Recently, and probably for a while into the future, you’ll notice that I’m, I’m focusing on philosophical topics. And there’s a reason for that, a couple of reasons for that. As a Lay Dominican, I’m called to preach as a Catholic, the Dominicans are the Order of Preachers. So I can talk about theology but as a layman, and especially as a classicist, I consider it part of my unique responsibility to talk about what I consider secular subjects like philosophy. I think that our society has a lot more trouble and has many more problems because of ignorance of philosophy than they do of theology.
Theology is really strange, because a person can be saved, and enjoy happiness by simply believing what is revealed. And as I always talk about faith being a gift, God can give that gift to a person, that person receive the articles of faith and enjoy the fruits of salvation, personally. But the problem with that life I described this, I explained this to someone the other day. The problem with that life is that we’re not immediately transported to heaven, the moment we believe. God leaves us here in the world. And we’ve got to deal with all kinds of people and experiences and circumstances for decades and decades. And well, faith. And the other virtues hope and charity, they certainly give us the strength to persevere. It’s much, much easier, much, much more convenient and pleasant, I think, to go through this life, with the help of philosophy. And in order for it to be helpful, it’s got to be true philosophy. So what we see in modern society often are Christians, who profess by faith, all the right stuff. You know, everyone gathers for mass, for example, and we recite the apostles creed, or the Nicene Creed. And you say, Wow, all these like minded people, all these people who believe all these things to be true, what Unity but then, when the mass is over, and the congregation breaks up, you head out into the parking lot, and everyone heads to their own homes, you realize, man, that seems to be the only thing that these people agree on. And then there’s all kinds of different views about practical things, all kinds of disagreement among Christians. And sometimes you’re left wondering, do we actually agree more with one another or with with others, you know, I struggle with this at times. For example, I just, I just finished a discussion with one of my philosophy professors who I don’t, I don’t think he’s a Christian, but I can have happy, friendly, insightful conversations with him all day. And then if I walk away from that conversation and talk To someone at church, I often feel like I have more in common with the non Christian than I do with fellow parishioners. So it’s, it’s very strange to be like minded with respect to faith, but be so unlike minded with respect to so many other things education, practical life, business, politics, parenting, health care, all of these practical subjects, Christians seem to rarely ever agree on. And so I think most of the problems that we have most of the confusion and trouble we have is actually caused by confusion in philosophical areas. And there are a number of places where false philosophical ideas have crept in. And they cause all kinds of trouble for people. And as I said, in a discussion today with a professor of mine, who, by the way, is a humble man, he’s a Harvard professor. But what’s so great, you know, one thing that I that I find, contrary to this sort of political criticism of, of Harvard is that, in my experience, the professor’s have been pretty humble people. They respect research, they’re accountable to high standards and research. Their works are published, their talks are published for peer review, you know, they really can’t mess around. And so they’re humble, they usually try to stay in their own lane. And they really respect the expertise of other people, especially when it can be demonstrated. And so they consult me as if I’m the expert on ancient philosophy. And we have some really good discussions about things. Because even though they’re really brilliant with respect to modern philosophy, and they sort of have a they have a general knowledge of ancient philosophy, that’s, that’s often inaccurate. I really find it satisfying to be able to offer some clarification on ancient philosophy. And in my discussion today, one, one issue came up that I think is really important. We were talking about a number of readings that we’re working through right now, the philosophy of religion. And the question is whether or not you know, we can we can prove in some kind of philosophical way, that the soul exists, that there is a soul. And then is it possible to prove that the soul is immaterial, and that the soul is immortal. And there have been efforts made by philosophers all through history. To do this. We see St. Augustine, for example, doing this early in church history, but but very interestingly, a number of medieval Muslim philosophers took up this task and wrote some really amazing works. Some of them you might have heard of, because St. Thomas refers to them in the Summa, sometimes even quotes them in the Summa. One of them is at the center. Another one is Al Ghazali. And there are a few others. But these medieval Muslim philosophers do quite an amazing job proving things that are held by both Muslims and Catholics alike. So you can find some really great arguments that can be brought into the service of