universe that has ever lived?

43. Who is the smartest human besides Jesus who ever lived?

44. Who is the smartest human currently?

45. How smart is the smartest creature in the universe?

46. What's the best economic system?

47. What does the healthiest diet consist of?

48. Who wrote the gospels?

49. Who is right--Mike Licona or Lydia McGrew?

50. What's the best Bible translation?

51. What will things literally be like once the resurrection and judgment have happened?

52. What are the most fundamental laws of physics? What is the most fundamental physical stuff?

53. What role does the brain play in our conscious experience? How does the brain store memories? How do those memories manifest themselves from the physical brain to our conscious experiene of them?

54. Where is the best place for me to live?

55. What does it mean that we are created in your image?

56. Where is the earliest surviving fragment of any book in the New Testament, and what is it?

57. What happened to the Ark of the covenant?

58. What is the biggest animal in the galaxy/universe that can fly?

59. What happened to the Roanoke colony?

60. What happened to the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon?

61. What was the last original autograph of any book in the New Testament, and what happened to it?

62. What is the expansion rate of the universe, and why are astrophyscists getting different results depending on how they try to measure it?

63. What was the original ending of Mark's gospel?

64. How will the universe change after everything happens in the eschaton? Will the laws of nature be the same or altered?

65. How was the tetragrammaton originally pronounced?

66. What became of Jesus' brothers and sisters? Are any of their descendants around today? Who are they?

67. When and where did the Shroud of Turin come from, and how was it made?

68. What is the answer to the Fermi paradox?

69. What is the real solution to the Twin paradox?

70. What's the best solution to the health care situation in America and everywhere else?

71. Why did David Crocket, James Bowie, and William Travis decide to stay and defend the Alamo?

72. Is it wrong for Christians to join militaries and fight in wars?

73. Is there anything inexplicable about the applicability of math to the physical world that I'm just not seeing?

74. Are there any animals besides humans that believe in God, gods, or any sort of spirits or ghosts?

75. What is the correct view of epistemology when it comes to foundational beliefs, especially synthetic a priori beliefs? How is knowledge ultimately justified?

76. What is the best chess opening if you are white? What is the best response to that opening if you are black?

77. Are there brute facts? If so, what are some examples?

78. Where did Robert Harper come from, and who were his parents?

79. How much total gold is in earth's crust?

80. Where are the most well-preserved dinosaur remains, and what kind of dinosaur is it?

81. Where is the biggest naturally occuring gold deposit in the solar system?

82. Where is Planet 9 (formerly Planet 10), and why is it so hard to find? What is it like? Does it even exist?

83. Are there any civilizations that are alien to each other but who have made contact with each other? If so, where are they? What's their story?

84. Are space and time quantized? If so, what is the smallest unit of space and time?

85. Are there any rogue planets with life on them? If so, what is the most complex life on a rogue planet, and where is it?

86. What kind of stars are most favourable to life (e.g. M-type, K-type, G-type, etc.)?

87. Are there any civilizations that developed under water? If so, where are they, and what are they like?

I may add to these later.

Classic Greg Koukl conversation

In the late 90's or thereabouts, Greg Koukl and Frank Beckwith published a book on Relativism. In one of the chapters, Greg wrote a series of mock diaglogues in which he tried to show that moral relativism is self-refuting (at least in some of the ways it is practiced). Today, I had a conversation that could've come straight out of Koukl's chapter. It was so text book I felt silly typing my part. It was in the comment section of a YouTube poll that asked "Is in vitro fertalization (IVF) morally acceptable?" This is how it went down:

Random citizen: These questions are ludicrous. You can't shove your shit morality on other people.

Sam I Am: Why not?

Random citizen: because it's your morality, not someone else's. Live your life by it, but don't force others to it. Live and let live.

Sam I Am: What if my morality says it's okay to push it on other people? Isn't it your morality that I shouldn't? Why push that morality on me? Why not just live and let live?

Random citizen: that's what I'm saying, Live and let live which means asshole, you live your life and let others live THEIRS AS THEY SEE FIT.

Sam I Am: But that's YOUR morality, not mine. Why are you pushing it on me? If you believe in "live and let live," then why not practice it instead of pushnig your morals on other people?

