Well known atheist philosopher Graham Oppy and well known atheist idealist Bernardo Kastrup debated the issue of idealism. While I don't positively hold to Christian divine idealism, I'm open to it as a Christian option given the idealistic implications of quantum mechanics. The following is a review of the debate between Oppy and Kastrup by Christian idealist Kyle Alander and someone else who I'm not familiar with. Apparently this is a part 1 of a two part review.
Braxton Hunter reviews the debate between atheist Matt Dillahunty and Christian InspiringPhilosophy [AKA Michael Jones]. Hunter exposes the tired schtick of Matt Dillahunty using his personal skepticism to evade all evidence for God and to claim that the theist can't win the debate merely because he's not personally persuaded. As if his personal persuasion were the mark by which we can tell who won a debate. I've collected some of InspiringPhilosophy's videos on Divine/Theistic Quantum Idealism HERE.
Matt Dillahunty vs Inspiring Philosophy: Debate Review
A Facebook friend of mine asked me some questions. Below are his questions and my response.
Hello[Annoyed Pinoy]! I read this from you and found it very interesting:
"...really
is best for Christians to hold to some form of scientific anti-realism
(e.g. Clarkian operationalism, or some other scientific anti-realism
that's compatible with Christianity)."
What
do you mean by Clarkian operationalism? From my understanding, they
reject that science is a source of knowledge. Is this what Clarkian
operationalism entails or would it be another aspect to Clarkian
philosophy of science? Also, how far do we take scientific anti-realism?
My response:
As you know, I have great respect for Steve Hays' apologetics. In his blogger profile
he wrote, "...I’m an Augustinian exemplarist. I’m a Cartesian dualist.
I’m an alethic realist, but scientific antirealist...." Steve isn't a
Clarkian. He is a presupper more along the lines of Van Til, but he
might not call himself a Van Tillian. Even though I think for a while he
was a teaching assistant for John Frame (one of Van Til's protégés). I
too am a presupper, but don't mind calling myself a Van Tillian because I
*mostly* agree with him (with minor disagreements). When I call myself a
scientific anti-realist, I'm not using the term exactly as it's
normally used. Simply, I use it to affirm what I believe about science
which is similar (not exactly) to what Clarkians generally believe.
Namely, that what the world calls "science" cannot tell us (either in
principle and/or in actuality) what reality is really like. Including
and especially physical reality. See Gordon H. Clark's brilliant book The Philosophy of Science and Belief in God
which devastatingly demolishes all scientific pretensions to knowledge.
The word "science" of course has been used for centuries to refer to
all types of "knowedge", generally speaking. Though, nowadays it mostly
refers to the physical and natural sciences. I suspect different
Clarkians have different specific views regarding science. See for example the works of Vincent Cheung
regarding the limits of science and induction. He's a modified
Clarkian. As You know, I have disagreements with Cheung too (cf. Aquascum's dismantling of Cheung's apologetic).
Clarkians
are Opperationalists (which I think is a version of Instrumentalism).
Namely, that science tells us useful things about the physical world.
But it does not give us true knowledge about the
physical world (and obviously also nothing about non-natural and/or
spiritual worlds/realms). Clarkians believe science can only tells us
how to better operate in the world to get things accomplished and
improve our lives. That makes sense since Clarkians are empirical
skeptics. I'm not an empirical skeptic.
I think
science *might* be able to tell us some univocally true things about the
physical world (I doubt it), but it CANNOT DEFINITELY do so. As a Van
Tillian, I think general revelation (and therefore also science) tells
us analogically true things about the physical world, but not
necessarily univocal truths as God knows them. This is especially true
if there's some truth to the growing Quantum Idealism movement (of which
there are Christian versions, or what I'll call CQI). I'm very open to
CQI, though I'm not dogmatic on its truth. CQI argues that physical
realism is false and that divine idealism is true. That the physical
world we experience is a simulation "in" God's mind (similar to Bishop
George Berkeley's idealism). There are variations of CQI. See my
collected links to videos on QI by Johanan Raatz and by whoever it is
who creates the videos on Inspiring Philosophy's youtube channel here: http://misclane.blogspot.com/2014/09/scientific-evidence-against-materialism.html
Yesterday [9/2/2017],
Dr. Bruce Gordon was the guest lecturer at Jonathan McLatchie's
Apologetics Academy webinar and he spoke on "On the Tension Between
Quantum Physics and Physicalism". To my surprise and delight, he argued
for his own version of CQI. He says he has some differences with Raatz,
but seemed to say that they were in much agreement too. The video of the
lecture should be uploaded to YouTube in a few days at their channel
here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKJ_EeoOeUtCyRT4g8OUlkQ/videos
When it is uploaded I'll link to it HERE (along with the video).
