A Critique of Sye Ten Bruggencate’s
www.proofthatgodexists.org
Originally published on Incinerating
Presuppositionalism.
A visitor to my website recently
informed me about a
debate he had on Premier
Christian Radio with a presuppositional
apologists named Sye Ten Bruggencate.
I’ve seen Sye’s website
before (it is located here: http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/).
On this site, Sye seeks to prove the existence of his
god by leading visitors through a series of pages which present various
alternatives regarding the laws of logic, mathematics, science and morality.
The first four steps ask the visitor to affirm whether or not the laws of
logic, mathematics, science and morality even exist. If at any point the
visitor disaffirms the existence of one of these features, he is taken to a
page which reminds him that he makes use of what he has denied on a daily
basis. So the visitor is compelled to affirm the existence of the laws of logic,
mathematics, science and morality.
At Step Five the
visitor is asked to decide whether those laws, whose existence he has just
affirmed, are “immaterial” or “material.” It is at this point that I think Sye’s proof begins to suffer its most profound problems.
The alternative “immaterial” versus “material” strikes me as a false dichotomy,
since “immaterial” only tells us what something is not, not what it is.
This negative term is contrasted with its positive counterpart, namely
“material,” suggesting that these are the only two options available. The
descriptor “immaterial” has no positive meaning of its own and could refer to
just about anything one imagines (for according to Christian apologist Peter
Pike, imaginary things are “immaterial” – see here).
Sye’s case might raise fewer suspicions if his
question at Step
Five asked whether the laws of logic, mathematics, science and morality
were material or not material. This correction would improve things
two-fold: first it would undo the mistake of treating “immaterial” as if it had
a positive meaning; also, it would generate a question which Sye seems unprepared to ask: If the laws of logic,
mathematics, science and morality are not material, then what are they? It
would be erroneous to suppose that calling them “immaterial” satisfies this
question.
By framing the alternatives in the manner which he chooses, Sye
seeks to tip the scales artificially in favor of his desired conclusion. But we
will find that, even though he does this to give his position an advantage, it
does not work. Let’s explore the two alternatives as Sye
understands them.
If we click the box in Step Five which
says “Laws of logic, Mathematics, Science, and Absolute Morality are Material,”
we are scolded with the following statement:
If you believe that laws of logic,
mathematics, science, or morality are made of matter, please show me where in
nature these laws are. Can you touch them, see them, smell them, hear them, or
taste them? Rather than have you produce a material, physical law I will narrow
down the field for you... just show me the number '3' somewhere in nature. Not
'three things,' not a written representation of the number 3 but the real
physical, material number 3.
Statements like this strongly suggest that Sye has something *conceptual* in mind when he speaks of
“the immaterial.” This is because his example of something “immaterial” is the
number ‘3’, which in fact is a concept (Sye
disqualifies objects in the quantity of three and symbolic representations).
This raises yet a further question about the terms in which Sye
chooses to inform his proof:
Why doesn’t he frame his question about
the ontology of the laws of logic, mathematics, science and absolute morality
in terms of conceptual versus material instead of “immaterial” versus
material?
The reason why Sye does
not cast the alternatives in these terms is most likely because (a) he probably
has no conceptual understanding of logic, mathematics, science and morality,
and (b) doing so would jeopardize his case for theism. Not only does
Christianity not have a theory of concepts (which would explain why Sye does not treat these issues as conceptual phenomena),
his god is not supposed to be merely a concept, but an independently existing
being.
The problem is even worse for Sye. As noted above, at
Step Five Sye contrasts “material” with “immaterial.”
Another expression which he uses to designate “the immaterial” is the term
“abstract entities.” Does Sye really want to say that
his god is “abstract” in nature, like the number 3 or any other abstraction? I
wouldn’t think so. Abstractions are not living entities, they have no
consciousness of their own, and they are not independently existing entities:
they require minds to form and make use of them. But the Christian god is
supposed to be an independently existing entity possessing its own
consciousness, not needing a mind which forms it (such as in the believer’s
imagination).
So just by citing a concept as an example of something “immaterial,” Sye is letting on that “God” refers to something psychological
rather than existential, to something in his mind rather than an independently
existing entity. Concepts are products of a mental process. By characterizing both
“God” and concepts as “immaterial,” Sye is saying
that his god is analogous to products of a mental process. Only instead of
constituting genuine knowledge about the world (as in the case of concepts
formed on the basis of perceptual input), Sye’s god-belief
finds its residence in his imagination.