Christian teaching and evangelization in the writings of these medieval philosophers, and one of the benefits of my current course studying the history of the philosophy of religion at Harvard has been this introduction to these medieval Muslim writers, which I have not studied before. But I was talking to one of the professors, because I could see in the students, other students who have never studied ancient philosophy and have been raised in sort of this science and math culture, that they have no respect for the arguments of the ancients. They, they, they sort of scoff at them as if they’re as if they’re silly, because the ancients don’t provide any kind of proof for their ideas, that would be acceptable in modern schools, but But it’s because by proof, they mean some kind of material proof. And so they’re almost laughing at the ancient philosophers for not providing material proof. For these assertions they’re making about immaterial things. It’s really, really stupid if you think about it. But that’s the attitude of the modern students. And I’m talking about graduate level students. And I’m talking about students working at Harvard. So it’s a pretty, pretty sharp crowd. But as we were discussing this, I was I was talking about the difference between ancient philosophy and modern science, because I don’t think modern philosophers understand ancient philosophy, I think they they have studied it in college courses themselves, or read selections from philosophers in anthologies as part of their academic work through the years, but I don’t think they’ve ever made an effort to really study the works of Aristotle, and prove that they understand his teaching. And so when they talk about Aristotle, it’s always clear to me that they really don’t understand what they’re talking about with respect to ancient philosophy. And I’ll give you an example. Before I say that, let me just say one thing I found impressive about the Muslim philosopher al Ghazali, is that he argues that in order to judge someone’s philosophy, you have to make the commitment to completely immerse yourself in their teaching. Because you can’t judge their philosophy until you’ve mastered it yourself, and can point out its failures. And that’s why I think that the attitude in modern society we’re so many are so eager to criticize Plato and Aristotle and pathetic Iris, as if they’re just knuckleheads is a sign of the arrogance, and irresponsibility. And bias, as Oh, as I’ll show you in a minute. And bias of, of modern academia, and many Christians can stand around and find fault with modern academia. But I think there’s a there’s a point at which it is the way it is because Christians have abandoned it. Christians are not leading in the arts and sciences, and they’ve basically retreated from academia and have left it to non Christians, and then the Christians mock academia, because it’s not Christian, which really doesn’t make much sense if if I’m the salt of the earth and the light of the world. And I withdraw from an institution it’s pretty stupid to point at it and laugh at it that that it’s not salty and has no light anymore. No da, because you left. And so I, I consider it part of my mission to be salt and light while I’m there and as I wrote the other day on my blog, I find nothing but enthusiastic support and respect from the professors and other students that are there so that morning of all bizarrely that we need to master the works of philosophers before we can criticism. I think we need Christians to sort of get into academia, not at private Catholic colleges and stuff like that where the faith is already there. But in places where the faith needs to be represented. And we need to not not necessarily argue with people as if we’re smarter than them, because we’re often not smarter than them, but study to become real masters of Catholic studies or scholastic studies and at least represent them serve as an advocate for them in these important places. So anyway, I was explaining to one of my professors that when when moderns talk about the ancient philosophers, they really don’t understand what they’re talking about. Because what we’ll do is we’ll take modern scientific statements or modern scientific opinions. And we’ll compare them to things that philosophers said. And as I explained to my professor, that’s not what the philosophers were doing. A modern scientist, if you think about the scientific method, it’s important to understand what a scientist does. And some, some will, will say, Oh, you know, William Michael, you’re just, you’re just biased against moderns that No, no, no, I’m not. But you can’t be biased against modern science, modern science is true. You can’t be bought and biased against modern science. The problem in modern circles is that many speak in the name of modern science who don’t actually represent science at all. I’ll give you an example. In a minute. But modern scientists work with individual physical bodies, individual, individual physical objects, they work with specimens, in laboratories, or in the field, but they work with individuals, things that actually physically exist, that you can perceive with the senses. They use instruments that enhance the powers of our natural senses, telescopes, microscopes, all different kinds of instruments that enhance the senses. But they work with individual material things. And what they’ll do is they’ll study let’s