A debate on religious pluralism

I had another debate with the same guy who debated me on whether Christianity was the one true religion. This time, he framed the debate as Religious Pluralism vs. Christian Exclusivism. He went first, defending religious pluralism. Here is my opening statement in response:

*****

That was a well-written opening! Let's pause and give that man a hand! Now let's sit back down and refute his arguments. :-)

This is my argument in a nut shell.

1. If religious pluralism is true, then all major religions are more or less true.
2. If all religions are more or less true, then Christianity is more or less true.
3. If Christianity is more or less true, then Islam is more or less false.
4. If Islam is more or less false, then not all major religions are more or less true.
5. Therefore, if religious pluralism is true, then religious pluralism is false.

In other worlds, religious pluralism is self-refuting. Now let me defend these premises.

1. If religious pluralism is true, then all major religions are more or less true.

This premise is true by the definition Pro gave of religious pluralism. He said all major religions are equally valid interpretations of the same divine reality. His use of the word "reality" implies that there is some truth behind these various interpretations. So all religious must be true under this definition of pluralism.

2. If all religions are more or less true, then Christianity is more or less true.

This second premise is true because Christianity is a religion.

3. If Christianity is more or less true, then Islam is more or less false.

One of the essential claims of Christianity is that Jesus is the unique son of God and is equal with God the father. One of the essential claims of Islam is that God has no equal and has no son.

Pro anticipated this argument when he said that "Religious Pluralism does NOT mandate that every part of every religion is true." The problem with his response is that he fails to make a distinction between essential teachings and non-essential teachings. Christians differ amongst themselves on a variety of issues, and so do Muslims. However, there are a few teachings that define what Christianity is and what Islam is such that if you remove those teachings, you no longer have Christianity or Islam, respectively.

For example, if Jesus doesn't return before the great tribulation, then Christianity could still be true. But if Jesus is not the son of God, then Christianity cannot be true because Jesus being the son of God is an essential teaching of Christianity.

The fact that Christianity and Islam differ in their non-essential teachings does not mean they can't both be true. However, the fact that they differ on essential teachings does mean they cannot both be true. Jesus is either God or he's not God. If he's God, then Islam is false. If he's not God, then Christianity is false. But under no circumstances can they both be true.

4. If Islam is more or less false, then not all major religions are more or less true.

This premise is true because Islam is one of the major religions.

5. Therefore, if religious pluralism is true, then religious pluralism is false.

This follows from 1-4 by the transitive property.

Now, I need not prove that Christianity is true since Pro subscribes to religious pluralism. To be consistent, he must already acknowledge that Christianity is true. If he denies that Christianity is true, then he must deny religious pluralism since Christianity is one of the major religions.

So the only question is whether Christianity is exclusively true.

Pro thinks that the only argument for the exclusivity of Christianity is the explicit statements of exclusivity in the Bible. But that is false. There is also the argument from the law of non-contradiction, which Pro unsuccessfully attempted to address. The essential claims of Christianity are these:

1. There is one and only one God.
2. God imposes moral obligations on people.
3. People disobey their moral obligations.
4. God punishes people for their moral violations.
5. Jesus is the Christ.
6. Jesus died to pay for our moral violations.
7. Jesus was raised from the dead.

If any of these are false, then Christianity is false. But since Pro agrees that Christianity is true (to be consistent with his pluralism), then he cannot deny any of these claims without giving up his religious pluralism.

If Jesus is the Christ, then Judaism is false.

If There is only one God, then Hinduism is false.

If God imposes moral obligations on people, then Buddhism is false.

If Jesus died to pay for our moral violations, then Islam is false.

And those are all the major religions. It follows that if Christianity is true (which Pro must agree it is), it follows that it is the only major religion that is true, and therefore Christian exclusivism is true.

Now let me address one last argument Pro made against the exlusivity of Christianity. He claims that it violates the concept of an all-loving God.

As a side note, In Islam, God is not all-loving. Pro stipulated that "For the purposes of this debate, we'll be assuming the existence of an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God." That very stipulation refutes religious pluralism.

Anyway, the reason Pro thinks Christian exlusivity violates the concept of an all-loving God is that it entails that billions of people will be damned through no fault of their own since they had no control over where they were born or what religion they were born into.