If at Step Five
we click the box which says “Laws of Logic, Mathematics, Science and Absolute
Morality are Immaterial,” we are taken to Step Six, which has
us decide whether these laws “are universal or up to the individual.” Again we
seem to have a false dichotomy on our hands. Sye
asks: “Does 2 + 2 = 4 only where you are, and only because you say it does, or
is this a universal law?” Sye
implies that something must be universal in order to be what it is independent
of our personal dictates and circumstances. But I’m sure that Sye would agree that this is not the case. In contrast to
universal laws and truths, particular objects exist independent of our
conscious intentions, and our actions in regard to them show that we recognize
this, albeit perhaps only implicitly.
At any rate, most will likely agree (and rightly so) that the equation 2 + 2 =
4 (assuming equivalent units) applies everywhere and not just in one specific
location and not just because we might happen to say it does. If this is what
is meant by universality in this context, then one can agree that the laws of
logic, mathematics, science and morality apply everywhere and are thus
universal in this sense. (I have presented the proper understanding of
universality in my blog Demystifying
Universality.)
Before proceeding with Sye’s proof, however, it
should be noted that Sye contrasts “universal law”
with something being the case because someone says so. This is noteworthy for
it is in the theistic worldview where we find the view that a consciousness has
the power to speak things into existence and alter them according to its will. Sye keeps this aspect of his theism safely out of view
while suggesting that such a position is antithetical to universality as such
in the dichotomy he introduces at this point.
If we take the option at Step Six which
affirms that the laws of logic, mathematics, science and morality are indeed
universal, we are then asked at Step Seven to
affirm whether or not those same laws unchanging. Sye
summarizes how far we’ve come once we’ve made it this far in his proof:
You have acknowledged that laws of logic,
mathematics, science, and absolute morality exist, that they are not made of
matter, and that they are universal. The next question is whether you believe
they are changing or unchanging.
We are asked to decide whether or not, on our own
view, the law of identity, for instance, or 2 + 2 = 4, man’s need for values,
etc., can be altered in some way or another, either on its own or by means of
some external force. Of course, there’s no good reason to suppose that these
laws will do this, we do not experience them changing, and the idea that they
could or would change seems entirely self-refuting.
Indeed, what would cause the laws to change? But causality is one of
those laws. To expect a cause to change the laws invokes the laws. But couldn’t
they change without a cause? No, because causality is the identity of change;
if there’s change, that change – because it exists – would have identity, and
thus the law of causality would be in play.
Apologists like Sye, however, think that this state
of affairs implies or entails the existence of a god which makes this
state of affairs – namely the immutability of the laws in question – obtain, or
at any rate that this would not be the case unless their god were real. Of
course, with reasoning such as this, we are still left with imagining
the god in question, and projecting it as the solution to what may in fact not
be a problem at all in the first place (I say this because we have The
Axioms and the Primacy of Existence). Besides, presuppositionalists
do not make a very clear case for why their god is a necessary precondition for
the existence, universality and immutability of the laws of logic, mathematics,
science and morality. In fact, it seems that these laws imply the very
opposite: that the very notion of a god is completely arbitrary, even
antithetical to them.
At this point, we come to the ”preproof”
page in Sye’s case, where he announces:
To reach this page you had to acknowledge
that immaterial, universal, unchanging laws of logic, mathematics, science, and
absolute morality exist. Universal, immaterial, unchanging laws are necessary
for rational thinking to be possible. Universal, immaterial, unchanging laws
cannot be accounted for if the universe was random or only material in nature.
We saw above that characterizing the laws in
question as conceptual in nature – i.e., as generalized identifications
composed of concepts – is vastly preferable to characterizing them as
“immaterial,” which ignores their conceptual nature and leaves them subject to
whatever arbitrary investment one’s imagination may ascribe to them. In fact,
recognizing that these laws are conceptual in nature explains the remaining two
attributes: universal and unchanging. Universality is essentially the
open-endedness of conceptual reference. For instance, the concept ‘man’
includes not just one man or five men, but all men who exist, who have existed
and who will ever exist. It is because of this open-endedness that we can speak
of men in the past and in the future as well as in the present,
and still have the same essential features in mind – i.e., a biological
organism possessing the faculty of reason. Concept’s
owe their open-endedness of reference to the process of measurement-omission
which is a key aspect of concept-formation, an action performed by the mind.
There’s no mystery here, so there’s no reason to attribute universality to
something beyond man’s own mental abilities.