say, 100, rats, and the effect of a certain us certain factor on these rats, and they’ll gather the data from an experiment with these 100 indivisible, I’m sorry, individual, physical rats. And they’ll take notes and record the conclusions of whatever the study is that they’re doing. If it turns out that this condition led to this effect in every single one of the rats, when they notice a correlation like that, it’s sort of a signal that there might be some real connection here. Whereas if the results are all over the place, it suggests that we’re probably missing the mark with our hypothesis. But that’s what scientists do. They study individual physical bodies. They gather data from their experiments. And then they if the data supports it, they generalize about the class of things. Now, what’s interesting is that when they move from the experimental study of individual things, to talk about classes of things, they’re no longer dealing with physical science, they’re moving into philosophy because the classes do not exist. As physical bodies. The classes do not actually exist. The classes exist in our minds. Even the language and the names that are used by scientists, those are all products of the human mind. For example, I use the the name, rat. There’s nothing in the natural world that identifies anything as a rat. It’s a name that man has created waited for a certain creature that possesses certain qualities that are identified as belonging to a certain class, which again, man has arranged in his own mind. So when I say rat, you think of some essential qualities of a class of animals, known as rats, all of that exists in your own mind. In the actual physical world, there are just a number of different animals that have different qualities. And we identify the animals, not by just any quality, we don’t go out into the world and say, Oh, look, white animals, do white animals like hey, or do white animals like grain. We don’t talk, we don’t classify animals, as white. We identify qualities in animals and plants, and all things that seem to relate to their purpose, or their real essential nature. And we name them according to their essence. Sometimes that name is significant. Sometimes that name is not significant, for example, the octopus, the name of the animal, literally means eight feet. So the name of the animal is significant in itself, and identifies an essential quality of the owl, but not really, because we could also argue that a spider is an octopus. And so you see the, how it sort of has some significance in the name, but but but not really. And then there are other names that we give like rat, which, which really doesn’t seem to have any significance at all. But these names and these classes of things, they exist in our heads, they don’t exist in the natural world, in the physical world, I should say. So scientists, when they move from the study of individual creatures, to their generalizations about classes, they move from the material to the immaterial. They move from what we call the physical sciences, empirical science, they move from that into the realm of natural philosophy. And so they have that, that movement upward from the individual to the class. Well, philosophy doesn’t do that. Philosophers, especially ancient philosophers, they didn’t do that they didn’t start with individuals and experiments. They started by investigating the nature of things, identifying the essences of different things, defining classes, and so on, and building something of a hierarchy of classes of things, all of which exists in the human mind. So for example, we might start and say, Well, it’s obviously that there are two different kinds of things, there are living things, and nonliving things. And then when we look at living things, we can see that there seem to be some that move. Fast, physically move from one place to another, and others that move, they may move in size, or they may change in shape, but they don’t actually move in location. They’re not locomotive, so we can divide living things between those that change place and those that do not change place. And then we can go further and say, well, we’ll call those that live in move, we’ll call them animals. And as we look at the class of animals, we can notice that there are there’s a significant difference between those who are able to reason and those who are not able to reason. So we have rational animal and irrational animal. And you can see how this system of the or this hierarchy of classes is developed based on the essential qualities of different things. And the reason why that approach is helpful is because you can meet with individual rules that don’t possess characteristics of other creatures. For example, you can say, well man is a biped animal. He’s a two footed animal. You say, yeah, that’s alright. Because I, you know, I’ve seen a lot of people and men have two feet. So I think it’s pretty good to, you know, we can generalize and say man is a biped. Um, but then what if you meet a person who’s born with no legs? Scientifically speaking, is that a human because it’s not a biped animal. And you see that the two feet or the two legs, to the philosopher would not be accepted as an essential quality. And so the philosopher like Aristotle would have no problem looking at that child born with no legs and say, of course, it’s human being. Because the essential qualities of a human being are