This argument fails for two reasons. First, it fails because the damnation of all these people is not an essential claim of Christianity. He already acknowledge earlier that religious pluralism does not entail that every part of a religion is true. The Catholic Church denies the claim that all non-Christians are damned. So Pro's premise is false.

But even if Pro's premise (that all non-Christians are damned), it would still not follow that people are damned through no fault of their own. Notice the essential claims of Christianity I listed above. The claim of Christianity isn't that people are damned because they didn't convert to Christianity. Rather, the claim is that they are damned because of their moral violations. One does not need to be a Christian (or to even have knowledge of Christianity) in order to know right from wrong. So it isn't true that non-Christians in various parts of the world are damned throug no fault of their own. They are at fault because they know right from wrong, and they do wrong. Everybody violates their moral obligations. Nobody is perfect. If there WERE a perfect person out there somewhere, then that person would not be damned.

So Pro's argument against Christian exclusivity is fallacious on two counts.

Christianity is the one true religion: a succinct argument for Christianity

I recently finished writing a book I'm calling A Quick and Dirty Argument for Christianity. It's a short and truncated version of a larger book I'm still working on that I plan to call An Argument for Christianity. Actually, the quick and dirty book still needs editing, so I guess it's not really finished. I'm just finished with the first draft.

Anywho, I have thought about writing an even shorter book I might call A Quicker and Dirtier Argument for Christianity, or An Argument for Christianity In a Nutshell or something. Anyway, I was looking on The Wayback Machine for a debate I had on debate.org a long time ago, and I stumbled across a debate where my opponent wanted me to try to prove that Christianity is the one true religion. In this debate, I gave an even shorter argument for Christianity than what I planned in that quicker and dirtier book. This is about as succinct as I think I've ever made the argument for Christianity. Here's my opening statement.

*****

This is probably an impossible debate for me to win because it requires me to prove so much and for Con to prove so little. But I thought it would be fun.

My argument in a nutshell:

1. If Christianity is true, then it is the one true religion.
2. Christianity is true.
3. Therefore, Christianity is the one true religion.

1. If Christianity is true, then it is the one true religion.

According to the law of non-contradiction, two claims that contradict each other cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense. All religions contradict each other, which is how we distinguish them. So if Christianity is true, then all other religions must be false. So if Christianity is true, then it's the one true religion.

2. Christianity is true.

What is Christianity?

This is what I take Christianity to be essentially:

i. There is a god.
ii. The god imposes moral obligations on people.
iii. People violate those moral obligations.
iv. God judges people for violating their moral obligations.
v. Jesus is the Christ.
vi. Jesus died for sins.
vii. Jesus was raised from the dead.

I said earlier that my burden in this debate is far greater than Con's. While I've got to prove all seven of those points, Con only has to disprove one. If all seven are true, then Christianity is true. If just one of them is false, then Christianity is false.

The reality of morality

Whether we affirm or deny morality, we all percieve it as if it were real, which is evident in the following observations:

We all judge others as if others are actually obligated to keep the moral view that we hold to.

When judged, our first instinct is not to deny the reality of the standard we are being judged by, but to give excuses for why we didn't violate that standard.

We struggle with moral dilemmas. Moral decision making is difficult because there really are correct answers to moral questions, and we have to find out what they are.

Moral non-realists are rarely consistent. People generally live consistently with what they actually believe, so people who deny morality are just kidding themselves.

We all find moral non-realism to be counter-intuitive. We all think it's prima facie absurd to suggest that morals could have been radically different. For example, it's absurd to think it could've been the case that mother stabbing and father raping are morally right, and kindness and generosity are evil.

Now, consider a person who does not percieve a difference between right and wrong at all. Would we not consider such a person to be mentally ill? Would we not attach such lables as "sociopath" to a person like that? Well, if there isn't really a difference between right and wrong, then such people are seeing the world more accurately than we are. While we all percieve a difference between right and wrong that isn't actually there, the mentally ill are percieving the world as it actually is. If that is the case, shouldn't we consider them sane and ourselves as mentally ill?