Similarly with the attribute of immutability: conceptual reference rests on the
proper orientation of the subject-object relationship and the process by which
concepts are formed. The orientation between consciousness (the subject) and
its objects does not change; the subject and its objects do not and cannot
switch places. Moreover, the truth of the axiomatic concepts ‘existence’,
‘consciousness’ and ‘identity’ do not change. For instance, the fact that there
is a reality (“existence exists”) does not change. The immutability of
conceptual reference is thus grounded in facts, facts which do not conform to
conscious intentions, facts which obtain regardless of the actions of any
consciousness (whether real or imagined).
So in a sense, just by preferring to characterize these laws as “immaterial”
instead of conceptual, Sye has stacked the
deck against their real nature in order to underwrite them with theistic
presuppositions which have no basis in reality whatsoever,
and which in fact violate the very axioms which ground those laws in the first
place.
Sye says that these laws “cannot be accounted for if
the universe was random or only material in nature.” But they can be accounted
for if the universe exists independent of consciousness (the primacy of
existence ensures this), if the axiom of consciousness is true (there are
organisms which possess the faculty of consciousness), and if one has a theory
of concepts which explains how conceptualization is possible. And we have all
three of these in the philosophy of Objectivism.
Meanwhile, Christianity defaults on all three of these points. For one thing,
it holds that the universe does not exist independent of consciousness. It
holds to the primacy of consciousness, claiming that the universe was created
by an act of consciousness, and that its contents conform to the dictates of
that consciousness (to its “will”). Moreover, Christianity in essence denies
the axiom of consciousness, for it must assume that consciousness can exist
without an independent object (see my blog Before
the Beginning: The Problem of Divine Lonesomeness).
Lastly, Christianity has no theory of concepts, which means its adherents have
no philosophically native means of understanding the nature of concepts or the
processes by which the human mind forms them.
It is because of these fundamental problems that I wager that Sye’s proof ultimately relies on an argumentum ad ignorantium - an argument from ignorance. It is
primarily because one lacks knowledge of the axioms, the issue of metaphysical
primacy and concept theory that one would seek to exploit the resulting
mysteriousness of the nature of the laws of logic, mathematics, science and
morality and attribute them to the “supernatural”.
Sye continues, saying:
The Bible teaches us that there are 2
types of people in this world, those who profess the truth of God's existence
and those who suppress the truth of God's existence. The options of 'seeking' God, or not believing in God are unavailable. The Bible
never attempts to prove the existence of God as it declares that the existence
of God is so obvious that we are without excuse for not believing in Him.
Sye must appeal to the contents of a
storybook in order to affirm the antithetical categories into which he
wants to fit all men. In doing so, he seeks to wipe out the sheer honesty of
many non-believers: those who honestly do not believe any mystical claims,
including the claim that a “God” exists. It is honesty which is the casualty of
such pronouncements, and this is what we need to understand. If Sye’s proof were built on honesty, why does it seek to
exploit ignorance in such a predatory manner? Blank out. Again, he appeals to
the storybook, acknowledging that it presents no arguments for the existence of
its god, but rather “declares” – i.e., merely asserts, without argument
– its existence, claiming (with blatant contradiction at Romans 1:20) that its
existence is “so obvious that we are without excuse for not believing in Him.”
What the bible offers, and what Sye repeats here, is
essentially an accusation against non-believers. This is one of the oldest
tricks in the book: if someone doesn’t believe your claims, accuse them of some
moral shortcoming. In this case, we’re accused, given our non-belief in Sye’s god, of purposely “suppressing the truth.” The
allegation here is that we are willfully and deliberately denying something
that we really know to be true. But again, neither Sye
nor any other apologist has any rational basis for making such a charge. He
cites no facts or evidence to support his claim; rather, he simply repeats what
the sacred storybook already says. The passage where he gets this comes from
the apostle Paul. Paul wrote this passage some 1900 years ago, long before anyone
reading this was even born. In other words, we were accused of this moral
breach before we even existed, without trial, without a hearing, without
weighing any evidence, without any investigation into any of our souls.
Essentially, we have the theist saying, “Well, if you do not confess that my
God exists, then I’m going to accuse of denying what you really know!” This is
somehow supposed to compel us. Who would want people to believe his claims on
such a basis? Wouldn’t that make one’s own confidence in said belief all the more shaky? It is noteworthy that apologists want to make
the issue a moral matter. Are they not tipping their own cards by doing so? Are
they not tacitly admitting that their god-belief is ultimately a matter of choice
by telling us that we’re immoral for essentially choosing not to
believe? Should we just up and choose to believe that Sye’s
god exists, with no reason other than that we do not want to be guilty of his
charge of “suppressing the truth”? Should we just retreat into our imaginations
on Sye’s say so, on the basis of fear of the
imaginary consequences of the alternative, and agree with his claim that his
god is needed for any proof in the first place?