all present with it. Having two legs is an attribute of human beings for sure. But it’s not an essential attribute. So for the philosopher who identifies the essence of things, when he looks at an individual, he looks for the essential qualities. And when he observes those essential qualities, he can easily classify that individual without being distracted by defects, imperfections, and so on. So scientists work in one direction from individuals up to classes, and philosophers work in the opposite direction, from classes, down to individuals, to different approaches, to understanding the world. Throughout all of ancient history, all the way through until the 1600s. That is how wise men thought about the world. And if you want to look back in history and wonder why did they do this? Why did they do this? Why in the Middle Ages, did they do this? This is why this is why they did this. Because philosophically, they were Aristotelian. Through the Middle Ages, at least before that they might have been platonic. Before that they might have been staggered, there was a philosophy that was driving the way they thought about things, you know, why did they have slavery all through history because of philosophy. That’s why. And in modern society, we’re encouraged or forced sometimes to think, not like philosophers, but like scientists. And the problem with that is that our experience with individuals is very limited. And therefore, it’s very difficult for us to form accurate judgments about things scientifically, because we see so few samples, our sample size is so small, we see this in all political polling. We say oh, you know, 64% of Americans don’t believe that, blah, blah, blah. And then you ask, well, how many people did you actually ask? Like, there are 338 million Americans? How many people were actually asked for their opinion, and it turns out, oh is 450 People were polled. And you can just see the great. The great uncertainty that’s present in that way of thinking. And this is one of the reasons why modern people are so confused, so uncertain, they lack confidence for or they’re irrationally confident, and talk about things as if they do know them, because they’re very quick to draw generalizations based on a very narrow sample size, which is just a different kind of craziness. So we can think of, you know, racial prejudice for example. As an example of this Someone can grow up in a town like mine. And if you grew up in a town like mine, you can easily be be racially prejudiced by your experience. Because where we live, the white people are Christian church going farm owning, business owning men and women. And when you drive into town, you get into town where the stores and shops are. And that’s where you meet with the local black folks. And they’re just sort of wandering around, it doesn’t look like they’re employed, obviously poor, poorly dressed, they don’t look like they’re doing too well. And if you if you made judgments about white people and black people, by your experience in Monroe, North Carolina, your conclusions would be empirically accurate. But they would be false. And this is one of the dangers with this sort of scientific or observation based approach to truth seeking, if your sample size is limited, you’re going to end up with all kinds of false conclusions. Because you’re only looking at a small piece of the big puzzle. So this scientific approach to life when you’re when your sample sizes are restricted, leads you to this sort of ignorant, prejudiced, opinionated, lifestyle that’s become normal in America. But anyway, let’s let’s get to the real point of this discussion, we see this difference between philosophy and science. And I raised this this problem with my professor because I feel like when modern academics talk about ancient philosophy, they really can’t grasp that the ancient philosophers are thinking about different things in different ways. They’re not thinking about material objects. They’re thinking about classes of things and names and qualities of things. They’re not thinking about individual things. Aristotle talks about man, he doesn’t talk about a specific man. Aristotle is not studying specific men. And then drawing conclusions about man he’s, he’s, he’s asking what is man? And answering that question, in a universal way, and he says, Man is a rational animal. So if you go down into the streets, and you find, let’s say, you find a person who is who’s mentally handicapped. And you wonder, is this person rational? Well, scientifically, based on your observation, it may appear that he is not rational. And if he’s not rational, and rational is an essential quality of a human being, then you could conclude scientifically that he’s not a human being based on your experience, based on your observation. Whereas for again, for Aristotle, he would certainly be a human being, but because of some defect, he’s deficient in what is natural to human beings, just as a person born blind, would be deficient in a natural human faculty. But he wouldn’t be redefined by that defect. So it’s, it’s difficult for modern people to understand that ancient philosophers did not think about things the way they do. And so they often because they haven’t studied them to begin with, they often drag quotes and statements from the ancient philosophers into modern classrooms. And they appear ridiculous. But it’s because they’re misrepresented. And