If a correctly working mind is a mind that percieves things that are really there and doesn't percieve things that aren't there, and if sociopathy really is a mental illness, then it follows that morality is real. There actually is a difference between right and wrong, and it isn't just in our heads.

The implication of morality

Rules of right and wrong are prescriptive. That is, rather than merely describe how people behave, they prescribe how people ought to behave. Prescriptions cannot exist without prescribers because without some authority, there are no rules. Since it's possible for there to be unjust civil laws, it follows that the moral law transcends human authorities. That means there is a transcendent authority who imposes moral obligations on us. We will come back to this shortly.

The argument from contingency

The only way it's possible for anything contingent to exist is if something necessary exists. To be contingent means it possible for it to have not existed. Since contingent things don't exist by necessity, they depend on something outside of themselves for their existence.

But consider the borrower/lender analogy. Suppose you need to borrow something from your neighbor, but he doesn't have it. So he asks his neighbor who doesn't have it either. The only way it's possible for you to get what you're after is if somebody has it who doesn't have to get it from somebody else.

In the same way, the only way it's possible for anything at all to exist is if there's something that exists that didn't get its existence from something else. Such a thing would be a necessary being.

Since obviously lots of things exist, then it must be the case that a necessary being exists, and everything else owes its existence ultimately to the necessary being.

Consider the two arguments together

Now, consider these two arguments. One shows that a necessary being exists, and the other shows that a transcendent moral law-giver exists. It may not be obvious that these two beings are the same being, but when you consider how nicely they compliment each other, it seems reasonable to believe they are the same being.

We know that no mere human is sufficient to impose moral obligations on us, nor is any concievable alien that exists in the universe. But if there were a creator who existed necessarily and was absolutely autonomous, then it's hard to think of a better candidate for a being that is sufficient to ground morality. This would literally be that being's world. So it makes a lot of sense to think that the transcendent moral law-giver is one and the same as the necessary ground of the rest of existence.

If there is a necessarily existing person who is the ground of morality, then we are clearly justified in referring to such a being as a god. But we have still not proven that it is the same person as the Christian God.

Jesus

That brings us to Jesus. Jesus was a Jewish man who lived in the first century, claimed to be the Christ, and got crucified. Now, any Jew in his right mind would've taken Jesus' crucifixion is absolute proof that Jesus' claim to be the Christ was false. After all, the hope for a Christ was a hope that God would fulfill his promise to David, and that promise was that there would always be a man on the throne of David. So the Christ was to be a king of the Jews, and that meant national sovereignty, and that meant no Roman occupation. That's why messianic hope was so high in the first century. The hope was in deliverence from Roman occupation. So if the Romans killed the supposed Christ, that proves he isn't the Christ.

Yet Christianity survived the death of Jesus. The only possible way Jews could've continued to believe Jesus was the Christ is if they had some reason to think he was still alive and could therefore fulfill all the messianic promises. And that is exactly what Jesus' early followers claimed. Moreover, they claimed to have seen him alive after he had died. These appearances are apparently what caused them to believe since the record shows that they lost hope after Jesus died, which is what we would expect them to do. Also, Paul and James both converted because they saw Jesus resurrected. When you consider these appearances along with the empty tomb, it becomes apparent that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Without the resurrection, we have no viable explanation for the survival of Christianity.

Now, either Jesus really was who he claimed to be, or else it's just a big coincidence that he would rise from the dead by some freak of nature after making such unusual claims. So the more rational conclusion is that he really was the Christ sent from God. And that entails that the Christian God exists.

It also entails that Christ died for sins, which entails that God judges people for their sins and that people do in fact sin.

3. Therefore, Christianity is the one true religion

Since all the essential claims of Christianity are true, and since all other religions contradict Christianity in some way, it follows that Christianity is the one true religion.

*****

There are a lot of points I made in this opening statement that I've discussed in more detail in earlier posts, so I thought I'd provide some links in case you're interested.

The Arrogance Fallacy - This is about the mistake a lot of people make in critizing some claims because it's arrogant to believe them as if that had something to do with whether they are true.

I'm right, and you're wrong - This post is similar to the one before. It explains why making exclusive truth claims is logical and has nothing to do with arrogance.

The law of non-contradiction - It may seem silly to have to defend the law of non-contradiction, but I wrote this post because of having to defend it in some of my philosophy classes in college.