I trow not.
So it appears, upon inspection, that what Christians really mean by “believe in
Him” is nothing more than “imagine Him.” For no matter what the
apologist offers in defense of his god-belief, we still have no alternative to imagining
his god which he insists exists.
This conclusion bears out in the claim which Sye presents as his “proof”:
The Proof that God exists is that without
Him you couldn't prove anything.
This hardly constitutes any kind of proof. Indeed,
it seems merely to be the opinion of someone who already believes the
claim that said god exists in the first place. In fact, I see no reason why
someone who believes in the Muslim god could not make essentially the same
claim about his god:
The Proof that Allah exists is that
without Him you couldn’t prove anything.
To bring the point home, we could imagine any god
in place of Sye’s “God” and wonder why it would not
stick for that god for the kinds of reasons Sye
supposes it works for his god:
The Proof that Blarko
exists is that without Blarko, you couldn’t prove
anything.
I’m guessing that Sye
would not find these latter two variations on his own them very compelling.
Finally, after all the steps in Sye’s presentation
are exhausted, we come to the question what do you believe?
We are given only two options at this point:
“I believe that God exists”
and
“I do not believe that God exists”
If we choose the first option, Sye
finally rewards us by taking us to his site’s main page, where he asks
visitors who have not gone through his eight-step program to go to his proof’s
first step. For those who made it here by following the desired alternatives of
Sye’s proof and choosing the “I believe that God
exists” path, Sye writes:
For those who have gone through the proof
to get here, it may have been a huge step to finally admit that God exists.
While it may be a relief to finally make such an admission, it is just the
first step, not the last.
He apparently thinks it requires a lot of courage
to “admit that God exists,” even though after going through Sye’s
proof we still have no alternative but to imagine the god whose
existence he’s been trying to prove. Nothing has changed in this regard: before
Sye’s proof, we could only imagine his god, and now
that he’s presented his 8-step proof, we can still only imagine it. We cannot
perceive this god, we cannot conduct a conversation with it, we
cannot verify its existence by asking it to reveal itself in some unmistakable,
demonstrative manner (such as levitating a book from the book shelf – something
that should be easy for the creator of the universe to do). True to presuppositional form, Sye’s god
remains marooned in our imagination, even after all his gyrations about
absolute truth, the laws of logic and universality. Indeed, while I went
through the steps of Sye’s proof, I never experienced
any compulsion to “admit that God exists.” Rather, I sensed only that our leg
was being pulled.
But Sye makes it sound like “admit[ting]
that God exists” lifts some terrible burden off our shoulders. But there was no
burden there in the first place. There is no strain in recognizing the fact
that there is a fundamental distinction between what is real and what is merely
imaginary. In fact, if there’s any “relief” to be achieved, it is in grasping
the nature of this fundamental distinction and “admitting” that the imaginary
is not real, even if Sye’s god doesn’t like it. But
surely even Sye Ten Bruggencate
recognizes the fact that there is a fundamental distinction between what is
real and what is imaginary, does he not? If so, why then does his proof show no concern for this fact?
Why does Sye not tell us how we can distinguish
between his god and what is merely imaginary? Why does he not build any
safeguard into his proof which ensures that the god whose existence he wants to
prove is not something we set up in our imagination as we go through its
several steps? And if he were to build such a safeguard into his proof, how
would it integrate with the terms of his proof, and how would it affect its
intended conclusion? We may never know.
If we go through Sye’s eight-step proof and choose
the latter option, namely “I do not believe that God exists,” Sye will naturally be disappointed. Only stubbornness and
hardheartedness could lead one to choosing this option. It is by choosing this
option that we are lead to a new page
where Sye scolds us yet again. There he writes:
Denying the existence of God is not
unbelief but an exercise in self-deception. You may know things, but you cannot
account for anything you know.
Is it truly an instance of “self-deception” when
one recognizes the fact that there is a fundamental distinction between what is
real and what is imaginary? Indeed, it seems that ignoring this distinction is
a telltale indication of self-deception, and I have yet to see how god-belief
is possible without downplaying this distinction. If something does not exist,
then how can denying its existence when someone insists that it does exist,
constitute an instance of self-deception?