they’re made to appear to be talking about something that they’re not actually talking about. And I’ll give you an example. One example would be Aristotle’s doctrine of the four elements, fire, air, water and earth. If you’re sitting in a modern chemistry class, and you’re talking about it Though 100 and however many there there are this year elements on the periodic table you’ll see that it’s it’s pretty obvious. For the most part. I mean oxygen, okay, nitrogen. Yeah, hydrogen. Yeah. Helium. Yeah, I know helium is different because I’ve seen a helium balloon, you know, they go up through the air. So obviously, that’s a different a different gas. And then you get into carbon and silver and gold and lead, you go through the elements? And you say, Yeah, it’s pretty obvious. You know, it’s pretty obvious that I mean, at least let’s say 20 of these, you know, I can I can say, I’ve actually observed them. I know what they are, I can I can show you them. And then into that classroom, some teacher or professor brings a quote from Aristotle talking about the four elements. And he says that Aristotle believed that there were only four elements, fire, air, water, and Earth. And you can see how that makes Aristotle look like a fool. Like Aristotle didn’t understand that gold, and silver, or lead or copper, were different things. Aristotle just thought they were all earth. He just looked at them and said, this is earth. Hey, what is this? Oh, that’s earth. What is this here? That’s earth? What is my necklace? Minute of? Oh, that’s earth. You honestly think that Aristotle was was that stupid? And when he said there are four elements, you really think that that’s what he meant? That he didn’t understand that gold and lead are two different substances. No, that’s not what Aristotle was talking about. And this is this is the way that modern philosophers and scientists in schools misrepresent the ancients. Because that’s not what the ancients were talking about. When we talk about ancient philosophy, everything the ancient philosophers are talking about, everything you read about is immaterial. Everything is immaterial. Everything they talk about is immaterial. So if Aristotle talks about man, you should not be thinking of individual men. That’s not what he’s talking about. What you should understand is that is that the philosophers are seeking to order their minds. So that they think of the classes of things that exist, whether material or in materially, they think about them in the same way that the Creator would. They’re trying to understand the world, with the mind of the Creator. So when God looks at the world, what would he use as names for different things? How would he classify different creatures? How would he classify them, different plans, and so on. That’s the purpose of philosophy to understand, as God understands, to basically fulfill the end of our intellect, which is to make us wise, like God, because we were made in His image, and it’s our, our duty in life is to basically seek the perfection of that image. To honor our father by being like him, by thinking like him by thinking of him so that we can understand his will, and that we can do our part to cultivate the earth to keep the earth and keep it in line with his will. That’s the purpose of philosophy because there’s this underlying assumption in philosophy that happiness requires that we live in harmony with the intentions of the Creator in all things. It’s like playing the game hot and cold. You know, you’re getting warmer, you’re getting water. No, no, you’re called, while you’re getting warmer. That’s sort of how life works. As we study to understand God’s will, we get warmer. And as we get warmer, we’ll notice that things start to make more sense, things start to work better. Life generally becomes happier. And it’s this happiness that’s sought through this philosophical contemplation and not just contemplation, but then also the actual exercise of our will to put it into practice, and experience it. That’s the work that wise men do. So when we say the, the mission of the Catholic laity is to influence temporal affairs, according to the will of God, we assume that that the laity even knows what the will of God is, which is an unjust assumption, because the laity does not know what the will of God is in many different areas. And this is why we see so much foolishness among Christians today. The Christian arrogance is to assume that because you can recite the Apostles Creed, you’re now a fully equipped lay person who can go into any field and do God’s will or on the other hand, you just act like a Dum Dum and say, Well, I don’t know, this is just my job. You know, I am a Christian, you know, I, I don’t, I don’t care about my job. I just do this for a pay. Well, that’s not how the Christian laity is supposed to be working in many Christians justify doing all kinds of things that are contrary to God’s will, because they act as if they have some sort of right just to go get a job. But the mission of the Christian laity is to influence or direct temporal affairs, not as you please, are not for your profit, but according to the will of God. And if you don’t even know what the will of God is, with respect to a certain thing or area of life, how can you possibly carry out the mission of the laity? And that’s why I say I think in modern society, more of our troubles as Christians are caused by our