What is Christianity? - This is an explanation of how I came up with the seven points I thought captured the core of Christianity.

A quick and dirty argument for moral realism - This post goes into my argument for moral realism in more detail but also provides links to even more detail on the various points.

Why theism is necessary and sufficient to ground objective moral obligations - Just what the title suggests, plus links to more detailed posts.

The god of the philosophers vs. the Abrahamic God - This post goes into more detail about how various philosophical arguments for God compliment each other in such a way as to point toward the Abrahamic God.

Is the universe contingent? - This post explains why I doubt the universe itself is necessary, which is why we have to look to something beyond the universe to explain why anything at all exists.

A quick and dirty argument for the resurrection of Jesus - Just what the title suggests.

How does the resurrection of Jesus prove that he is the messiah? - This post explains how.

Misconceptions about the pro-life position

I've been watching Breaking Points since Krystal and Saagar left Rising to start it. I watched them on Rising before that. Although I do disagree with them pretty often, I find their commentaries refreshing sometimes. A big part of what they are about is shunning the divisiveness and lack of fairness and objectivity of legacy news organizations. Krystal is a liberal/progressive, and Saagar is a conservative, and they sometimes disagree with each other. But at least they allow both sides to be heard. Each of them will also critize politicians who happen to be on their side, which I also appreciate.

One issue Saagar is not conservative on is abortion. He's pro-choice. My suspicion is that most republican politicians are probably either secretly pro-choice or they just don't care about the issue. They're politicians, so they just do what politicians do, which is to support the team and say whatever they must to get elected. Although I disagree with Saagar's pro-choice stance, I appreciate that he's honest about his position.

The pro-life position has never, as far as I've known, gotten a fair hearing on their show. Today, Ryan and Saagar put out a video clip where they were talking about a video clip where Bill Maher said he agrees with pro-lifers that abortion is murder, but he's okay with that. After commenting on the video, Ryan and Saagar began to perpetuate two myths pro-choice people have about the pro-life position. I left comments about both.

One myth is that the pro-life position is strictly a religious point of view. I've met a lot of pro-choice people who are under this impression. Here's the comment I left about that:

Ryan and Saagar are both perpetuating the myth that the pro-life position is strictly a religious position. If it were, there wouldn't be such a thing as the Secular Pro-Life organization. While most pro-lifers probably are religious, and many of them have religious reasons for being pro-life, the primary argument made by the movement is entirely secular. The argument is simply that (1) It's wrong to take the life of an innocent human being, (2) abortion takes the life of an innocent human being, (3) therefore, it's wrong to have an abortion. Almost everybody agrees with that first premise (except maybe Bill Maher), so the issue comes down to whether or not abortion takes the life of an innocent human being, and THAT depends on whether or not it's a living human being to begin with. The primary defense of the fact that the unborn are living human beings is biology, not theology. There is so much ignorance on the part of the pro-choice community on this issue.

The second myth is that the pro-life movement is about controlling women, supporting the patriarchy, etc. Here's the comment I left about that:

3:44 "It [the pro-life position] is a fundamental part of upholding the patriarchy. And I think even most pro-life supporters would acknowledge that." Where on earth does he get that idea? I've met a ton of pro-life supporters, and I've never met a single one who would acknowledge that. Being pro-life has absolutely nothing to do with the patriarchy, or controlling women, or anything like that. It has simply to do with the life of the unborn. Until pro-choicers stop making stuff up and motive-mongering, they're not addressing the real issue. You can't persuade somebody of your point of view if all you're doing is making up motives and attributing them to those you disagree with. The other person always knows you're full of it when you do that.

Here's some other stuff I've written on this subject:

A quick and dirty argument against abortion - Here, I made the pro-life argument about as succinctly as I could. See if you see anything religious in there.

What is the unborn? - The humanity of the unborn is the primary reason people are pro-life. Many pro-choicers think the idea that life begins at conception is a religious point of view. See if there's anything religious in my argument.

Motive-mongering in the abortion debate - This is a complaint about the irrelevance of motive mongering both pro-lifers and pro-choicers engage in.

Two pro-choice myths - Here are two other myths pro-choicers believe.