Sye betrays the inherent argumentum ad ignorantium nature to presuppositionalism
when he tells us “you may know things, but you cannot account for anything you
know.” He grants that his visitors can know things, but essentially says that
they don’t know how they know what they know. How does he know
this about those who visit his website? Is he omniscient? Does he confuse
himself with the god he claims he worships? He may have never made their
acquaintance before, and yet he professes to know that they can’t know how they
know what we know. He apparently takes his website’s visitors for fools.
Perhaps Sye is expressing a hope here, namely the
hope that his visitors are unable to “account for anything” they might happen
to know. But why would he hope this? Or perhaps he’s projecting his own
ignorance here. Either way, he seems to think he’s on safe grounds here, since
he provides no support at all for his claim about people who may very well be
complete strangers to him. He talks about being able to “account” for one’s
knowledge, but presents no basis to “account” for the knowledge he claims for
himself about people he’s never met. Sye is telling
us that the basis for his visitors’ knowledge is a mystery to them. And yet
isn’t this precisely what Christianity ends up teaching about the “knowledge”
believers are supposed to claim for themselves when push comes to shove? Look
at what presuppositional apologist John Frame tells
us when he wrestles with the question of how the believer can “account for” the
“knowledge” he is supposed to claim for himself:
I cannot explain the psychology here to the satisfaction of very many. In this case as in others (for we walk by faith, not by sight!) we may have to accept the fact even without an explanation of the fact. Somehow, God manages to get his Word across to us, despite the logical and psychological barriers. Without explaining how it works, Scripture describes in various ways a “supernatural factor” in divine-human communication. (a) It speaks of the power of the Word. The Word created all things (Gen. 1:3, etc.; Ps. 33:3-6; John 1:3) and directs the course of nature and history (Pss. 46:6; 148:5-8). What God says will surely come to pass (Isa. 55:11; Gen. 18:149; Deut. 18:21ff.). The gospel is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16; cf. Isa. 6:9-10; Luke 7:7ff.; Heb. 4:12). (b) Scripture also speaks of the personal power of the Holy Spirit operating with the Word (John 3:5; 1 Cor. 2:4,12ff.; 2 Cor. 3:15-18; 1 Thess. 1:5)10. Mysterious though the process may be, somehow God illumines the human mind to discern the divine source of the Word. We know without knowing how we know. (Presuppositional Apologetics: An Introduction - Part 1 of 2: Introduction and Creation)
Frame
construes the problem as a matter of psychology, but what we’re really after
here (and what Sye is presumably interested in) is a
matter of epistemology, not psychology. For what we’re supposed to be
concerned with is giving an “account for” the knowledge we claim to have,
right? So this in itself is quite an admission on Frame’s part: it tells us
that he has no epistemological “account for” the “knowledge” he claims to have
acquired from a supernatural source. And that would be accurate: knowledge that
is dispensed from a supernatural source would have no epistemological
basis, since it would not be knowledge which one infers from previously
validated knowledge, but which would have been forcibly inserted into his mind
by means of irresistible magic.
And this
analysis is not at all uncalled for: Frame admits that the bible fails to
“explain… how it works,” but mentions that it involves some kind of “power,”
a power which is powerful enough to “direct… the course of nature and history”
(so how could puny little man resist it?). This “power” is something which “operat[es] with the Word”
which the believer reads in the sacred storybook, so just by reading the
storybook the believer is supposedly giving this power access to his mind to do
whatever it chooses to do. Frame himself concedes that he does not understand
how this all works, calling the “process” by which this power inserts knowledge
into the believer’s mind “mysterious,” insisting that “somehow” his god
“illumines the human mind to discern the divine source of the Word,” while
failing to explain how this supposed illumination is any different from the
believer’s own imagination. It is at this point that Frame throws up his arms
in utter cognitive resignation to make the damning admission “We know without
knowing how we know.”
This is the philosophical heritage of presuppositional
apologetics. And yet, given this concession of defeat on a most important
epistemological matter (indeed, the most important matter for the believer if
there were any!), Sye wants to exploit the
non-believer’s supposed inability to “account for” what he knows. Presuppositionalists have always told us that non-believers
cannot “account for” their knowledge, so Sye tells us
nothing we haven’t already heard. But if accounting for knowledge were in fact
so important to Sye, why doesn’t he make up for
Frame’s admitted defeat and get down to the business of accounting for his own
so-called knowledge, beginning with explaining how we can reliably distinguish
between what he calls “God” and what he may merely be imagining?
The silence on these points is indeed deafening!
Sye’s next statement is noteworthy:
Sye clearly wants to forestall any alternative to his
god-belief: