Alligator Alcatraz

Leftist environmentalists are bringing suit to block the construction of a detention center for illegal aliens in the heart of the Everglades. This should interest Sarasota resident and fellow philosopher Elliott Ruffin Crozat who paid me a visit over the last three days. You can imagine the 'orgy' of philosophizing that took place, both peripatetically (hiking in the Superstitions), aquatically (in the pool and hot tub) and automotively (as we meandered down to see Brian Bosse in Green Valley south of Tucson via the scenic route with a stop at the Tom Mix Monument on SR 79 south of Florence and before Oracle Junction.)
 
We thereby honored Aristotle, Thales, Mix, and Kerouac. Here is Crozat looking cool as a cucumber after a five hour ankle-busting hike in 100 degree Fahrenheit weather. Hot, sunny, dry.  Just the way we like it in these parts.
 
May be an image of 1 person and jeep
 
And here is your humble correspondent:
 
May be an image of 1 person and jeep
 
What hypocrites these hate-America leftist scumbags are! Not a peep out of them re: the environmental damage to our beautiful deserts caused by their support of wide-open illegal immigration. The environmental impact on the Everglades will be minimal. The 'gators will see to that!
 
Here, along with many other arguments,  is my Environmental Argument against illegal immigration:
 
The Environmental Argument. Although there are 'green' conservatives, concern for the natural environment, and its preservation and protection from industrial exploitation, is more a liberal than a conservative issue. (By the way, I'm a 'green' conservative.) So liberals ought to be concerned about the environmental degradation caused by hordes of illegals crossing the border. It is not just that they degrade the lands they physically cross, it is that people whose main concern is economic survival are not likely to be concerned about environmental protection. They are unlikely to become Sierra Club members or to make contributions to the Nature Conservancy. Love of nature comes more easily to middle class white collar workers for whom nature is a scene of recreation than for those who must wrest a livelihood from it by hard toil.
And you are still a Democrat? WTF are you thinking? ARE you thinking?

Notes on R. C. Sproul, Does God Exist?

Bill and Trudy 18 Feb 2025 Hackberry TH

Trudy the Calvinist gave me a reading assignment. Herewith a first batch of comments for her and your delectation, discussion, and (presumably inevitable)  disagreement.

In Chapter One, "The Case for God," Sproul distinguishes between four approaches in apologetics: fideism, evidentialism, presuppositionalism, and "the classical school" (4)  He comes out against the first three and nails his colors to the mast of the fourth.

Fideists maintain that there are no rationally compelling arguments for the existence of God, and that we must therefore rely on faith alone.  Sproul mentions Tertullian who opposed Athens (philosophy) to Jerusalem (Abrahamic religion) and famously asked what the latter has to do with the former. He held that Christianity is objectively absurd in the sense of logically contradictory, and that this absurdity was a sort of 'reason' to accept it: credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd.)* Sproul rejects this extreme view on the ground that it amounts to "a serious slander against the character of God and the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth." (2) Sproul's point is solid. There cannot be self-contradictory truths.  If so, how could the Source of all truth, the Spirit of truth, be self-contradictory?

Evidentialists defend the faith through appeals to biblical history. I am put in mind of what S. Kierkegaard calls "the infinite approximation process" (See Concluding Unscientific Postscript) a process which never arrives at a fixed and final result.  According to Sproul, the most the evidentialist can attain is "a high degree of probability." (2) The probability is high enough, however, to prove the existence of God "beyond a reasonable doubt." Indeed, he thinks the probability sufficient to block  every "moral escape hatch," except one: "You didn't prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt," i.e., the case has not been conclusively made.  This is not good enough for Sproul: he thinks the case for the very specific God of the Christian Bible (presumably with all the Calvinist add-ons) must prove this God beyond even the shadow of a doubt.   

Moreover, Sproul  holds that one can establish the existence of the God in question beyond the shadow of a doubt. which is to say, in a rationally coercive, philosophically dispositive, entirely ineluctable, 'knock-down' way. Apologists of the classical school believe that the case for God can be made "conclusive and compelling." "It is actual proof that leaves people without any excuses whatsoever." (4) Sproul hereby alludes to Romans 1, as becomes clear at the end of the chapter. No excuses, no escape hatches.  You are morally at fault for refusing to accept the God of the Christian Bible!

Presuppositionalists, led by Cornelius van Til, hold that the existence of the God of the Christian Bible can be conclusively established, but to do so, "one must start with the primary premise of the existence of God." (4) One can inescapably conclude that God exists only by presupposing his existence. Sproul's objection is the standard one levelled against the apologetics of the 'presuppers,' namely, that presuppositionalism enshrines  (my word) the informal fallacy of petitio principii, or hysteron proteron if you prefer Greek. In plain English the fallacy is that of circular reasoning.  To put it in my own way: every argument of the form p; therefore p is formally valid in that it is logically impossible for the premise to be true and the conclusion false. But no argument of this form could give anyone a reason to accept the conclusion. Circular arguments, though valid in point of logical form, are probatively worthless.  Sproul goes on to tax Van Til & Co. with the fallacy of equivocation, but Sproul's discussion is rather less than pellucid, so I won't say any more about it; in any case, I agree with him that  presuppositionalism is an apologetic non-starter, as I have argued over many an entry.  (See my Van Til and Presuppositionalism category.)