philosophical ignorance than any theological problem, like people spend all their time criticizing the clergy in the church. The church is doing what it’s supposed to do. I mean, I go to Mass and receive the Eucharist, I go to church and I can receive absolution when I confess my sins. If my mother is in the hospital, I can call the church and the priest is there to administer anointing of the Secretary, the church is doing its job. I don’t understand why lay people imagine that the chaos and the frustration and the misery of their lives is somehow being caused by the clergy, the clergy, if anyone in the world, the clergy is doing, what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s the laity that are all screwed up. The Lay men are the ones, you know, doing who knows what, in every different area of life. And the reason why that is, is because the laity doesn’t know, philosophy and doesn’t understand how to discern God’s will in practical affairs. So they’re either just doing the same things that unbelievers around them are doing, or they’re doing some kind of kooky wacky stuff that is argued to be God’s will be because there’s some obscure passage in scripture where someone does this. So that said, to be God’s will. Or they just completely retreat. Because they can feel that they have no idea what they’re doing. Can’t figure out what to do. And instead of embracing that challenge, and actually studying to become influential, wise lay men. They choose to just run away like children and retreat from all of those challenges. And go hide and imagine that that’s some kind of religion. Many people turn to religious activity As an escape from their temporal responsibilities, we find a guy who’s 20 years old, who has no interest in religious vocation, no interest in the priesthood. Talks about wanting to get married, gets married, well, now it’s time to pay the bills and get to work. And all of a sudden, we find this guy has this great zeal for religious things. We’d like to be a daily Mass, we’d like to go around to all these Catholic events and activities. Suddenly, he’s he’s not interested in the work of the layman. After he’s chosen not to do the actual work of a religious man, and took upon himself, the married state, he’s suddenly religious, and you can see what that really is. It’s an escape from responsibility. One thing I always tell my wife is you can never sacrifice something that belongs to someone else. If you’re going to sacrifice something, it’s got to be your sacrifice. So a man who has children can’t decide that he’s going to sacrifice his income, to pursue religion, after he’s produced children, who are dependent on that income, really that income is theirs. But you’ll see men so ready to sacrifice something like their income. As if that’s religious, and you say, you see, just to cut this off that you see just this, this philosophical, practical confusion that plagues the laity. And when when these lives are miserable, they have the further irrational audacity to try to blame it on the Pope, or the priests or the bishop, as if the Pope and the bishops and the priests aren’t doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. The problem is the laity. The problem is this ignorant, confused, disorganized, stumbling, fumbling, lady that isn’t directing any temporal affair, according to God’s will just think, how many areas of your life temporally speaking, how many areas of your life, do you see being directed by a Catholic layman, according to God’s will? If you were to stop them and say, Hey, why are you doing that? Or why does your business do this? Or why do you do this? They would give you an explanation based on Catholic theology, or scholastic philosophy that explains the reasons why they’re doing what they’re doing, how many how many areas of your life, can you say are under the direction of God’s will? I bet it’s very few, if any. As a business owner, myself, if I look to other services that I need to contract to work with, if I were to say I’m only going to contract with businesses, or laborers who do what they do, according to God’s will, I’d have no partners. There’d be no partners. But if I said I want to find some Catholic men who are wrapped up in all kinds of wackiness, all kinds of conspiracy theories and political controversies, theological and church controversies. People digging into all kinds of details to prove that Francis is not the actual Pope or that this bishop is gay or that this priest is not doing what he’s supposed to be doing. Oh, my goodness, I could have a whole army of partners. And that’s just the reality of the immature, silly Catholic laity today. The women are going to work to pay the bills while the men it’s just ridiculous. I’m sorry. But anyway, the issue that came up and I’ve got like 10 minutes left for this talk, I tried to stick close to an hour. The issue that came up with my professor he raised the issue of quarks in physics. And I don’t know how much you know about these things. But when we were kids, we were taught that the smallest, the smallest physical object was the atom. And hardly anyone even understands what they’re talking about when they learn these things, because it raises a million questions that don’t get answered. But we were taught that taught that if you break things down from substances down into molecules, molecules break down into atoms, and the atom is the smallest