An Atheist Pot, a Christian Kettle, and an ironic charge of blackness

In my last couple posts I initiated a discussion on theories of incarnation. In the threaded discussion to the post "Did Baby Jesus know more physics than Einstein?" I made the following comment: "The challenge is to explain what this [incarnation] means qua human and divine knowledge in a way that is both orthodox and coherent." In other words, how could Jesus be simultaneously divine (and so knowing all things) while also human (and so not knowing all things)?

This prompted the following comment from AnAtheist.Net which was so cutting that I buried my face in a pillow and cried myself to sleep: "Ah, I see. Start with a conclusion. Look at the facts. Find a way to make them fit the conclusion that you started with. The work of the theologian."

Now I take AAN's intention here to be that of "isolate and destroy". In other words, separate the theologian out from other academics with the charge that he or she is engaged in an intellectually self-serving and thus irrational and illegitimate enterprise of proving the conclusion.

It is a common technique, memorably captured (for instance) in Bertrand Russell's dismissal of Thomas Aquinas in his History of Western Philosophy. Thomas, according to Russell, was not a real philosopher because he began with his conclusions and then sought to establish them through reasoned argument. (You must look up Kenny's ironic rebuttal to Russell on that.)

Anyway, once I dried my tears and regained my composure, I penned (or typed) the following response to AAN: "How wonderfully naive of you not to realize that this is a central methodology in science and philosophy."

There you have it, my proverbial shot across AAN's bow. His response was disappointingly restrained: "Yes, how naive of me...." he wrote.

My guess is that AAN did not really think he was naïve. More to the point, I suspect he still thought that the theologian is unique here. And to this I must invoke the old story of the pot calling the kettle black. (Just in case there is any confusion, AAN's the pot while I'm the kettle.)

Here's my reason for thinking so. I'll give an example from philosophy and one from science.

Let's begin with philosophy. The vast majority of atheistic philosophers today are materialists of one or another sort. Up until the last decade or two that meant that they believed everything that exists is material. (Why that has begun to change is an interesting story in itself.)

Anyway, that has been their "conclusion": the mind must be material. But how can the mind be material when it appears to be a hotbed of irreducibly non-material properties like sensation (qualia) and intentionality? In response, materialist philosophers of mind from Gilbert Ryle to Daniel Dennett and Patricia Churchland have sought to explain how, despite the evidence to the contrary, the mind really is material such that, for instance, my sensation of tasting peppermint ice cream is identical to a particular type or token set of neurons firing.

And this project on the mind is but one part of building a naturalistic view of the world, for that project extends to a range of other areas as well including the nature of ethics, aesthetics, the origin of religion, et cetera.

Now it may be that AAN believes atheistic philosophers are wrong to attempt to explain the mind, or free will, or morality, or personal identity, in accord with materialist or naturalistic philosophy. But my guess is that he would not want to delegitimize these projects because they are essential for the development and defense of a naturalistic (i.e. non-supernaturalistic) worldview.

But once AAN concedes the legitimacy of philosophical projects qua atheism, he has cut his indictment of theology at the knees because the atheistic philosopher is functionally identical in terms of method with the Christian theologian. Both begin with certain data and then seek to explain that data relative to a background set of beliefs.

With all that said,we can consider our second example, evolutionary biology, much more briefly. As I am sure AAN knows, evolutionary biology is racked with controversies, as indeed are all major theories in science. Let's note one of those major controversies: the origin of biological information. Most evolutionary biologists blanch at the idea of invoking intelligent design as a theory to explain this puzzle. Fine. But then don't miss the obvious: they are beginning with the working assumption that biological information did not arise through a designed process and they proceed to explore theories to support that "conclusion".

So now let's return to AAN's comment with the appropriate edits in place: "Ah, I see. Start with a conclusion. Look at the facts. Find a way to make them fit the conclusion that you started with. The work of the theologian, and philosopher, and scientist."

(Footnote: this is not a Feyerabendean argument for irrationalism - i.e. I'm arbitrary but so are you so I'm okay. Rather it is an argument that rational method begins with a background set of beliefs and argues with respect to those assumptions.)