Classical apologists such as Sproul and presuppositionalists both assert that without God there is and can be no rationality. The difference is that classicists  insist that the existence of God cannot be merely presupposed, but must be proven in a non-circular or "linear" (Sproul) way.  They also insist that it can be proven conclusively, and thus in such a way as to render the existence of God objectively certain.  As I read Sproul, he is telling us that we can know with objective certainty, and thus without the possibility of mistake, that the God of the Christian Bible exists.  In the later chapters of his book he lays out the proof.

Critique

So much for exposition. Where do I stand? I reject all four positions, as above formulated. My current position, tentatively and critically held, is however closer to fideism than to the other three. Call it moderate fideism to distinguish it from the Tertullianic and Kierkegaardian extremes. It is moderately fideistic in that it rejects the anti-fideism of the presuppositionalists and that of the classicists.

Readers of this weblog know that I have maintained time and again that one can both reasonably affirm and reasonably deny the existence of God.  That is to say: there are no rationally coercive arguments either way. Nothing counts as a proof sensu stricto unless it is rationally coercive. So there are no proofs either way. An argument can be good without being rationally coercive, and there are good arguments on both sides. There are also bad arguments on both sides.  The quinque viae of the doctor angelicus  are good arguments for the existence of God, but  in my view not rationally compelling, coercive, dispositive, ineluctable — pick your favorite word.  They don't settle the matter, once and for all. But the same holds for some of the atheist arguments, some of the arguments from evil, for example.  Galen Strawson is the polar opposite of Sproul on the God question. So to savor (bemoan?) the extremity of the worldview polarization, take a look at my critique of Strawson at Substack.

So am I taking the side of Tertullian and Kierkegaard? No way. They go to the opposite extreme to that of Sproul (although he is not as extreme as the 'presuppers').  I am a fair and balanced kind of guy.

I say that the belief that God exists is a matter of faith.  Faith is not knowledge, but it is not entirely opposed to it either, as it is for Tertullian and Kierkegaard who hold that belief in the God of the Christian Bible, God Incarnate, is logically absurd, and yet is to be maintained, for S. K. anyway, by infinite subjective passion.  On the contrary, I say that one ought not believe anything that is demonstrably absurd (logically contradictory), and that to do so is a plain violation of the ethics of belief.  (If you subscribe to an ethics of belief, then you must also be a limited doxastic voluntarist, and I am.) Faith does not and cannot contradict reason; it supplements it. Faith is on the way to knowledge  and seeks its fulfillment in it.  Faith is inferior to knowledge as a route to reality, as Aquinas would agree. Faith extends our grasp of reality — our contact with it — beyond what we can know, strictly speaking, except that there are and can be no internal assurances of veridicality here below: the verification, if it comes at all, will come after we have quit these bodies.

Faith is neither blind nor seeing. It is neither irrational nor rational, but suprarational. It goes beyond reason without going against reason. 1 Corinthians 13:12 may provide a clue:  "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (KJV)  Paul is suggesting that we see all right; we are not blind. But the seeing is obscure at present and will culminate in luminosity.  Cognitio fidei is not cognition strictly speaking, but it is not blind either. We could liken it to a dim and troubled sighting in the fog.  Pace Kierkegaard, not a desperate leap, but  a hopeful reaching out beyond the bounds of the certain. 

Sproul thinks he can prove the existence of God by reason alone. In my next installment I will show that he fails in this endeavor.

_______________

*Nietzsche quipped that Tertullian should have said credo quia absurdus sum, "I believe because I am absurd."

Western Superstitions: Hieroglyphic Canyon Hike out of Cloudview Trailhead

MavPhil commenter Trudy Vandermolen and her husband Ken from Michigan paid me a visit yesterday. It's becoming an annual thing. Next year: either the Garden Valley Loop out of the First Water Trailhead or Fremont Saddle out of Peralta. Here are a couple of shots of me and Trudy from the hike I took them on. Photo credit: Ken. 

Trudy, "The guidebook said this hike is moderate!" Me, "It is by the standards of the Superstition Wilderness." 

"These are trails that try men's soles." Thus spoke the Sage of the Superstitions.

BV and Trudy Vandermolen

BV and Trudy 16 Feb 24

Superstition Wilderness: Garden Valley Loop out of First Water Trailhead

The boys were a little anxious but acquitted themselves well on this five and a half mile loop through characteristically rugged Superstition terrain except for the easy walk through Garden Valley itself. The guide books say it takes four and a half hours. It took the old men a bit longer. We left at 6:36 and were back at the Jeep at 11:22 ante meridian. We made the full trip to Hackberry Spring which involves an arduous return via some scrambling  and a lot of streambed rock hopping.