possible part of anything that exists well. No one has ever seen an atom. Not to mention, things that are now proposed, like quarks and sub atomic particles, even smaller and smaller, no one has ever seen an atom. No one can bring you into a lab, you know, flip on the lights and say here, if you’d like to see an atom, we’ve got one over here on display. You’ve never seen an atom. No scientist has ever seen an atom there primarily hypothetical. And it’s even worse when we start talking about subatomic particles like quarks and things like that. No, no one has ever seen any such thing. And yet, scientists talk about these things. And people imagine that if scientists are talking about them, they must they must be real. They must. They must be visible scientists, after all, you know, they do experiments and stuff. But these things are not sensible. They’re not observed. They’re hypothetical. And when I asked my professor and his philosophy professor about this, his response was, Well, you know, when we say that something is sensible. We don’t necessarily mean that it that it can be perceived by the senses, you know, in my eyebrows kind of popped up, like, say what, you know, if it’s sensible. You’re saying it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s perceived by the senses. And then he went on to say this, he said, Yeah, well, it could be that the effect of the thing is sensible. But the cause is not sensible. And he said, for example, and he gave me quarks, as an example, where scientists believe that the sensible effects in chemical or physical substances can have causes in material things that are not sensible. And they would they would explain this away by just saying, well, well, I’m not sensible yet. You know, the technology will one day allow us to sense these things, but they’re not sensible yet. And so the argument is that scientists can call something sensible. That is, in fact, not presently sensible. And I, I objected to that, because that seems to sort of beg the question, right. And as we talked about, I said, you know, what I’m realizing is that there’s something deeper going on here. There’s something deeper, there’s an assumption at the foundation of this modern science. And this is it. And if you’re sitting at a desk or something, I encourage you to write this down. The assumption of modern science is that every sensible effect must have a sensible cause. Every sensible effect must have a sensible cause. This is the fundamental Article of Faith of modern science. And modern science cannot prove this to be true. It really is a hypothesis. I don’t think scientists stated very often, but if you really look in and say to yourself, how in the world can can they say this? How can they say that they’re Must be some physical bodies smaller than an atom, because we can see effects that require there to be some other cause. And that cause must be material that cause must be sensible. That’s the whole question. That’s the whole question. Because what anyone who believes in God believes is that and effect in sensible things can be caused by something insensible. I can say in the beginning, God said, Let there be light and there was light, the physical effect was caused by an immaterial being an insensible being imperceptible. That’s the whole point of religion. The whole point of theology is that physical effects can have immaterial causes. And yet at the heart of Natural Science, is the assumption that physical effects cannot have immaterial causes. And so what I said to my professor in this discussion, I said, so, so basically the argument that quarks exist. And notice, I notice what we’re talking about, we’re talking about whether something exists. I said, the argument that quarks exist, is that according to atomic theory, there appear to be effects in atoms, that must have some material cause, however, we’re not able in any way to observe this material cause. But that’s okay. Because we can just point to our assumption, which is that all physical effects must have material causes. And therefore, since we see or hypothesize or theorize a physical effect in an atom, it must necessarily be true that there is some physical cause of that effect in the atom. Therefore, we would need to go deeper into the subatomic world. But we can’t demonstrate this yet. And I said, Well, that would be like me saying, God created the world. He’s the first cause. But we’re not able to see him yet. Yet. And that would be a scientifically acceptable statement. I could say, well, you know, just like a quark is a cause of this effect or that effect in an atom, but we’re not able to observe it yet. Nevertheless, it’s still material, it still exists. We just can’t observe it. And for some reason, that’s fine at the micro level. But if I were to say, well, let’s go in the other direction and say God is so great, that we’re not able to perceive him yet. Would that be accepted as a scientific argument? No, even though it’s the same argument, as the argument for the quark. The scientific community literally says, we believe that there is a cause of this effect. That cause is presently invisible. And we accept that scientifically because of this assumption that we have, that there must be a material cause and we just can’t see it. So we’re literally in science, believing in quarks. I would even argue, believing in atoms. We’re believing in the existence of