I said that it would be beneficial if Christians were to hold to some form of scientific anti-realism for 3 reasons.
1. Because a truly rational (and possibly also a truly scientific) approach demands that science
cannot tell us definitely truth things about the physical world or any
other part of reality(ies). This is demonstrable via Clarkian
apologetics and suggested by modern science itself. Including the recent
discoveries in quantum physics.
2. Since science
cannot tell us anything univocally true about the physical world, no
scientific evidence or argument could possibly disprove Christianity.
3.
Since science cannot disprove Christianity, the approach of scientific
anti-realism by Christians would forever protect believers' faith from
ever being damaged by the external evidence of science. The only
possible way to undermine or attack Christianity now would be to show
internal and/or logical contradictions WITHIN the Christian worldview.
Something both doubting Christians and non-Christians (including
atheists & anti-theists) can attempt to come up with.
Karl Popper, who is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century wrote:
First,
although in science we do our best to find the truth, we are conscious
of the fact that we can never be sure whether we have got it.... [W]e
know that our scientific theories always remain hypotheses.... [I]n
science there is no "knowledge" in the sense in which Plato and
Aristotle understood the word, in the sense which implies finality; in
science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have
attained the truth.... Einstein declared that his theory was false: he
said that it would be a better approximation to the truth than Newton's,
but he gave reasons why he would not, even if all predictions came out
right, regard it as a true theory.... Our attempts to see and to find
the truth are not final, but open to improvement;... our knowledge, our
doctrine is conjectural;... it consist of guesses, of hypotheses, rather
than of final and certain truths.- Karl Popper
"It can even be shown that all [scientific] theories, including the best, have the same probability, namely zero."- Karl Popper
"The
game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day
that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that
they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game."- Karl
Popper
My knowledge of science is very limited, but according to many who do understand modern science, there is scientific evidence that seriously calls into question or even refutes materialism. I don't vouch for the complete accuracy of the scientific statements made in these videos. But I do assume their general accuracy regarding the data (even if not always stated as precisely as they could be).
The following videos document some of these evidences. By the way, I don't necessarily agree with all of the conclusions these videos make. Whether they are the scientific conclusions or (and especially) the theological conclusions. For example, some of the Christian authors assume the truth of divine idealism and Christian panentheism. Though, I am open to divine idealism and a Christian version of panentheism, I don't currently subscribe to them. At the very least these videos are thought provoking and seriously call into question materialism/naturalism.
The Incompatibility of Physicalism with Physics: A Conversation with Dr. Bruce Gordon
(https://youtu.be/wk-UO81HmO4)
In this video Bruce Gordon argues for the incompatibility of physicalism with modern
physics and in the end favors some sort of Quantum Idealism. During the
Questions & Answers portion of the webinar (at 1:31:11) a question I
submitted earlier was answered and Dr. Gordon ends up mentioning
popularizer Johanan Raatz and says he has both agreements and
disgreements with Raatz. He even mentions InspiringPhilosophy's Youtube
channel's videos on the topic as well. I've linked to some of both InspiringPhilosophy's and Raatz's videos below. See also Gordon's article: "Divine Action and the World of Science:What Cosmology and Quantum Physics Teach Us about the Role of Providence in Nature" [or HERE].
The Case for the Soul: Refuting Physicalist Objections
(video link)
The above videos are from the Christian YouTube channel InspiringPhilosophy. Another Christian channel advocating a Christian version of Quantum Idealism is Johanan Raatz's channel HERE.
Raatz's channel as a lot of videos on the topic. Here's a link to Raatz interviewing J.P. Moreland on the topic: https://youtu.be/ZQphceRQHbE?t=1m20s
Here's an example of Raatz's videos on Quantum Idealism
[[update: If I'm not mistaken, Johanan Raatz recently said that the above video "The Simulation Hypothesis" was created by a friend of his (at his request or suggestion). So, it might be created by Christians without directly pointing to Christianity as the ultimate explanation.]]
For another NON-Christian video explaining some of the recent discoveries in science that undermine materialism, see the first 3 1/2 videos in the following link.I say the first 3 1/2 videos because after that it gets into Non-Christian occultic religious views. Even the first 3 1/2 videos have statements and conclusions that don't necessarily follow, even assuming the science is generally accurate.
