Monday, December 19, 2022

Gordon Clark: Naturalism (The Presbyterian Journal)

1962. Naturalism. The Presbyterian Journal. 7 Mar. pgs. 8, 17-18

Naturalism

Karl Barth talks to theologians; he really has nothing to say to scientists. The two groups, in his opinion, are each in its own way seeking the truth and neither can criticize the other. Such total independence, however, hardly seems a plausible assumption in view of the fact that the two groups do not merely go their own ways, but in the case of naturalistic scientists rather directly contradict each other. Therefore it is more reasonable for us, the theologians, to acknowledge and accept the need to address such naturalistic scientists; and here one restricted argument will be attempted.

Contemporary naturalism, at least in one of its expressions, adopts as its basic principle the existential and causal primacy of matter. That is to say, all events, qualities, and processes are contingent upon the organization of spatio-temporally located bodies. This naturalism does not maintain that only bodies exist. Dreams, joys, and aspirations also exist. These, however, are not agents in the realization of anything; they are forms of behavior or functions of material systems. In particular, naturalism allows no place for any immaterial spirit or for the survival of personality after the death and decay of the body.

Although the naturalists often claim that the existential and causal primacy of bodies is the most certain of all conclusions drawn from experience, an opponent might suggest that the argument of Descartes showing that the soul is better known than the body is no less plausible than anything naturalism has to offer. But at the moment we shall take up two other objections to naturalism and conclude with a third of a different kind.

One constantly repeated criticism of naturalism is that the logico-empirical method rules out God from the start. The initial rejection of trans-empirical causes and spiritual substance automatically disposes of all alternative philosophies.  The method adopted dismisses a priori as irrelevant any argument intended to support a theistic view.

To this objection one naturalist replied that his school does not a priori rule out any evidence obtainable through sensory or introspective observation; but unless a trans-empirical ground of all existence can explain the actual occurrences in this sensory world, the hypothesis is otiose.

This reply, however, seems upon examination to grant the force of the criticism. The naturalist has asserted that an hypothesis is otiose if it cannot explain in particular some actual natural process, such as the revolution of the planets. But the affirmation of God's existence was never intended to show that satellites move in ellipses rather than in circles. Whereas naturalism demands that all hypotheses account for this specific world and not equally well for another imaginary world, no Christian theologian aims to show that the existence of God requires precisely ten rather than five or fifteen planets. Hence naturalism, by its initial assumption that hypotheses must explain the empirically observed particularities of this world, indeed rules out theism automatically from the start.

A second common objection place naturalism's commitment to the method of scientific proof on the same level as any religious acceptance or an unsupported and indemonstrable faith. Since all science assumes principles that transcend experience, such as the uniformity of nature, or something else, naturalism has no ground for rejecting alternate principles.

Naturalists have a difficult time answering this objection. They have suggested that a demand for a wholesale justification of knowledge is unwarranted. Yet do they not assume that all possible knowledge is justified on their principle and theirs alone. The grounds for accepting any particular and restricted item of physics include, not only bits of specific evidence, but also the general method used. If the naturalist wishes to defend his rejection of God by the successes of science in detailed instance: he must be prepared to face the face that science has constantly revise these minor laws, has corrected and will correct any inductive policy, and must admit that no guarantee can be given even to the most assured of scientific results. This gives no firm ground for denying the existence of spiritual agents.

A third criticism of naturalism is of a different kind. Naturalists are often irritated at the charge of materialism, not only because they think they can escape the accusation by a technical rejection of reductionism and a espousal of organismic biology, but perhaps more deeply because materialism has a connotation of inhumanity, insensitivity, and indifference to cultural values.

Hence in opposition to the older materialists who viewed man as an infinitesimal microbe crawling on a fleck of dust that revolves around a bubble of gas, the naturalist takes pains to assign to man a degree of importance. Human values are what they are, he asserts. Without denying that human life depends on non-human factors, a mature naturalism assesses man's nature in the light of his actions and achievements, his aspirations and capabilities, his limitations, and his tragic failures. It has never sought to conceal its view of human destiny as an episode between two oblivions; yet human good is nonetheless good, despite its transitory existence.

But can human life, under these conditions, rise even to the level of tragedy? Does it not rather remain on the level of senseless despair? St. Augustine long ago made it clear that no one can be happy in the present if he knows that he will not be happy in the future. A man facing oblivion can be happy only through ignorance; and this is a fool's paradise, for ignorance is antithetical to true happiness. If the world is as the naturalist supposes, the only rational solution is suicide.

Well, perhaps, not exactly; for it would seem that naturalism not only falls below the level of tragedy, it does not even rise to the level of despair, where suicide would be rational. Despair presupposes a spiritual, thinking being, a cogito, without which there can be neither aspiration, value, achievement, nor science, nor any knowledge whatever.

Dr. Clark is Professor of Philosophy

at Butler University, Indianapolis, Ind.

 

 

 

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