quarks. But if someone says, I believe in the existence of God, he’s laughed out of the room like he’s like he’s crazy and unscientific. But the scientists do exactly the same thing. At this of atomic level they profess, by faith that things exist, that cannot be seen. And what this does for me is it, you see how it leads us to this contradiction, they will refuse to allow anyone to assume the existence of God, because they argue that that is unscientific. And yet they do exactly the same thing, anytime they need to, they will confess, to believe in the existence of quarks, though there is no way for them to demonstrate their existence. And so this principle that allows that assumption in one direction, and denies it in another direction, reveals this self contradiction in the modern scientists. And it highlights the fault. It highlights the falsehood of their assumption that every physical effect has a physical cause that is an article of faith that they believe, but cannot prove. And yet, if I say, I believe that God is the cause, and yet I cannot demonstrate by any physical means that he exists, that will not be accepted. That’s a contradiction. And so they condemn their own assumption and principles, by their condemnation of religious faith. And what that does is reveal that their assumption is impossible. Now, what’s what’s good for the scientist is that they can just continue to make that claim, again and again to infinity. And so when we have them cornered, as it were, where their theory is actually not supported by their science, they can just say, well, not yet. Well, not yet. And so they’re able to deny the existence of God, they’re able to deny the existence of an immaterial cause of some material effect. And they’re allowed to slither out of the corner by saying, Oh, well, we just can’t, we just can’t demonstrate it yet. And that excuse to slip out of the corner that they’re trapped in. That excuse can be used to infinity. And they will have never proven their assumption to be true. It can just go on and on and on. And they can continue to claim that there’s just another level smaller level of material things responsible for these effects that we cannot demonstrate yet. And that will go on forever. When in fact, what is more probable is that their assumption is false. Their language no longer even makes sense to refer to the atom as an atom, which means an indivisible particle no longer even makes sense. To say an atom has parts is irrational. And they’re allowed to do this, they’re allowed to get away with this obvious problem in their philosophy in their assumptions, because they can simply blame it on the equipment, say, Well, this microscope just doesn’t let me see deep enough yet. Or I would show you well, the bottom line is you’re not showing us and you’re not able to show us that something you claim to exist, actually materially exists for your position. That’s a defeat. For the modern scientists, that’s a fail. Because your whole argument is that now Every material effect must have a material cause and if it’s material, it’s bodily, if it’s bodily, it’s sensible. And for you to argue that it is, in fact sensible, you would have to be able to present it to the senses. You can’t, as I told my professor, attempt to argue that something can be called sensible, which is, in fact, not sensible. So as of today, there is no such thing as a scientifically proven cork, that is a sensible cause of any atomic effects. That is a point of belief of hope. Quarks as of today, if they do exist, are insensible and contradict the assumption of modern science of materialistic science. Now, for a Christian, this is no problem. Because the Christian says, there can be immaterial causes of physical effects. So could quarks exist? Maybe. But they could be immaterial. And so for, for me, that would be no problem. But they could also be spirits? I don’t know. Neither does any scientist know. But to say that they can’t be spirits. No scientist can say that, because the scientist hasn’t proven yet that they are, in fact bodily things other than by appealing to his assumption, which is the question and can’t be presented as the answer. And so underneath this materialistic modern science, what I want you to focus on is this assumption. This assumption that every physical or material or sensible effect, must have a physical or material or sensible cause. Science cannot prove that. Science believes that just as a Christian believes, that a material effect can have an immaterial cause. And that’s why I said the other day in a talk I gave about whether, whether we may assume the existence of God. The modern scientific attitude towards religious belief or faith is self contradicting because scientists operate every day with the same faith except while Christians believe that there is a God. Sign scientists believe there is no God. That’s the difference. So anyway, chew on that. Make sure you focus on that fundamental question whether it is necessary that a physical effect must have a physical cause and how that can be proven. And if that’s not proven, modern science really unravels. So anyway, that’s already over an hour. I’ll cut it off there. I hope that’s helpful. If you have any questions or want to take these discussions or thoughts in any different directions, just let me know. I hope that’s helpful. God bless
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