In these times that try men's souls it is excellent therapy to be on trails that try men's soles.  Isn't that cute?

Dennis proudly standing and your humble correspondent sitting near Hackberry Spring. Photo credit: Jeff K. 

Bill V and Dennis M Hackberry Spring 22 April 2022

Dale Tuggy has a good eye. Here is a shot from our Good Friday hike, 3 April, 2015.  We are headed back to the trailhead from Hackberry Spring  via the First Water Creek bed.

BV 3 April 15 First Water Creek

And here is the man himself in the vicinity of Hackberry Spring:

Dale Tuggy 3 April 15

I Kill a Bug

And when I do, I apologize to him: "Sorry, man, nothing personal; but just one of my thoughts is worth more than your entire life."

But if the insect is no distraction and can be easily dispatched to the outdoors, that is where he goes, or is sent. Sentience as such, no matter how low its level, is marvellous and mysterious and deserving of respect. 

But not just sentience elicits my awe. I took my rest on a rock atop Miner's Saddle in the Western Superstitions. It had been a hard climb. Endorphins released, contemplative repose supervened. A fly landed on my arm. The lambent light of the desert Southwest illuminated its intricacy. What a piece of engineering! What a beautiful specimen of designedness!    

The above is a nice introduction to The Concept of Design.

……………………………

Vito Caiati writes,

“But if the insect is no distraction and can be easily dispatched to the outdoors, that is where he goes, or is sent. Sentience as such, no matter how low its level, is marvelous and mysterious and deserving of respect.”

Good for you, Bill! I faced a similar situation recently, one which involved a more evolved form of sentient life, a little mouse that had come in from my garden as the weather turned colder. He had been trapped at the bottom of my kitchen garbage bin, under the removal container, by my two cats. Removing them from the room, I lifted up the container and discovered him there, looking up at me. He, like your insect, was “dispatched” to the garden, rather than killed. These are small acts of mercy, but to arrive at them requires a good deal of humility and wisdom. I recall Henry Beston’s observation regarding animals, in The Outermost House, with which you may partially agree: “In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

It is always a pleasure to hear from you, Vito. And as I think of you now, a pun occurs to me, In Vito veritas!

I begin with a linguistic bagatelle. I see that when you quoted me you replaced my 'marvellous' with the more usual 'marvelous.' Why do I write 'marvellous' and 'tranquillity'? Being a linguistic conservative, I try to keep etymology in mind as far as I can given my limited erudition; the Latin is tranquillitas, and so to honor that origin I write the English counterpart with the double 'l.' Similarly with 'marvellous,' which is from Middle English merveillous, borrowed from Anglo-French, from merveille MARVEL entry 1 + -ous (Merriam-Webster).  You may call me an idiosyncratic pedant, but I am not, at least in these cases, aping the British spelling, although I am in conformity with it.

I enjoyed the mouse story. A mouse, of course, is 'more human' in the sense of more anthropo-morphic than a fly or spider, and I would not have killed the little guy especially after his having been terrorized by your cats. And then I thought of the 'mouse passage' near the beginning of Jack Kerouac's Visions of Gerard which I re-read back in October. 

One day he [Gerard] found a mouse caught in Scoop's mousetrap outside the fish market on West Sixth Street — faces more bleak than envenomed spiders, those who invented mousetraps [. . .] The hungjawed dull faces of grown adults had no words to praise or please little trying-angels like Gerard working to save the mouse from the trap [. . .] the little mouse, thrashing in the concrete, was released by Gerard [. . .] Took it home and nursed it, actually bandaged it, held it, stroked it, prepared a little basket for it, as Ma watched amazed . . . . 

The beautiful quotation from Henry Beston resonates with me, especially when he writes that animals "move finished and complete."  I had a similar thought recently: "Cats are perfect as they are, or rather, a healthy non-defective cat is perfect as it is: it does not seek, or need to seek, wholeness or integration." That is part of a longer meditation which I am tempted to write up and post.  I suspect you will like it.

All’s Well that Ends Well

The hike was almost over.  The light was failing as we gingerly negotiated the last steps of the treacherous downgrade of Heart Attack Hill on the Bluff Spring Trail in the Superstition Mountains.  Suddenly my hiking partner let out a yell and jumped back at the unmistakable sound of a diamond back rattlesnake (crotalus atrox).  It was a perfect hike: physically demanding in excellent company with a dash of danger at the end. 

Rattler Heart Attack Hill

I Introduce Two New Friends to the Superstition Mountains

One of the great boons of blogging is that the blogger attracts the like-minded.  Below are two medical doctors I had the great pleasure of spending the day with in a satisfying break from my Bradleyan reclusivity. Dave K. found me via this weblog and initiated correspondence, so I knew he would be simpatico. I didn't know about his wife, Barbara C. , but she turned out also to be a member of the Coalition of the Sane, a Trump supporter, and one charming lady of Italian extraction.

DaveKBarbC15Oct2019