John C. Wright's Journal

Our own VicRuiz writes:

I have heard fine-tuning advocates argue that a physical universe would be impossible for which (for example) the gravitational constant was not identical or near-identical to the extant value we observe. Therefore our universe bespeaks creation by someone or something capable of selecting that value.

This causes me to consider that something vaguely analogical to the Euthypro dilemma could be in play.

Is God constrained by the value of G if his intent is to create a universe with living, corporeal beings?

If yes, then God’s choice is limited by something beyond God’s control.

If no, then that phrasing of the fine-tuning argument does not seem particularly strong.

My comment:

Your thoughts run parallel with mine. When I was an atheist, the fine tuning argument did not strike me as particularly strong, nor now when I am faithful Catholic.

The Fine Tuning argument makes the informal fallacy of ambiguity, using the word “impossible” both to mean logically impossible and statistically impossible.

The Fine Tuning argument also makes the formal fallacy of irrelevance. The conclusion that if an event is unlikely, therefore it is deliberate, does not follow. If an event is unlikely, all that means is that it is unlikely.

If we compare it to other events that happened under similar circumstances then we can determine the unlikelihood, and this indeed can rouse our suspicion that the matter was deliberate, but it does not prove it so.

And these suspicions can only land in cases where we see parallel cases.

If I live in a world where monsters rarely eat cookies and children often do, and I enter the kitchen to find the cookie jar raided and junior with crumbs on his cheeks, practical wisdom tells me to disbelieve his tale that a monster ate the cookie and slapped his face.

If, on the other hand, I live on Sesame Street, and the only cookies I ever saw eaten were by a cookie monster, and no good little boy nor girl ever tells a fib, my wisdom would urge the opposite conclusion.

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Part of an ongoing conversation:

The “One God Less” argument says that Christians, by not worshipping the 4,000 other gods worshipped by pagans of East and West, are atheists toward all gods but one. Atheists merely worship one fewer god out of all the unworshipped gods than Christians.

A wry reply would be to say all men are theists, and that monotheists merely worship one god more than an atheist.

A sharper argument would be to note the false equivalence being assumed.

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Men from earliest times like to pigeonhole other men.

The Gnostics of ancient times divided men into three kinds: those ruled entirely by desires of the flesh (hylics); those ruled by the mind (psychics) who are confused but questioning; and finally those ruled by the spirit (pneumatics) who have achieved enlightenment. The carnal men were born damned with no hope of salvation; the mental men were Catholics and mainstream Christian, who have hope of being enlightened if they foreswear ancient teachings and convert to Gnosticism; and the Gnostics were enlightened and elect, and could not lose salvation, which was certain and sure.

The Calvinists, if I understand that odd heresy, were akin to Gnostics, but having only two types: the reprobate, born to inevitable damnation, and the elect, born to inevitable salvation.

Me, I have never liked categorizing men into such easy categories. Such activities always seems presumptuous. How odd to think one knows one’s brother better than he knows himself. The idea that we know where personality traits come from is an idea that any father who has raised children should regard with suspicion.

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The core secular reason for the success of Christianity can only be that Christianity portrays and accurate model, and accurate account, an accurate representation, of human life and its place in the universe.

The Gnostic model, like the Marxist model, portrays all life as a darwinian struggle between the enlightened and the benighted. There is nothing but a struggle for power. There’s no love between husband and wife, no mutual self-interest between employer and employee, no possibility of Amity between the races. There’s no justice between high and low, rich and poor. That’s not accurate.

Gnosticism says truth as a private matter, esoteric, not open to public debate or verification. That’s not accurate.

Marxism portrays man as collective. That’s not accurate.

Christianity says the first shall be last and the last shall be first. In other words the humble view is the wise and honest view. That is accurate. Read any history book.

Christianity says self-sacrificing love is more satisfying than selfishness. That is accurate. Read any primer on psychology.

Christianity says that what the world calls torture, death, defeat is glory and triumph. That is accurate. Read any dialogue of philosophy. And so on and so on.

For my beloved readers, I happened across this writing from an Early Church Father, called The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus.

I literally never heard of it before. I am familiar at least with the names of most early writings, and have read many, but somehow this one escaped my notice until now. My loss!

Scholars date it to the earliest strata of extrabiblical Christian writing, perhaps the first written work of apologetic ever.

Tradition says it was written from a disciple of an apostle (“Mathetes” means “disciple”) to a Stoic philosopher curious about Christian beliefs and ways. From the style and subject, some speculate this disciple was Justin Martyr. The recipient may or may not be the same Diognetus who was tutor to the philosophical Emperor Marcus Aurelius. But nothing is known for sure.

The questions answered, apparently posed by Diognetus in a letter we do not have, include inquiry into why it is Christians despise death,  reject Greek idolatry and Jewish ritual alike, and why they love each other. He also asks why Christian practices are only seen now, and not known from antiquity?

This is quite a reasonable question. If the single and all powerful creator of the world always had in mind that the Christian way of life on earth was how best to serve heaven, should it not have been known for all time?

This last question, that Diognetus asks about the novelty of Christian practice, argues that the earlier dating of the document is a more likely guess.

But in particular two chapters in the middle struck me profoundly, and reminded me of the standards of life to which we Christians are avowed. I repeat it here for our general edification.

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To read the writings of pagans and heretics is instructive if only for the reason that it highlights the remarkable nature of the Christian worldview.

We hold that the cosmos, human life, and all meaning in life comes from love, for God is love; takes its being from love, for God is “I AM”, that is, the necessary being and source of being; and is aimed toward love, for God is the summit and final cause of all things.

Evil hence is temporary, enduring for a short span while it is cured, punished, and corrected, and moreover is merely the beginning infinitesimal fragment of our existence, which is eternal.

Evil itself is a perversion or a disease of love, love misdirected or out of proportion. It is not a thing itself. It has no substance, and ultimately, no power. Nothing is nothing.

Considering the pain and woe of life, the tragedy of being born, and the inevitability of death, this is a shocking sentiment.

We should be more amazed at God.